NEW YORK, June 26 : The manicured lawns of Wimbledon came to the heart of Manhattan on Friday when former Grand Slam champions and fan favourites including Andre Agassi and Caroline Wozniacki took to a temporary pop-up grasscourt erected in New York’s Central Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agassi and Wozniacki were joined by former U.S. player James Blake and Canadian former world number five Eugenie Bouchard for a series of exhibition matches designed to bring a taste of southwest London to New York ahead of the Grand Slam\u2019s start on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The quartet played singles exhibitions before teaming up for mixed doubles on a Wimbledon-style court installed at Wollman Rink at the southern end of Central Park, against a backdrop of trees and Manhattan skyscrapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was an amazing experience,\u201d Wozniacki said. \u201cPlaying on a grasscourt in the middle of Central Park doesn\u2019t happen every day. To be part of this amazing event was something that I won\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The head agronomist at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Mark Ferguson, oversaw the court, and the grass was specially grown in neighbouring New Jersey for the pop-up installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a fantastic kind of juxtaposition of Wimbledon and New York together,\u201d Ferguson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exhibition also provided an opportunity for the former players to discuss the return of 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams, who is set to make a surprise comeback at Wimbledon after four years away from singles competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited to see her back,\u201d Wozniacki said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always great to see some of the best players ever come back and play. I\u2019ll be watching, I\u2019ll be supporting and it will be great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked whether she might consider another comeback of her own, Wozniacki smiled and replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know. That\u2019s a good question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bouchard said Williams faced a daunting challenge by returning directly at Wimbledon without a warm-up event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s bonkers – in a good way,\u201d Bouchard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe fact that she hasn\u2019t played a singles match in four years is pretty crazy to play the first one at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut if there\u2019s anyone that can handle it, it\u2019s Serena.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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NEW YORK, June 26 : The manicured lawns of Wimbledon came to the heart of Manhattan on Friday when former Grand Slam champions and fan favourites including Andre Agassi and Caroline Wozniacki took to a temporary pop-up grasscourt erected in New York’s Central Park. Agassi and Wozniacki were joined by former U.S. player James Blake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418563,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418562\/revisions\/418563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}