Tennis stars get to strut stuff at the Garden

Billed as a tennis showdown, Monday night's annual Madison Square Garden exhibition featuring four of the sport's top brands was closer to a Times Square happening. A gigantic billboard for the sport, in a universally familiar setting, it was designed to be neon-gaudy, gawked at by multitudes.

It will not go into any record books that three-time major tournament champion Maria Sharapova defeated recent No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, 6-3, 6-4. Or that Roger Federer, winner of more Grand Slam titles (16) than any other player in history, lost to former No. 1 Andy Roddick, 7-5, 7-6 (9-7).

As Sharapova noted, "It doesn't count for anything in terms of points and rankings."

But for a fifth consecutive year, it worked in the way that TV awards shows seem to work. Stars came out ("Who are you wearing, Maria? "Nike."). Fans gushed. Celebrities from other walks of life attended, including Wozniacki's champion golfing friend, Rory McIlroy, called out of the packed stands by Wozniacki to play one pitty-pat point against Sharapova. (Won by McIlroy.) It was the place to be.

"I think a lot of the reason the four of us are here is because of the venue," Roddick said. "The prestige of playing at a place like Madison Square Garden. Normally, when you have five or six days between tournaments, you're not looking to fill those days with exhibitions too often. But special circumstances require special decisions, and so, for me, it was a pretty easy one."

Federer, still among the world's best three players at 30 and "still confident" he can win yet another major tournament, considered the evening's red-carpet value a chance to interact with fans just a bit more than during championship play.

That allowed Roddick -- after one wise guy in the crowd of 18,079 called out "Let's go, Rafa!" -- to mimic Rafael Nadal through an entire point, his sleeves rolled up onto his shoulders, hopping behind the baseline awaiting serve, repeatedly hitting topspin groundstrokes, celebrating the point with a leg kick and fist thrust.

"Exhibitions are usually held at different places than regular tournaments we go to," Federer said, "and I use it as a tool to promote tennis in different regions of the world. And coming to New York at a different period of the year, when tennis maybe is not dominating the headlines here, I think this is really nice."

Federer called his 2008 "showdown" with career Slam record-holder Pete Sampras -- the first of these Garden events -- "the pinnacle of my exhibitions."

Monday night's pair of best-of-three matches can't compare to America's tennis showpiece, the intense late-summer, two-week U.S. Open. Yet the Garden crowd exceeds those at virtually every non-Slam event.

"You're still going out there," Sharapova said, "and you can't hide the fact that you're playing in front of tens of thousands of people in an incredible environment.

"You don't really think about winning," she said. "It's such an honor to be part of the history here, a pretty unique opportunity. You're doing what you love and, ultimately, the reason people go out to see an exhibition match, even though it's an exhibition, is to see why you play the game and how you play. They do want that competitive side of yours and to see the great tennis."