TORONTO — Carl Hale has been tournament director at the National Bank Open since 2006 and has never seen anything like it in the 24 hours since Serena Williams said she was ending her professional tennis career.
“We heard it yesterday morning and immediately ticket sales went up,” Hale said. “You heard the chatter in the players’ lounge. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many players watching training. She was training at 9am and everyone was outside watching her.
Williams, who played a second-round match against Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic on Wednesday night, took to the court with everyone knowing she could be competing for the last time in front of Canadian tennis fans at this tournament.
“But I hope not,” said Hale, who has known Serena and her sister Venus for more than 20 years, since they started coming to Toronto.
The stadium north of downtown held 12,500 fans, and the tournament created an outdoor viewing area – for the first time – for another 5,000.
Before Serena Williams stepped onto the court — which she did with her head bowed and a serious expression — a greeting video from retired champion Billie Jean King and some of the tour’s rising stars, Coco Gauff, Leila Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu, played for 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’Rea in hockey, Jackie Robinson in baseball,” Gretzky said. “They changed everything. They changed the culture of the sport and what Serena has done 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 tournaments each August, splitting the men’s and women’s competitions 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 since news of the withdrawal broke, the tournament has sold more tickets for the Williams-Bencic bout than for any of the men’s matches, remarkable for a tournament that began in 1881, making it nearly as old. as much as Canada itself. (Canada was founded in 1867 and the women’s tournament started in 1892.)
The Round of 32 match was a bigger draw than the entire women’s tournament in 2017, he said.
Hale has been buried in interview requests for Williams — the answer was no — and requests for tickets from athletes, musicians and actors like Adam Sandler who are currently filming in town — the answer was yes, to an extent.
“We have no room left,” Hale said.
“It’s going to be a really emotional night for her,” he said. “She’s not sure how to go about it, but she’s really going to hit it right now before the game.”
The fans who gave Williams a standing ovation before the start of the match held signs that read: “Serena Williams for Prime Minister,” “Canada Loves Serena” and “The Queen.”
Hale had a four-hour dinner at Harbor 60, an expensive Toronto steakhouse, with Serena and Venus Williams on Saturday night.
“She didn’t tell me a Vogue post was coming, but she said retirement was imminent,” he said. “All signs were definitely pointing to a US Open retirement. She is truly ready to move on 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’s hit her yet.
During Serena Williams’ win over Nuria Parizas-Diaz of Spain on Monday, much of the crowd was on their feet and worshiping Williams.
After the match, Williams telegraphed the Vogue article, which was hours before the drop, saying she was getting “closer to the light” and “freedom.”
She’s clearly having fun in Toronto. The weekend before the tournament, she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Olympia, went to Medieval Times, the crowns and swords play. Then on Monday, she won, for the first time in more than a year. “I forgot what it felt like,” she said.
It was the first time Olympia had been able to play a full match, and she high-fived her mom — a 4-year-old move — after her win. “I was super excited,” Williams said. “It was good for her to have that memory. She never had it because I always kept her away.
One of the most lasting images of this tournament – most likely until Wednesday night – came after Williams was forced out of the women’s singles final at the start of 2019 due to back spasms. Her opponent Andreescu approached the sideline and asked the 23-time Grand Slam champion if she could hug her.
Andreescu, who beat Williams in the 2019 US Open final, recalled her emotional post-match bond with Williams following her straight-set victory over Russia’s Daria Kasatkina on Tuesday night.
“In Toronto we had a nice conversation, and at the US Open she said some very nice things to me in the locker room,” Andreescu said. She added that she felt “grateful to get the chance to play her and connect with her in some way. Maybe I’ll get another one.”
As Williams winds down his career, scarcity thinking is born. Only a handful of tickets for Wednesday’s game have been announced for distributors, suggesting that what could be Williams’ final game in Canada is not selling at any price.
Williams’ fellow players also fear missing out. World No. 1 Iga Svetek, Gauff, Emma Radukanu and Canadians Fernandez, Rebecca Marino and Carol Zhao have never played against Williams and ruefully said they hoped to share the court with her before it was too late.
The spotlight and the crowd would continue to follow Williams from here to Ohio and to New York, where she won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999 as a 17-year-old.
Marino said it was only fitting that Williams play at least one more time at the US Open and that it would make for the perfect farewell to the sport. “I think this is the place to do it,” she said.
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