[[ Here is Part 2 of Andrew's RSRT series, with Part 3 to come on Friday or Saturday. Enjoy - be back with some thoughts of my own later in the day -- Pete]]
The first two hours of the drive from Amarillo took me through sparse semi-desert to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. From there I was into familiar territory around Colorado Springs. Sylvia, Cathleen and I had visited a small mountain town called Manitou Springs in 1997 when Cathleen was five months old. It was the week after Princess Diana was killed in a Paris car accident, and I'd been astonished that the war memorial was decked with impromptu bouquets and letters to a woman no-one in the town could ever have met.
I was pushing on at speed, because the first tennis of the Red State Road Trip beckoned. OK-k, who describes himself as a long time read and occasional poster, had eMailed me after my first post to the Tribe, and we'd arranged to meet at 6pm in Denver. I arrived at the Queen Anne Inn at 5:25pm, and just had enough time to get my gear into the room and change into a tracksuit when my hitting partner arrived.
This was the second time I'd met someone from the Tribe in person: I'd spent a memorable weekend with steggy, Ray Stonada and Pete at Indian Wells in February this year. OK-k and I were barely two minutes into the drive to the tennis courts, and our inner geeks were loose: he works in computer security, and I - don't, but love to talk tech. He figured that because I was from Houston, any tennis below 70 degrees F was likely to cause me frostbite (plus there was some wind picking up) so we played indoors.
OK-k and I rallied for about an hour and a half, and he displayed a really nice crosscourt running FH. NFL fans will need no telling that Denver is a mile high, and the balls really fizz and pop off the court. I also learned that the lower air resistance causes less bite on the fuzzy tennis balls, so it's harder to impart spin. That's my excuse for the number of times my pinpoint groundstrokes went a foot long.
After tennis, it was time for supper - I suggested a sports bar, and when the first choice turned out to be closed, there was nothing for it but to repair to a bar where the waitresses were identically dressed in white t shirts and orange shorts. I'm sure they were very fetching, but my eyes stayed on the drubbing San Diego was handing out to the Colts (sorry, Ryan).
I didn't stay out too late, because I was setting my alarm for the middle of the morning. After a couple of false starts, I was up at 4am with my laptop wirelessly connected to TennisWorld and the TMC feed from Shanghai. After a half an hour, it looked like Federer would make short enough work of Gonzalez to give me a decent shot at a couple of additional hours of sleep. But it was not to be - as you know, the Chilean rallied, took the second set tie-break, staved off multiple BPs in the 3rd set, then thrillingly broke Federer and served out for a famous victory.
It goes without saying that the technology to make this happen just didn't exist even five years ago - wireless laptops in a Denver B&B downloading a live tennis match from China. But OK-k and I were far more interested, when we talked about TennisWorld, in the human side of the Internet.
There were two aspects to this which jumped out at us. The first was the way like minded people all across the globe could become connected and form a genuine community. The second, which is a particular interest of mine, is the way you can create interactions with a very high signal-to-noise ratio.
I constantly marvel at the high quality of the posts at TW - not just Pete's writing, which first drew me to the site. Or the increasingly confident guest posts, the tournament reports and the statistical insights. Many of the comment threads are joys to read days later. I'm a blog junkie (all kinds of politics, economics and science sites) and there are very few places with this blend of knowledge, freshness and cameraderie.
From Denver it was a fairly short hop to Casper, WY. I stopped off for coffee in Cheyenne, - which turns out NOT to be the home of NORAD's end-of-the-world command bunker (that's in Colorado Springs), but which does have some very impressive free-standing intercontinental missiles.
As I drove on north, I found the Wyoming landscape desolate and uninviting. This time, my journey was done by just after 3pm. When I got to my B&B, I had a very pleasant surprise - the landlords had scouted out an indoor tennis club, and the club pro fixed me up with a very friendly fellow in the insurance business, Mike Hudson, who described himself in an offhand way as a "low 5.0."
Well, I held my own in the warm-up, but once we began a set I was in trouble. He had a nasty kick serve to the ad court: I found I could slice it back, only to set up a put away volley to the deuce court. When he hit an ace down the T with the same service preparation, I decided it was force majeure. I held him to one break of serve, but couldn't create any BPs of my own. No matter - it was an unanticipated pleasure, and I had to smile when I saw the rack of Tennis magazines on display in the club bar.
