As a kid, like any born-and-bred New Yorker, Cooper Williams—the No. 3 seed and top American in the boys’ singles draw—used to hop on the 7 train in August and get off at the Mets-Willets Point stop. He’d pass through the turnstiles at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and climb to the top of the stands above the practice courts with his sisters, where they’d sit together and watch athletes hit shot after shot in the late summer heat to perfect their craft. On several occasions, he cheered on his favorite player, Roger Federer; one time, he caught the 20-time Grand Slam champion’s wristband.
On Labor Day, on the very same grounds, Williams instead found himself not in the stands, but on a court—Court 11 to be exact—in front of a large, pro-American crowd. Across the net, his second-round opponent, the lucky loser Markus Molder of Estonia, prepared to serve for the match. Williams easily claimed the first set 6-2, but he’d been playing from behind pretty much every point since. He fought back from a 4-2 deficit in the third only to once again get broken serving at 5-5.
As persistent cheers of “Let’s go Cooper!” rang out from the bleachers in the fading sunlight, Molder hit three errors in a row to give Williams three break point opportunities. At 15-40, the American connected on a return from so far to the right of the blue paint that the camera didn’t even capture him hitting it. The ball entered the frame and landed squarely on the back of the line. Molder could only applaud as the match headed to a third-set tiebreak, which Williams eventually claimed by a very tight score of 10-7, sealing it with an ace. When it was all over, he promptly crouched to the ground after a grueling, physical two hours and 20 minutes.
“It’s indescribable,” Williams told USOpen.org of the moment, following his third-round win (which he claimed at a faster pace, in just 47 minutes on Wednesday). “You can’t really put it into words. The people there were cheering for me, chanting my name. I don’t know how many people can say that they had their name chanted on Court 11 or any court at the US Open for that matter. It’s a pretty surreal experience.”
After it was all over, Williams sat in his chair and buried his head in a towel. It had been, as he describes it, an “absolute war.”
“[Markus] was playing great, and when he turned it on midway through the second set, I kinda had a mental lapse,” Williams said. “I fought my way out of it, thanks to my fitness trainer, a couple hot shots and definitely the crowd. I probably would not have been able to stick that match out were it not for the crowd because I put myself in a really bad position and they had the other shovel digging me out.”
Of course, there’s another factor at play. He’s from New York. He’s tough. He grew up largely fine-tuning his tennis skills not through any academy or facility, but by finding available court time.
“My mom would pick me up from school and we’d rent courts and hit with local college guys for 90 minutes three times a week,” he explained. “It’s not the greatest set-up ever, but I think the one thing New York tennis has that a lot of places don’t is that when you have a limited amount of court time, it makes you value pretty much every moment you are on court. And I think that brings out a sort of competitiveness that you don’t find in other places. I think a player coming out of the northeast, especially New York, has learned how to just not give up.”
That mentality has served Williams well not just in his second-round match but at all the junior slams this year. The top-ranked American junior all season, he’s reached the quarterfinals or better at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and now the US Open—and with compatriot Learner Tien, he captured the boys’ doubles title at the Australian Open this past January. He hopes to continue the great run-of-form as a member of the Harvard University tennis team this fall. (He just moved onto campus a week before his Flushing Meadows campaign kicked off.)
“I’m really excited to play at a top level of college tennis,” he said. “I’m really excited to be on a team with some great guys and great coaches, so I’m looking forward to the future. And obviously continue to play pro tennis. I’ve started heading that direction and want to keep progressing in that direction.”
But first, he has another battle at the same venue he wandered around as a child. In the boys’ singles quarterfinals, he’ll face “good friend” and No. 7 seed Joao Fonseca. Williams claimed victory the only previous time they played, overcoming the big-hitting Brazilian in three hard-fought sets at an Australian Open tune-up event earlier in the year—but he noted that the conditions were “weird” and that their Queens encounter will be different.
Whatever course the match takes, Williams is more than ready. He’s proven that already.
“Now that I’m here, I just feel comfortable playing at this stage, playing at this level,” he said. “I’ve been taking care of business so far, other than the second round. But I’ve accepted the fact that it’s never gonna be easy. I’m just ready to compete some more.”
