By: Ben RabyWASHINGTON- Serena Williams woke up this morning at her part-time home in Paris. Nearly 20 hours later, there she was signing autographs in downtown Washington, following her 2008 World Team Tennis debut. Talk about a long day.
Williams flew from Paris to DC, with a lay over in London. She says she slept for most of the seven-hour trans-Atlantic flight and that's probably a good thing. Once the fifth-ranked women's tennis player touched ground in Washington, it was all business.
Shortly after her arrival, Williams helped run a tennis clinic for about 50 kids. She then spoke to the media and to the Kastles' VIP guests. And then it was off to the main event: the first ever Washington Kastles home match.
It would be a stretch to suggest that Williams played like a Wimbledon finalist on this night, but nobody in the sold-out crowd of 2,200 seemed to mind. They came for the "Serena Show," and the fact that this was a 'team' effort didn't really seem to matter.
Serena participated in three events- mixed doubles, women's doubles, and singles. She dropped the mixed doubles match with Justin Gimelstob, before teaming up with Mashona Washington to win women's doubles. Then she took seven of ten games against Marie-Eve Pelletier in the final event of the night.
In the end the crowd saw what they wanted. Serena was probably photographed thousands of times during her DC stay, and despite the Kastles 22-19 loss to the Boston Lobsters, Washington's WTT home debut should be considered a success.
Williams will now play three road matches with the Kastles. Washington is now 2-1 on the season. It will be interesting to see what type of crowd shows up Friday night to Kastles Stadium when the main attraction is Robby Ginepri.
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