Beyond the stress and rigor of Grand Slam tournaments and point rankings, four of the top tennis stars in the world came to Newark on Sunday night for a friendly, stress-free exhibition at Prudential Center in A Racquet At The Rock.
While many tennis matches have taken place at Madison Square Garden, including the Virginia Slims Tournament, a major women’s event, Sunday was the first time the Prudential Center hosted tennis matches. For a debut, The Rock had to make a splash and they did with the world’s number one player, Carlos Alcaraz, and American Frances Tiafoe facing off. On the women’s side, Freehold’s own Amanda Anisimova and Jessica Pegula faced off in a battle of two Top 10 players.
The night started with a juniors match between New Jersey’s Rohnit Karki and New York’s Jack Kennedy, two up-and-coming tennis players. After that, the Main Event began as Pegula and Anismova took the court for their best-of-three singles match. Pegula came into the match with a 3-0 career record against Anisimova. However, over her last 36 matches, Anisimova went 28-8, ending the season ranked fourth in the world.
After falling behind 2-0 early on to Pegula, Anisimova charged back to even the match at two games apiece. From there, Anisimova dominated the remainder of the set, winning the last six of seven games to win the first set 6-3. After struggling early on, Anisimova began hitting blistering backhand winners that Pegula could not get to.
Despite Pegula politely asking Anisinova to stop hitting winners during an in-between set interview on the court, Anisinova did not comply, jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the second set. Like Anisinova in the first set, Pegula made a comeback and got the match back under control, as they were tied at three games apiece. Pegula was able to break Anisimova’s serve to go up 6-5 as she looked to force a super tie-break to find a winner.
Anisimova broke Pegula’s serve to go into a tie-break to end the second set. Pegula took the set, and the third set would be a super tie-break with the first to 10 winning the match.
The tie-break was back-and-forth until Pegula overtook Anisimova 10-8. Out came Tiafoe and Alcaraz, who would join Pegula and Anisimova in a quick 10-game mixed doubles match before the men took center stage for a singles match.
Both Tiafoe and Alcaraz were jovial as they played their match, just as Pegula and Amisinova were in their exhibition match. But there was no doubt that all four wanted the win at The Rock. With the match tied at two games apiece, Tiafoe took the next two games as he looked to win the first set. Alcaraz made a run during the latter part of the set, but Tiafoe served out the set, taking it 6-3.
Alcaraz jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the second set as a third-set super tie-break loomed for the two stars. The number one player in the world took the second set 6-3 as they moved into the super tie-break to end the night, a 10-point sprint to the end.
Similar to the opening match of the night, the men’s match was back-and-forth in the tie-break as Tiafoe and Alcaraz traded points. In the end, Tiafoe went ahead by two and finished off Alcaraz 10-7 in the tie-break.
In the end, the night was about showcasing tennis in New Jersey at a different venue. Prudential Center hosted four top players, including the world’s number one player. It was a good night in Newark.