Casper turned out to be a lovely town, and with high winds in the forecast for the drive to Montana, I thought about staying an extra day. Eventually, valor won out over discretion, and I aimed for the mountains again. I had the pleasure of playing soccer with a dog called Chaz just outside Buffalo, WY: even though it was 38F and windy, he was outside flicking stones with his paws at the gas station. I got to Billings in time for lunch, and was treated to David Ferrer's upset of Nadal on ESPN; then it was on to Bozeman, a gorgeous drive.
Night was coming in and light flakes of snow were coming down as I started the final leg from Bozeman to Helena. The route I took, along 69 to Boulder, was the first time I was nervous on the drive - no houses, few cars, not the right time to get a flat. I exhaled when I rejoined highway 15, and by 7:15pm I was phoning the housekeeper of the Elkhorn Lodge at Clancy for directions. Up the hill a couple of miles, gravel road, dirt road, follow it round to the right...15 minutes later I was calling her for directions again.
10 minutes later, I was in a place the GPS told me didn't exist. The road ended in an impassable clump of trees. I was hopelessly and completely lost. To be continued. . .
As some of you know, I'm making a move from Houston to Calgary - which entails a road trip as I drive my car and a few tennis rackets 2000+ miles up the spine of the USA. As far as I can tell, not a blue state in sight.
Inspired by Asad's road trip odyssey this summer, I asked Pete (who graciously assented) if I could put out a general alert to the Tribe: if you are, or are aware of, someone I can play tennis with along the way - well, I'd like to hear from you.
I'll be traveling between Houston and Calgary, detailed route to be determined, between November 10th and November 15th. My timing is flexible - I will adjust my route for points of interest and the chance to meet fellow tennis players and supporters. I play at a USTA 4.0-4.5 standard (a bit out of practice in the last 6 weeks, but we're not talking Shanghai participation, you know). I'd welcome any tips on clubs to play at, people to visit with, or just great sights to see. And it goes without saying, I'll let you know how it went.
You can eMail me at fables3@yahoo.com if you have any ideas, or (of course) forward this message on to tennis playing friends in the Plains or Mountain states. Looking forward to an adventure.
[You know, with all the hype and glitter about to rain down on us from the US Open, I just can't think of a finer, more "real" post to give you than this. Ray, is there such a thing as a "prose laureate"? - Pete]
A week has passed since my hit with Nathan. A serving drill we did has stuck with me: he gave me balls with their label down and had me try to read them while serving. This is harder than it might seem. You have to toss the ball without letting it spin, and really stare at it before you can yell out: "Penn 4!" The drill makes you concentrate on performing a very deliberate toss and focusing on the ball, and meanwhile your conscious mind is off your serve. After trying it for a while, I find my serve has almost magically become more consistent. Good times!
From the warmup, I have a sense that my last match in West Virginia, the final of the aforementioned Rotary Club tournament, is going to be tough. My opponent, Don, is about twenty-two and has solid topspin strokes off both sides. I don't see any weaknesses that I can exploit, and I doubt I can grind down a guy this much younger than me. He also seems to like a target, so I will have to come to net only off quality approaches.
But I have something pretty important in my favor: I've played tons and tons of tennis over the last two weeks. I feel relaxed, even as I discover than Don can hurt me with winners to my backhand side, and that he moves well enough to track down most anything I hit. After a long game with six or seven deuces, I break him in the first game and win the first set 6-2, largely because I'm fully dialed in, while his level is still improving.
The second set is a different story. I start getting a little cocky and hitting my serve too hard, missing too many firsts, and throwing myself out of rhythm. His shot tolerance gets higher, I double-fault a few times and the set slips away. Have I mentioned I have a problem with second sets? Anyway, because of the heat and the schedule, the director of the club tells us to play a ten-point match tiebreaker instead of a of third.
