ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Andreescu takes N.Y. by storm
The main interview room for the working press at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is an auditorium under the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
On Saturday night, Canada’s newest superstar sat at the front of it, the silver trophy of the U.S. Open positioned next to her. On the video board behind her: “Bianca Andreescu. 2019 U.S. Open women’s champion.”
She still wore the same slight smile on her face that she has for much of the last two weeks. As she passed signpost after milestone after landmark accomplishment, culminating in her defeat of the greatest women’s tennis player ever to become her country’s first Grand Slam singles champion and the first athlete in its 139-year history to win the U.S. Open in their main draw debut, Andreescu has often been decidedly casual. She has known all along that this was possible, which probably comes from the fact that all season all she has done is beat almost everyone who took the court against her.
She was asked what she remembers doing a year ago, during the last U.S. Open final. The 19-year-old Ontarian, born in Mississauga and raised mostly in Thornhill, gave a very teenage answer: “I was at home,” she said. “I was sitting on my butt.” Then the smile again.
Later, someone asked Andreescu if she was ready for the fame that comes with being a major champ. She has often said she dreamed of winning that match, visualized beating Serena Williams in a slam final, but was fame part of that dream, too?
Andreescu scrunched up her face as she thought about it. There was a pause.
“I guess it is, yeah,” she said with an emphasis on guess. “I never really thought about being famous. My goals have been to just win as many Grand Slams as possible, become No. 1 in the world. But the idea of fame never really crossed my mind.”
Then she added: “I’m not complaining, though.”
The smile was bigger now.
“It’s been a crazy ride this year. I can definitely get used to this feeling.”
One of the fun things about watching Andreescu’s two-week ride to sporting history has been the way in which she has turned some of the stereotypes of Canadian behaviour on their ear. She is confident and a little brash and she plays an aggressive style punctuated with a lot of loud shouts and fist pumps.
A New York Times tennis writer described Andreescu as carrying herself “like an alpha” more than any other WTA newcomer in recent memory and that seems just about right. She’s not demure or just happy to be there; she shows up, smashes winners and unleashes a yell that tells her opponent she is not screwing around. Even when she offered a post-match apology to the 24,000 fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium, there was a hint of moxie to it. She said sorry, but it kind of sounded like, “Sorry I kicked your ass.”
But there is another, completely unrelated way in which the idea of Andreescu and Canadian identity was examined over the course of her historic run. Near the end of her news conference, one foreign journalist asked her about being the daughter of two Romanians. Was it more difficult to grow up in Canada as the child of immigrants?
Andreescu did not hesitate. “Definitely not,” she said. “No, Canada is such an amazing country. It’s so multicultural. I had no trouble growing up having Romanian parents whatsoever. That’s why I love my country so, so much.”
I mentioned the first part of her answer to this question on social media on Saturday night and it received a lot of responses. Twitter being what it is, some of them are angry responses, people annoyed that she could be asked such a thing.
It didn’t strike me as absurd. First, journalists are supposed to ask questions, even if they think they might know the answer. And more than that, it’s a question with significance at this time.
I had thought about immigration during two weeks in New York; there’s a lot of time for idle thoughts over the course of a Grand Slam. The U.S. Open is a remarkably multicultural event with athletes from all the (populated) continents. At any given time in the press centre, you can hear people speaking in a variety of languages and accents. One of my lasting memories of this U.S. Open will be the hilarious running commentary from the British journalists who were simultaneously covering a tennis tournament and watching their parliament’s paroxysms.
The stands were perpetually dotted with fans who were proud of their country, from the Australians singing Waltzing Matilda to the dude who kept shouting “O Canada,” to the big, burly guy with a face like a balled-up fist who kept standing up, in a garish green, white and red jacket, to cheer on his Bulgarian countryman Grigor Dimitrov. When Dimitrov lost in the semifinals, I do believe the big fella was in tears.
That all this is happening in a borough of New York seems appropriate. It’s a wildly multicultural city, noticeably so even to someone from Toronto. There are tourists from everywhere and it is just a sea of colours, from the commuters cramming into Grand Central Station to the people selling tour tickets to those selling fresh fruit in little plastic bags on the street corners of Manhattan.
I have no idea if the journalist who asked Andreescu about growing up in Canada was asking in the context of attitudes about immigration today. And before everyone is too smug about Andreescu’s response about her experience in Canada, she of course isn’t speaking for everyone who has tried to make a new life in her country.
But she was consistent in her answers. Earlier in the tournament, she was asked about the experience of her parents, Nicu and Maria, in leaving Romania for Canada. She said they left in the mid-’90s. Romania was having problems, she said.
“So they wanted to just have a better life, so they came into Canada,” she said. “I think they made the right decision.”
At a couple points during the U.S. Open, Andreescu made sure to note the support she has received in her career from Tennis Canada. She said the developmental program — the training and the coaching — has been a huge part of her success. Not for nothing did she climb into the stands Saturday night to clasp Sylvain Bruneau, her Tennis Canada coach, in a teary embrace
after her historic win.
It is the ideal of the immigrant success story, one repeated the world over: The parents leave in search of a better life and they find it in a new country. In this case, they have a child and she has opportunities to grow and nurture her talent in a way she otherwise might not have had. In return, Canada has a wonderful star, a crusher of tennis balls who is now the country’s first major singles champion with designs on more.
That decision Andreescu’s parents made 25 years ago? It was, quite evidently, the right decision for everyone. sstinson@postmedia.com Twitter.com/Scott_Stinson