Dec 17, 2015 Five-time grand slam champion Maria Sharapova recently defeated Madison Keys in an exhibition match that she hosted in Los Angeles.
According to her, the event, which was dubbed “Maria Sharapova and Friends”, was aimed at bringing professional tennis to the city Los Angeles again.
Speaking after the event, Sharapova said:
“I wanted to have a Los Angeles tennis event because there hadn’t really been real professional tennis in about six years and instead of doing a long week tournament I thought it would be fun to create an exhibition type atmosphere,”
In her match against Keys, Sharapova came back from a set down to defeat the American 6-7, 6-1, 11-9.
Commenting on another fringe benefit of the match, the 28 year old Russian went on to say:
“As players are getting ready for the long season, the Australian Open, it’s usally a good time to come out and play a few practice matches so you have that level of power and phyisicality that the sport brings but also the entertainment aspect that sometimes we feel is a bit missing with our sport because the fans have to be a bit proper and quiet so we have a live DJ and great giveaways and great entertainers as well,”
In the men’s singles match, former world number one Andy Roddick went up against his American compatriot Mardy Fish.
Fish, who recently retired in September, overcame Roddick 7-6, 4-6, 12-10.
Speaking afterwards, Roddick said:
“Yeah, it was great, I think Mardy and I both knew when it went to a third set tie breaker that it was time to kind of bump up the level a little bit and get a little serious and I thought they enjoyed it, I thought the crowd got into it, we don’t get those moments very often so it’s fun when we do,”