I'm nervous and calm at the same time. Something Steve Tignor once wrote pops into my head, to the effect of: "In tennis, no matter how bad it is, the other guy is always only two points away from the same feeling." That and a long-ago TW post on choking by Codepoke have really helped my competitive mindset - I try to focus less on my nerves than on making the other guy feel his. So on the first point of the tiebreaker, I hit a return wide to Don's backhand and come to net. He's ready. He hits a low pass that starts to get behind me, but somehow, I stab a backhand volley that drops over for a winner. Lucky, really. It's all I need though. I hit a couple of good serves to go up 3-0 and cruise the rest of the way.
I can honestly say it was probably the best match I've played. I was never a junior player or on a tennis team, so playing matches is still a big treat to me. Oh, and did I mention my tournament winnings? Four brand-new cans of tennis balls! Back at my dad's place, his comment is classic, "What happened to you in the second set?" Nothing can dent my mood, though, and we light some charcoal and eat a good dinner of grass-fed ribeye steaks. Early the next morning, we go to the courts a last time and, I confess it, I deliver a bagel to my father.
Taking the northern route, I stop for two nights with my sister in Buffalo, where I hit some balls with my nephew and niece. It's been a great trip, eighteen-hundred solo miles in the Jeep, but it still makes me happy to get back to my turf, good old Elizabeth Street. I'm looking forward to playing again on my home courts in East River Park on the Lower East Side, where you play to the din and rumble of traffic on the looming Williamsburg Bridge. (Sadly, my frequency will be down to two times a week, if I'm lucky.) As many truly pleasant tennis clubs as I visited and enjoyed, the frazzled democracy of New York City public courts is what I like best.
********
A question was on my mind during the two weeks of my tennis road trip. I wondered it about the occupants of other cars as I whizzed by cornfields and truck stops. I wondered it about all my peeps on the West Virginia tennis courts. I wondered it about the woman who rang up my deep-fried chicken sandwich with pickles. I wondered it about the guy who sold me corn and peaches from his roadside stand, and about the guy behind me in line, wearing overalls and a t-shirt that says "I taught your girlfriend that thing she likes."
Federer or Nadal?
As it turns out, most people I asked like Andy Roddick. Hey, it's the heartland. I love asking people about tennis - evangelizing about tennis is like one of my hobbies. It's even gotten me out of an imminent bar fight once. Of all sports, tennis is the one that offers fans the most revealing and dramatic glimpses into human character, and offers players the clearest test of their self-belief. No matter what you know about wrist snaps or racquet-head speed, you can be fascinated by the fear and desire that ebbs and flows in a tennis match, or by the way you can feel a double-fault coming like a darkening sky finally cracking open with rain.
The innate drama of tennis is what motivates me to play, too. I just enjoy feeling that some moments are more meaningful than others. Some moments can't be taken back. People smoke cigarettes, it is said, as a way to mark time, to cordon off ten minutes from time's endless unfolding. Playing tennis matches is like that: they're discrete periods in which everything else fades out of importance. I don't always enjoy playing - who does, when nothing is working? - and I'm just a junior varsity-caliber athlete who plays for no tangible stakes. But I always have a sense that it means something, if only to me: that it matters when you're on a tennis court.
[Here is Part 2 of Ray's report on his personal Greatest Road Trip in Sports. Use this post for OT discussion if you wish; Ray wouldn't want it any other way! Pete]
Two days later, in media res, things aren't so good. It's the middle of my semifinal match, in a tournament I enjoy playing close to my dad's home in West Virginia. and I'm down a set and 3-1. My second serve is maddeningly inconsistent, and I can't seem to hit out on my forehand, and the other guy, who must be fifteen years older than me, is coming in off every short ball I hit and volleying them away. He's got big, cushiony hands, the kind guys who hit really solid volleys tend to have. My dad, watching from the sidelines, looks almost bored with how badly I'm playing, which is getting me more down (note to tennis parents: try to look engaged and optimistic, no matter what the situation, even if your son should have grown up ten years ago). I'm pretty much resigned to going home.
It's funny how tennis tips can be reminiscent of Zen koans. A couple of days earlier, I had hit with the club pro and he told me the solution to my serving woes was simple: "Trust your serve." He noticed that I was slowing down my swing when I got tight, not imparting enough spin to it, and thus the ball was sailing long. Serving at 1-3 and down a set, my dad having wandered off to watch another match, I remember this advice and for some reason, it seems like something to hang to, a log in a chaotic river of thoughts. As dumb as it sounds, I keep saying "trust your serve" internally and it clears my mind somehow. Sometimes tips aren't really tips: they're just mind erasers. But they work: my serve stops sailing and my forehand stops landing short. I grind out the second set, 6-4.
