A CIAO WOW!
Pennetta wins Open, sounds set to retire
WELL, THIS certainly was different — a soft, quiet Italian lullaby at Ashe Stadium that soothed the minds and wallets of more than 23,000 fans who had overpaid big-time to watch Serena Williams. Maybe Serena wasn’t around to make history, but Flavia Pennetta threw herself a retirement party on a grand scale, and nobody could leave the place feeling too cheated.
“This is the way I would like to say goodbye to tennis,” Pennetta announced, after her 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Fed Cup teammate Roberta Vinci. “I’m really happy. It’s what all players want to do, go out with this kind of big trophy home.”
Never say never. Pennetta still plans to play in two more tournaments through the end of the year, though she certainly said goodbye to Flushing, where there is no need ever to return. How could there be an encore? She lifted her game to the roof superstructure, beat Vinci by winning the big points and destroying Vinci’s second serves in a nerveless fashion that Williams could not accomplish.
Pennetta beat the rain, too, and not by much. She never buckled, and it probably helped that she was playing against a very good friend across the net. The two women had chatted with each other over a snack on Saturday, until a puzzled Boris Becker came over and asked, “Do you know you two are playing each other soon in the final?”
“We know each other since we were really young,” Pennetta said. “Our first match together was at 9. We spent so much time together, we could write a book about our life.”
There is no need, because we saw that friendship played out sweetly at Ashe, and then again afterward, when the two Italian women embraced each other for an eternity and giggled about their unexpected accomplishments.
It was Vinci who made this possible for Pennetta, by beating Williams on Friday. That remains the shocker of this tournament, and maybe of the decade. She earned that victory, and by extension this rather odd occasion, with uncompromising nerve.
Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, was on hand. Donald Trump was not. That alone tells you this was not your typical Open final. Pennetta earned her $3.3 million retirement check with thoughtful, vintage tennis, a throwback to a time when nobody grunted and second serves were so slow that they wouldn’t get a ticket on the Grand Central Parkway.
Pennetta’s average first serve came in at 87 mph; her second serve at 75. Both players built points patiently from the baseline, slowly moving to the net when necessary. Pennetta rushed the net when necessary, effectively winning 16 of 20 points up there with nice touch volleys and angled approach shots.
If Martina Hingis were watching somewhere, instead of warming up for yet another doubles final on Sunday, she might have wondered why she ever bothered to quit a sport that still rewarded this sort of play. Pennetta, 33, entered the Open seeded No. 26 and as a 150-to-1 underdog. She left with a big silver trophy, hugs from the prime minister and kisses from her boyfriend, Fabio Fognini.
“Before this tournament, I never think to be so far,” said Pennetta, who played in her first major final. “I never think to be a champion. It’s a big surprise also for me. When I was young, I was thinking to be No. 1 and win Grand Slam. Also winning Rome, but Grand Slam a little better.”
“Sometimes it’s getting hard for me to compete,” Pennetta said. “When you have to play 24 weeks in the year, you have to fight every week. And if you don’t fight every week in the same way I did today, it’s gonna be like bad. For me, also. And I don’t feel to have this power anymore sometimes. “So this is the perfect moment, I think.” For the unseeded Vinci, this had also been a remarkable tournament, capped of course with that impossible upset over Williams in the semifinal. Pennetta kept telling Vinci at the postmatch ceremony just how well she had played, until Vinci pointed to the trophy and said, “So this is mine? I played good, no?”
Vinci doesn’t get the trophy, but she is still the one who turned this Open on its head. Vinci took out Williams, who failed to meet her designated appointment.
“I’m happy for the rest of your life’s journey,” Serena tweeted, congratulating Pennetta. “I will miss your smile.”