Black Tennis Pros

Jill Craybas, USA

NEW YORK (AP) — All in all, 16-year-old Madison Keys of Boca Raton, Fla., thought her Grand Slam debut was "awesome."

As well she should. After all, Keys became the youngest player since 2005 to win a match at the U.S. Open by beating 37-year-old Jill Craybas 6-2, 6-4 on Monday.

Keys was playing in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, and appearing in a tour-level event for only the third time. At 455th, she is the lowest-ranked woman in the field.
"Obviously it was a good first day. It's just been awesome," Keys said. "I'm really excited, and hopefully I have another good match Wednesday."

She wasn't intimidated by the setting Monday, even though she never had played in a match this important or at a tournament this big.

"It's pretty crowded. There's lots of energy," Keys said. "So it's definitely an awesome experience."

Her secret to dealing with the hustle and bustle of the U.S. Open?

"I have two younger sisters who are always really loud and everything, so I'm kind of used to noise," Keys explained.


 Keys won her first WTA main-draw match in 2009 at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., when she was 14 — about a decade after she first took up tennis.

Her interest in the sport came about after seeing Venus Williams on TV at home.

"I was 4, and I walked through my parents' bedroom — I think they were watching Wimbledon or something — and I decided I wanted Venus' dress. They told me if I played tennis, they'd buy me a tennis dress," Keys said. "I said, 'All right, I'll try it.' I have been playing ever since."

Craybas, who lives in Huntington Beach, Calif., was playing in her 45th consecutive Grand Slam tournament — tied for the longest active streak — and 49th overall. But she is 111th in the WTA rankings and — like Keys — needed a wild card from the U.S. Tennis Association to get into the main draw.

Craybas made her Grand Slam debut at the 1996 U.S. Open, about 18 months after Keys was born, and was the second-oldest entrant this year.

This was the 15th time Craybas has played at Flushing Meadows.

"I was told there was a pretty big age difference," Keys said, "but I wasn't really thinking about it."

Four 16-year-olds, all days or weeks younger than Keys — Vania King, Nicole Vaidisova, Sessil Karatantcheva and Alexa Glatch — won U.S. Open matches in 2005.

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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- Serena Williams is back on the U.S. Fed Cup team for the first time since 2007.

Surprise U.S. Open quarterfinalist Melanie Oudin is also on the roster announced Tuesday by the U.S. Tennis Association for the Nov. 7-8 final against host Italy.

Williams leads active women with 11 Grand Slam singles titles and is 4-0 in Fed Cup singles matches over her career. Her sister Venus is not on the team.

Top-ranked doubles player Liezel Huber and Alexa Glatch round out the roster.

U.S. captain Mary Joe Fernandez says she strongly believes her team can win the Fed Cup title, something the country hasn't done since 2000.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - It is unlikely that Serena Williams has ever been described as bashful.

When the 11-times grand slam champion was asked to take a look back at her U.S. Open career on Monday, she said her younger self would find the 2009 version of Serena as "super cool."

The world number two opened the defense of her title at Flushing Meadows with an easy 6-4 6-1 victory over another American, Alexa Glatch, on Monday and then quickly turned her thoughts to her memoir "On the line."

Williams said she wrote the book to help motivate people and inspire them to make the best of themselves and was asked what the 10-year-old Serena would think of the 27-year-old incarnation.

"I think that I would just think that this Serena Williams today is super cool - I would love to get her autograph," she said.

"I think she would have been my idol because growing up there weren't too many black people. I loved Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil. I would have had a little favoritism toward myself and Venus (Williams)."

The Wimbledon and Australian Open champion said the way the Williams sisters overcame childhood struggles to each become world number one should provide others with the inspiration to achieve their dreams.

"That's another reason I wrote it because I felt that what makes a champion isn't how well they do," she said. "It's about how well they can recover when they fall, or if they fall."

Serena slipped outside the top 100 in 2006 after a series of injuries, only to bounce back by winning the Australian Open in January 2007.