As I do, I start realizing how tired my older opponent must be getting. He can't be enjoying the prospect of playing a third set in the ninety-degree West Virginia sun. And it's true: the third set goes quickly, and suddenly I'm into the final on Sunday. New life. After celebrating with another fried chicken sandwich and two 32-ounce thermos jugs of water, I go out the next day and take care of business in the final. Well, with one blip: after leading 6-2, 3-1, I lose serve and let my opponent back into the set, at which point I happen to notice my father looking down into the sunken clay courts at me. "Every crucial point and you make a mistake," he says. Thanks, pops. In a loud voice, I say, "Thanks for pointing that out," turn back to the court, and finish the job in a tiebreaker. Family psychodrama notwithstanding, it's a nice sensation.
Over the next few days I hit with a variety of people, and my game starts to feel better and better. First is a session with an assistant coach from a college tennis team. I can hang with him, but struggle to handle the heavy topspin, and rallies inevitably turn his way. Then I play a few practice sets with Sierra, a comely summer tennis instructor who during the school year is the number one player on her Division II college team.
I don't know why this is, but I always play more consistently against women. I wonder if it's true for other men. There is an easier, funner rhythm, a lack of any sour tension, and a sense of the game as a collaboration to hit the ball well rather than an establishment of alpha status. I love to practice with women. Against Sierra, I rarely miss, spin serves in with ease, and move fluidly around the court - basically I play the best tennis I can. Having played about ten days straight, I just feel so comfortable on court - I wish I could play this much the whole year. Sierra has that deep, nut-brown tennis players' tan. I look down at my arm, and realize: I have it too! Just in time to leave for my next stop: Indianapolis.
Having borrowed my dad's car (luxury! air-conditioning!), I race across I-70, to the site of Frank Dancevic's coming-out party at the RCA championships. Frank would have probably driven this same road himself, in his mad dash from Niagara Falls to Indianapolis after receiving a wildcard. There's something charming about the story of the Canadian number one's road trip - it strikes me that once you get below the top hundred in the world, you're making less than your average corporate lawyer, playing for love and that curiously soothing act: hitting a tennis ball. Just like me. Only several orders of magnitude better.
Just how many orders of magnitude becomes clear in Indy. A few minutes walk from my cousin's house lies a beautiful, unpretentious and unsnobby tennis/swim club, where she, her husband and four tots go for a dip. Meanwhile, I pay twenty-three dollars to hit with Nathan, a summer employee who plays tennis at Purdue University during the year. He's a good-natured, gangly twenty year-old with a rubber-band physique. He smiles as he gives me a taste of what a good college player is capable of: deep looping backhands to the corners and whipcracked forehands off of low balls.
The constant zzzzzz of heavy topspin gives his ball that menacing modern trajectory: more of a whale's snub nose than a parabolic arc. The only place I can hang with young Nathan is when I'm volleying, where I can win some points with deep volleys followed by shallow crosscourt dropshots. We finish up and I'm completely exhausted, dripping from head to toe. My arm is literally quivering from dealing with the topspin. We shake and Nathan grins, "Gotta run, I've only got fifteen minutes for lunch." "What do you do afterwards?" I ask. "Oh, a few more of these."
Next morning, I'm still shaking my head at that as I start the drive back to WV for the homestretch of my summer.
Mornin', everyone. Don Rutledge, perhaps better known at TennisWorld as Slice -n- Dice, was kind enough to be our eyes and ears at the recent Davis Cup tie in Winston-Salem. Here is his report on a Davis Cup weekend filled with smokin' forehands, watery beer, hott Spanish flyboys, big-box outlets stores and the odd tiara - PB
The last time North Carolina hosted the Davis Cup was in 2001, when the U.S. squad defeated India to stay in the World Group. This past Easter weekend, (you’ll have to tolerate the references to Christian holidays; after all, we are smack in the middle of the Bible Belt), the USTA and Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe brought the American squad back to host a tie against the perennially successful Spain with a semifinal berth at stake.
