Saratoga Girl Makes US Open Appearance
Nayana Shankar from Saratoga Springs helps present trophies to the women’s singles finalists at the US Open Tennis Championships in New York City. Screenshot via the ESPN broadcast.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Nayana Shankar, a nine-year-old tennis player at the Saratoga Regional YMCA Wilton Branch, made an appearance at the US Open Tennis Championships in Queens last weekend when she helped present the trophies to the women’s singles finalists.
Following the match between Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula (a Buffalo native whose parents own the Buffalo Bills), Shankar carried out the trophy awarded to the second-place Pegula. Former tennis player and ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernández introduced Shankar as a “future American tennis champion.” After Shankar brought the trophy to the podium, tennis legend Billie Jean King appeared to tell her that she did a “good job.”
Jed Murray, the Saratoga Regional YMCA’s director of tennis, said Shankar was nominated to participate in one of the the United States Tennis Association’s Orange Ball Early Development Camps. While there, Murray said, she showed “exemplary behavior” and earned a chance to present a trophy.
“It was a pretty amazing experience,” Murray said. “She was still pretty shocked that she got to be in that position where the whole stadium is seeing her and they announce her name like that.”
Despite her recent brush with fame, Shankar was back at the YMCA on Tuesday to continue honing her tennis skills.