SERENA WILLIAMS caught in a moment of brevity before the matches: rumored boyfriend Drake’s Hotline Bling comes over the speakers and she gets down on the floor very, very briefly. When the crowd screams for more, she suddenly turns “I’m here to play tennis y’all” on everyone.
IN December of 2015, I sat through my very first tennis tournament.
Well, not counting the one in high school when John Pages walked past in his tennis whites, those sinewy legs striding past confidently towards the court right behind the high school classrooms. He was the college boy the girls of IV Lopez and I ogled, and that was the extent of tennis for me.
Last year was slightly little different. There was no shortage of sinew and sweat, and this time around it literally poured from the topseed players on the planet.
PLDT co-sponsored the biggest touring tournament in the world, and had invited a select number of press people form Cebu to witness the second season of the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) at the Mall of Asia (MOA) Arena. Michelle P. So of Sunstar and Caecent Magsumbol of The Freeman were huge tennis fans, which was evident in the airplane banter. I believe I may have, to their amusement, compared the experience to me flying out to watch the Miss Universe pageant live.
I was excited to see Roger Federer’s lower limbs.
The tour had begun Dec. 2 in Kobe, Japan, with the three-day Manila leg from Dec. 6-8 in the second stop of a five-nation tour that would bring the players to New Delhi, Dubai, and Singapore.
The country’s own Philippine Mavericks was headlined by current number one on the Women’s Tennis Association: Serena Williams. Completing the Philippine squad were Mixed Doubles Grand Slam titleholder Richard Gasquet, Wimbledon Championships WTA titleholder Lisicki, 2013 Australian Open Mixed Doubles titleholder Jarmila Gajdosova, the youngest Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) top 100 Borna Coric, ATP World Tour Doubles titleholder and half-Filipino Treat Huey, and World No. 8 in men’s singles and Mavericks Team captain Mark Philippoussis.
Not unlike the first run, world-class palyers were teamed together to represent India, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Japan as an added fifth team in 2015.
BEST LOOKING CROP of ball boys and ball girls, wearing shirts from India’s Amity University, the official University partner of the IPTL. I suspect one of these is team owner’s Jean-Henri Lhuillier’s son because I caught his wife and Olympic medalist Bea Lucero snapping away happily at this group.
“With its expanded lineup, season two of IPTL is definitely going to be bigger and more extraordinary,” PLDT VP and HOME Marketing Director Gary Dujali said.
“The competition featured more than 30 international tennis superstars, and with legend Serena Williams serving up our very own Philippine Mavericks, PLDT HOME Fibr is very excited to bring this level of premier entertainment to our Filipino sports fans.”
All PLDT HOME Fibr subscribers were entitled to a 20 percent discount for their tickets to the IPTL Philippine leg. They also got a chance to win VIP tickets complete with a red carpet treatment—two-way rides via the luxury car service Uber Black so that they can arrive at MOA Arena and go home in style.
THE CEBU SQUAD: April Rama, Michelle P. So and Caecent Magsumbol at the MOA Arena
The three of us weren’t treated too shabbily either: we had the run of a private upper box that featured an en suite bathroom and buffet with free-flowing drinks. As the action heated, and after we had our fill of an early dinner, we were lead to our VIP seats (one costing as much as P53,000 a pop, I hear!) right behind the players.
Caecent was especially patient with me, explaining the rules of the game and the peculiarities that a faster IPTL format held. We oohed at the same time to Serena’s audible grunts, and swooned when the male players swung and gave us a little show of their own.
I wish I could rattle off the stats and give you a blow-by-blow of how the Mavericks ruled the first night of the series, but this neophyte took it in slowly, helped out a whole lot with a sportswriter’s insight (thankfully, I was seated next to a veteran!) and gigabytes of Google (thanks to the WiFi connection from Smart/PLDT in the arena.
By the time the IPTL returns this year, my knowledge of tennis will have moved on from LOVE.
(PLDT HOME Fibr delivers powerful Internet of up to 1 Gbps, allowing high-speed browsing of multiple websites and the country’s first symmetrical speed service. Recently, it launched the new PLDT HOME Fibr Plan 2899 which offers 50 Mbps. Customers who apply before January 31, 2016 will have their speed boosted to 100 Mbps for the first six months of their subscription. For more information on the country’s most powerful broadband, visit pldthome.com/fibr.)