"I love Muhammad Ali, he went to jail for a period of time and he came back on top of the world," she said.

"I just thought (about) what it would be like. I was on top of the world and then things came crashing down. You get to see people who are really your friends and you get to see people that really stick by your side and how you can recover from that and stay strong.

"I just think anyone can do it. You just have to have a kind of guide sometimes to get there."

Serena Williams Throws Out The Ceremonial First Pitch




On Friday, August 28, defending U.S. Open singles champion Serena Williams threw out the ceremonial first pitch, working from the rubber and tossing the ball way over the head of catcher Jose Molina.

After throwing out the first pitch at the new Yankee Stadium in the Yankees vs. White Sox game, Serena headed out to the newly opened Porto Vivo in Huntington. There, Williams, her manager and her sister Isha had dinner with the restaurant’s co-owners Joy Mangano (of Home Shopping Network fame) and Philipp Seipelt, along with Seipelt's fiancee Christie Mangano.

So, what does a tennis great eat the week before the U.S. Open? Williams had steamed littleneck clams and grilled branzino, washed down with nothing more intoxicating than water. The wine cellar would have to wait.

Shown in the photo are (l-r) Joy Mangano, Serena Williams and Philipp Seipelt. Photo from Porto Vivo.

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Italy is hoping the Williams sisters decide to skip the Fed Cup final in November. Either way, though, the 2006 champions plan to host the United States in the best-of-five series on the slowest clay they can find.

"I hope the Williams sisters don't come," Italy captain Corrado Barazzutti told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "If they do come, we'll try to beat them. It's not impossible on clay. (Flavia) Pennetta has already beaten Venus more than once."

The 14th-ranked Pennetta beat Venus Williams twice last year _ including a victory at the French Open _ although Venus won their last two meetings.

Italy beat Russia 4-1 and the United States edged the Czech Republic 3-2 in the semifinals last weekend. The Williams sisters _ Venus and Serena _ skipped the trip to Brno, and Fed Cup rookies Alexa Glatch and Bethanie Mattek-Sands lined up for United States captain Mary Joe Fernandez.

The Nov. 7-8 final immediately follows the season-ending WTA Championships in Doha, and Barazzutti expects the Williams sisters to play there. Italy would like to host the final in the south to play outdoors on slow clay to soften the impact of the Williams sister's fierce groundstrokes.

"We're definitely going to play on clay _ very slow clay _ and if possible, outdoors," Barazzutti said. "First we need to determine if we can play outdoors, then we'll choose the most uncomfortable setting possible. Uncomfortable in the sense that it suits us and not the Americans."

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American sisters Venus and Serena Williams opened their bid for the Sony Ericsson Open title with victories over Israeli Shahar Peer and American Alexa Glatch.

Serena is currently tied with German Steffi Graff as a five-time title holder of the Sony Ericsson Open tournament. Should she defend her title, she would set a record at six.

As expected, Serena's match with Glatch posed little difficulty. In just over an hour she took the match 6-2, 6-3.

“I think Alexa played well today. I thought she had a really good game to watch, a really different game. You don't see that type of tennis being played too much, since a few years, or several years. I think she has a really good game. She's really young, so she has a bright future.

“I think I played okay. I definitely think I could have played better. But just a little jitters going out there, the first round no one wants to go out.”

Later on big sister Venus hit the courts and had to work a bit before she got into her stride, Peer initially went up 3-0.

Post match Venus said, "At that point I'm thinking I've got to get started. It was only one break, and I haven't played in almost four weeks, so just a little bit of a slow start. But I always felt confident."

Venus and Serena are on opposite sides of the draw, but in the same half, which sets up the possibility of them meeting in the semifinals.

Of that potential meeting Venus said, "she's obviously a great player and if I can beat her, then that means I'm on top of the game, so I hope we can meet in the semifinals."

Photos by Getty Images

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