Winston-Salem started out as a tobacco town (Winston was a Marlboro competitor and Salem a popular menthol brand), and tobacco money certainly helped W-Sevolve into a cozy town now better known for the Wake Forest University basketball teams and the world-renowned Bowman-Grey Medical Center. I drove for two hours due west in I-40 to arrive at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum (where the WFU Demon Deacons play), along one of the weirdest stretches of Interstate highway you'll find anywhere.
Burlington, between Durham and Winston-Salem, is awash in factory-direct shops, factory irregular shops, and it features a china replacement megastore; Greensboro, where the Ku Klux Klan once clashed with the American Communist Party, leaving several dead, is on this stretch, as is High Point, a world center for furniture that is rapidly being eclipsed by convention-friendly Las Vegas. On the road to W-S you'll find a place like the Dockside Dolls strip joint sharing a parking lot with the Life Fellowship Baptist Church (come to think of it, in North Carolina that's not all that odd). This part of the state, called the Piedmont, is also known for its red clay soil and brick manufacturing industry. It would be a prime area to develop a clay-court tennis facility and open an academy. Think Barcelona on the Haw River. And that brings us to the business at hand.
Joel Coliseum seats about 14,500, and we had a packed house for the three-day sellout against Spain. I arrived at the coliseum early on Good Friday - but not early enough to catch Andy Roddick's practice session. I did get to meet a home-grown celebrity, Miss North Carolina, a High Point girl named Elizabeth "Lizzie" Horton. She was there, tiara and all, to sing the National Anthem. She's a cute, pixie-like young woman who claims to have played on her high school tennis team.
I watched Fernando Verdasco practice. He's got good wheels (he’s from Spain - ‘nuff said), a huge roundhouse forehand, and a flat two-handed backhand. He can blast a flat first serve, which is dart-like, but not heavy, like Blake's or Roddick's. I was a bit surprised by his volleys. He gets a late start with his feet, and often lets his elbow collapse behind him on his forehand wing. A decent teaching pro would make him keep his elbow in front of his belly button.
My seats were in Section 213, Row P, Seat 1, in the Upper Level. It's just a half-dozen rows from the roof line, but there isn't a bad seat in the JC. I wish I could say the same for the food and fan-unfriendly restrictions. For example, you can't take in beverages - not even water. And as there are no fountains, the only option is the 16 oz. bottle of water - at $3 a pop. Highway robbery appears to be the MO at arenas these days. The "beer" was hardly deserving of the name: Bud Light and Icehouse.
I watched a couple of guys juggling and firing plastic bowling pins at each other; the other pre-match activities included the Calypso Tumblers, five gumbys who performed amazing contortions. Blake had a fan contingent in the Upper Level; they were wearing Blake Blue and bearing drums. The Spanish contingent of fans were clad in red and seated in a block behind their team’s bench. Every time they tried to whoop it up and make some noise with their cow bells, rattles and horns, the PA system instantly drowned them out with heavy American rock 'n' roll.
Each day started with pomp and circumstance, featuring the local National Guard Armory Color Guard. It seemed overly somber, except for the odd touch of sparklers that were ignited when the U.S. team entered the court. I wondered, though, why the USTA doesn't come up with some sort of traveling tennis show - something a little more festive - featuring kids, or a small troupe of athletes, who would showcase tennis in some super-lively, acrobatic manner, a la Ringling Brothers or Harlem Globetrotters.
The action was a bit pedestrian on the first day, except for Blake's performance against Spanish No. 1 Tommy Robredo in the opening match. James came out so fired up that he resembled MIA Rafael Nadal as he bounced on his toes and then dashed back to the baseline to start the warm-up. You could sense that he was hungry for a win, although taking on the mercurial world No. 6 on a slick, rubberized surface wasn't a gimme by any means. To his credit, Blake saw his opportunity, and he seized it boldly.
Robredo’s game is silky smooth, featuring relaxed, easy strokes off both sides. But he never seems able to really crank it up a notch when it's most needed. He hurts his opponent with disguise, using his classic windshield-wiper forehand to yank opponents from side to side or wrong-foot them. But he cocks his wrist back, and it stays rigid throughout the stroke; hence, he's unable to get that extra bit of leverage, or pop, from a good wrist snap.
