Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
BRINGING IT HOME
Plantation’s Stephens shares Miami Open triumph with friends, family
Plantation native Sloane Stephens holds her trophy after defeating Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the women’s final of the Miami Open on Saturday in Key Biscayne. She was cheered on by a host of friends and family.
“It’s her day to be a champion again.” Family friend Kevin Johnson
KEY BISCAYNE — She held the glass trophy with one hand and waved them onto the court with the other, all of them she saw, any of them she knew.
“Come on!” Sloane Stephens said.
And about a dozen family and friends, mostly from Broward, including her uncle, Ron Smith, and Kevin Johnson, who had a dozen paddles made with her picture for Saturday, and former Dolphins running back Mark Higgs, who laughed when asked how he knew her.
“I’ve known her since she was a baby,” he said. He held his hand to his shin. “I’ve watched her play tennis in Fort Lauderdale since she was probably this big,” he said.
Stephens was bigger than anyone again Saturday. The Plantation native beat Jelena Ostapenko, 7-6 (5), 6-1, to assure the final Miami Open on Key Biscayne went out in local style right down to this on-court afterparty. “Let’s get a picture!” she said. There they stood, smiling and squeezing into a frame. Her mom, Sybil Smith, was missing with the flu, though other relatives were there. Her boyfriend, Jozy Altidore, was in Toronto playing soccer, though his family and friends were there.
“C’mon, everyone, smile!” a photogra-
pher said, though that wasn’t necessary to ask this crowd on this day.
There were two ways to read Stephens’ fun run through this tournament after winning just one match since her U.S. Open victory last September. There was the technical side. She never stopped moving. She was relentless chasing down Ostapenko’s shots.
“I had to run a lot of balls down,” she said.
There also was the emotional side of Stephens’ win. This is where the local crowd came in. The stadium crowd chanted her name. They loudly applauded her winning shots. And those closest to her followed the advice of her coach, Kamau Murray, who demanded one thing: “Cheer after every point.”
It energized her. It focused her. “I loved it,” she said. So there, up in a stadium suite, a couple dozen friends stood and cheered after crucial points.
And there, sprinkled in the crowd, fans like Johnson held up the big paddleboards of her face and wore a T-shirt from her Open victory.
“It’s her day to be a champion again,” said Johnson, a family friend who’s a professor at Broward Community College.
And there, in the first row, sat Team Ron, as the handful in her uncle’s contingent called themselves. That included Higgs, who roomed at the 1987 BlueGray Football Classic with Stephens’ father, John Stephens.
Higgs became a Dolphin. Stephens became a New England Patriot. They hung out together in the offseason in Broward, where they both lived, which is how he came to know Sloane. John Stephens died in a car crash in 2009.
“It’s amazing for me to see Sloane as a little girl, watch her grow up and live out her dream,” he said. “I had people over to watch her win the U.S. Open. We were all crying afterward. And then, today, what can you say about seeing this?”
You can say Stephens appears on her way again after a post-Open slump. She weathered a tough first set Saturday. She had two chances to serve for the first set only to have to win it in the tiebreaker. She then cruised in the easy second set.
“This place is pretty special to me,” she said of Key Biscayne. “I’m definitely happy I could be the last [woman] to win here. I’ve had some amazing experiences growing up here.”
She’ll crack the Top 10 again, moving to No. 9 next week. She’ll be someone to watch heading into the clay season, a surface she enjoys.
“It’s incredible,” she said. “I knew if I just got back to the drawing board I would be OK. I wasn’t expecting a title here. I just wanted to make sure I got my back, back where I wanted to be.”
She took her family and friends with her Saturday, too. In the winner’s circle. On the court. To a scene they won’t forget even when a tennis tournament on Key Biscayne is forgotten.