TORONTO – Karl Hale has been the tournament director of the National Bank Open since 2006, and he’s never seen anything like the 24 hours after Serena Williams said she was ending her professional tennis career.
“We heard about it yesterday morning and immediately ticket sales picked up,” Hale said. “In the players’ room, you heard the chatter. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many players watching a practice. She practiced at 9 in the morning and everyone was watching her.”
Williams, who played a second-round match against Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic on Wednesday night, took to the court with everyone aware that she might be competing in front of Canadian tennis fans for the last time at this tournament.
“But I hope not,” said Hale, who has known Serena and her sister Venus for more than 20 years since they first started coming to Toronto.
The stadium north of the city center held 12,500 fans and the tournament installed an outdoor viewing area, for the first time, for a further 5,000.
Before Serena Williams hit the court — which she did with her head bowed and a serious expression — she played a video greeting from retired champion Billie Jean King and some of the tour’s rising stars, Coco Gauff, Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu. the crowd. Wayne Gretzky, the greatest player in hockey history, had a message for the greatest player in women’s tennis.
“Serena Williams, Willie O’Ree in hockey, Jackie Robinson in baseball,” Gretzky said. “They changed everything. They changed the culture of sport and what Serena did for boys and girls around the world is spectacular. Serena, congratulations on a wonderful career.”
The National Bank Open is the only Canadian stop for the WTA and ATP tours each August, splitting the men’s and women’s events between Toronto and Montreal and alternating cities each year. Suddenly, Williams’ Wednesday night game in Toronto became the hottest ticket in sports.
Hale said that after news of the withdrawal, the tournament sold more tickets for the Williams-Bencic matchup than for any of its men’s matches, noting a tournament that began in 1881, making it almost as old as Canada itself. (Canada was founded in 1867 and the women’s tournament began in 1892.)
The round of 16 match was a bigger draw than the entire women’s tournament in 2017, she said.
Hale has been buried in interview requests for Williams – the answer has been “no” – and ticket requests from athletes, musicians and actors like Adam Sandler who are currently filming movies in the city; the answer has been “yes”, to some extent.
“We don’t have any room left,” Hale said.
“It’s going to be a very emotional night for her,” he said. “She’s not sure how to handle it, but it’s really going to affect the moment before the game.”
The fans, who gave Williams two standing ovations before the match began, held signs that read: “Serena Williams for Prime Minister,” “Canada Loves Serena” and “Queen.”
Hale had a four-hour dinner at Harbor 60, an expensive Toronto steakhouse, with Serena and Venus Williams on Saturday night.
“He didn’t tell me the Vogue piece was coming, but he said retirement was imminent,” she said. “All signs were definitely pointing to a US Open withdrawal. She’s really ready to move forward with the next chapter of her new life. She’s excited, not sad, but she’s going to be very, very emotional tonight. I don’t think it has happened to him yet”.
During Serena Williams’ straight-sets win over Spain’s Nuria Parrizas-Diaz on Monday, much of the crowd was standing and rooting for Williams.
After the game, Williams telegraphed the Vogue article that was about to drop, saying she was getting “closer to the light” and “freedom.”
It’s clear he’s having fun in Toronto. During the weekend before the tournament began, she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Olympia, went to Medieval Times, the theater show featuring crowns and swords. Then on Monday, he won, for the first time in more than a year. “I forgot how I felt,” she said.
It was the first time Olympia had sat through a full game, and she high-fived her mom, a must-have move when you’re 4, after her win. “I was really excited,” Williams said. “It was good for her to have that memory. She’s never had it because I’ve always pushed her away.”
One of the most enduring images of this tournament, until Wednesday night, came after Williams was forced out of the women’s singles final in early 2019 due to back spasms. Her opponent, Andreescu, approached the sideline and asked the 23-time Grand Slam tournament champion if he could give her a hug.
Andreescu, who beat Williams in the 2019 US Open final, recalled her emotional post-match bond with Williams following her straight sets win over Russian Daria Kasatkina on Tuesday night.
“In Toronto we had a good conversation and at the US Open he said very nice things to me in the locker room,” Andreescu said. She added that she was “grateful to have had the opportunity to play her and connect with her in some way. Maybe I’ll get one more.”
As Williams winds down his career, a scarcity mentality sets in. Only a handful of tickets for Wednesday’s game were listed with resellers, suggesting what could be Williams’ final Canadian game is not for sale at any price.
Williams’ teammates at the tournament also fear missing out. World No. 1 Iga Swiatek, Gauff, Emma Raducanu and Canadians Fernandez, Rebecca Marino and Carol Zhao have never played Williams and wistfully said they hoped to share the court with her before it was too late.
The spotlight and the crowd will continue to follow Williams from here to Ohio, and on to New York, where she won her first Grand Slam title in 1999 as a 17-year-old.
Marino said it was only fitting that Williams at least play one more time at the US Open and that it would be a perfect farewell to the sport. “This is, I think, the place to do it,” he said.