The path Robredo's racket travels on the forehand side is perfectly circular; he doesn’t really extend out toward his target. On his backhand side, he gets a bit more extension, but again - he never breaks his wrist. It's always cocked back. That may help disguise his stroke, it also keeps him from hitting shots like the very useful, cross-court, sharply angled "dipper." Also, he doesn't use slice. Given his great foot speed, picture-perfect footwork, and early preparation, adding slice would give him a ton of options. Robredo's stock in trade is keeping his opponent running and mixing up his direction; at that, he is a genius. His strokes are studied, a testament to technique.
Robredo's first serve is good, but he went to Blake's forehand too often. His second serve is a weakness, at least on this surface, which seemed to have a deadening effect on bounce and spin. Robredo's serve can't hurt anyone. So all Blake had to do was keep his errors and aggression in check. He used his head well in this match, despite the wild cheering and adulation showered on him from the packed house. In Davis Cup, it's okay to be unashamedly biased and even to cheer a visiting player's errors. It's a weird departure for me, but I get into character quickly. The most effective ploy of a home crowd is to remain utterly silent when a visiting player does something brilliant. I'm sure it makes the guy feel very lonely out there.
Roddick and Verdasco were next up. Verdasco, ranked No. 35, is a terrific athlete but even from the upper reaches of the coliseum his swagger was obvious. But it wasn't wise to strut around in Roddick's face; it just made him angry, in his house, in front of his people. Verdasco played brilliantly in patches, He was up 5-3 in the opening set, but blew it with some sloppy, nervous play. It was like Roddick realized that Verdasco was cock-n-bull, and he never looked back after getting back on serve. Verdasco had 14 aces in the match, but Verdasco threw in ill-timed double faults and otherwise seemed to wilt when it most counted. Roddick seemed content to roam the backcourt, six to eight feet behind the baseline, a position that didn't allow him to make the most use of his forehand weapon, but clearly he didn't need it.
It was interesting, throughout the tie, to watch the teams' benches. Each player has quirks and a personal way of engagement - or disengagement. Watching Blake on Day One and the Bryans on Day Two, Roddick alternated between biting his cuticles and spacing out. Mardy Fish seemed to be always nudging his neighbor and showing him the latest text message on his iPod or BlackBerry. Feli Lopez was the epitome of cool, detachment - BTW, ladies, he seems less "handsome" than "pretty." As for the coaches: Spain’s Emilio Sanchez (yes, Aranxta’s older brother) was a constant presence for his players, always ready with a word of advice or strategy. In contrast, McEnroe was sedate, rarely offering much in the way of counsel.
On Doubles Saturday, Bob and Mike Bryan, the world's top doubles team, took on the unranked pair of Feliciano Lopez and Verdasco. The cognescenti might not have predicted that Lopez and Verdasco would put up much of a fight, but with their big serves and huge forehands, they're a threat on any surface. I hope we see more of them, because they are highly entertaining and a very capable doubles team.
The Twin Towers, aka Bryan Brothers, are simply from another planet. The Bryans bounce in sync, leap around in sync, and even their switches and crosses seem to take place with telepathic understanding. They are freaks. I'm convinced that would beat any doubles team the ATP could put together. Bob Bryan, the lefty, may have the best volley in the game, bar none. Both Bryan men frequently jumped on opportunities to finish off points inches from the net.
I expected an empty venue and uninspired play with the tie decided after the doubles, but Day Three was a pleasant surprise. One thing about North Carolinians: they take their tennis seriously. Make it two things: They also like to get their money’s worth. So they turned out on Sunday in numbers (I’d estimate about 12,000 were in the house) to watch the meaningless matches pitting Robredo against Bob Bryan, a substitute for the ham-strung Roddick, and Verdasco against James Blake.
I enjoyed watching Bob Bryan play singles. He came out swinging - and he kept on swinging until the end. But he was up against the No. 6 player in the world, who wasn’t about to be beaten by a doubles specialist. Once Robredo got a service break late in the first set, he just steamrolled, using his guile and disguise to keep Bryan on his heels, guessing and hesitating. It became clear why Robredo holds that lofty ranking, but still I feel that he’ll need added firepower to win on the faster surfaces and stay in the top ten. In the other match, Blake took out Lopez.
As a footnote, it seemed to me that Captain McEnroe and the coaches spent an inordinate amount of time working with Donald Young, a prodigy who hasn't yet lived up to his early billing. Watching them put Young through his paces, I noticed that, aside from not having great size, Young's backhand is suspect. He buggy-whips it, a la Agassi, minus the early preparation. Consequently, he sprays an awful lot of balls into the net or well beyond the baseline. The Young backhand is a glaring weakness; he needs to work on simplifying his technique.
The officiating was less than stellar. At one point in the doubles match, the Chair Umpire ruled that one of the Bryan twins had "carried" the ball on a volley. But everyone knows that there's no such thing in tennis as a "carry" anymore. You either hit it twice, as in "with two distinct motions", or you made one motion and the ball just happened to be delayed on the strings or frame. While hitting it twice is illegal, and results in the loss of the point,the "carry" is legal. The chair ruled a let, which compounded the error, and added insult to injury by awarding the contested point to Verdasco-Lopez when captain McEnroe protested. I've seen bad overrules, but this one was inexplicable.
North Carolina tennis fans know their stuff, so they booed the chair umpire when he deserved it, and showed the visiting team respect by being seated and quiet when the ball was about to be put in play. It was a loud and enthusiastic crowd, but an attentive one. James Blake and Bob Bryan both were effusive in their appreciation of the home crowd, and made it clear they had rarely received such support. North Carolinians should be proud of the way they comported themselves.
Chivalry may be a thing of the past, but regional pride sure ain't.
Ray: Let me start by observing that, you, Andrew, blatantly lied about your appearance on TW. Decrepit? Hardly - you barely look ancient.
Anyway, I blearily rolled into IW on Saturday morning (emphatically not wearing black jeans, thanks Pete), and you told me that the joint was jumping from a bizarre Friday evening session. What the heck happened?
Andrew: Bizarre may be a kind word. I was in the stands for Murray vs. Haas. Haas has a very efficient classic game - Murray, not so much. The guy creates a kind of negative energy aura - if Federer gets people to play up above their level (though they still lose), then Murray induces a kind of anti-flow in his opponents. By the end of that extraordinary match, Haas didn't know if he was punchboard or countersunk, as my dad used to say.
Ray: Anti-flow, huh? Here's how the weekend started for me. It turns out that "sunny" California is a major understatement. Driving out into the desert Saturday morning, after running into Vin-dawg Spadea in West Hollywood, it struck me that the sun can kill you! Man, was it hot.
Anyway, I met Steggy and Pete, who were waiting for me in the parking lot. News flash: Pete looks a lot younger than his picture.
He gave me a handshake and a smile and made me feel like part of the team; he's a gem, Chief Pedro is. Steggy, well, she's a glamorous tennis journalist and five-star fixer rolled into one. She helped me find items I'd somehow neglected to bring to the broiling desert, like sunglasses, hats, shorts, courts, Cokes, racquets, motels, and was just plain fun. Except when she made us stop drinking.
Steggy: I didn't make them stop drinking -- they shut down the bar!
Ray: Back to Saturday. Out on the practice courts, Roddick was hammering down serves that from ten feet away seemed outright dangerous. This ended up only increasing my respect for the man who later returned them.
In their semifinal Rafa simply hit a better ball than Andy, at the basic level of pace and topspin. He could also hit from an amazing variety of contact points, from the whip forehand off impossibly low balls to kick-serve backhand returns seven feet in the air.
Andrew, I know you could only see partially, what with your sheikh get-up of hat and headress:
But what say you?
Andrew: I could see enough that my respect for Nadal went way up. He was driving forward into every ball, taking it close to the baseline and early. He won on offense. Roddick played two sloppy service games, and that was all she wrote. But the match wasn't really as close as 6-4, 6-3. Big gap right now between No 2 and the rest of the pack, I'd say.
Ray: I agree -- though Roddick was way too loose in the two decisive breaks. Seems he's having trouble bringing his best on the big points in the big matches right now. Anyway, then we watched the women's final, which was a surprisingly balanced and intense performance from Daniela, who has great ankles. What was your take?
Andrew: I think Hantuchova has great ankles, shins, knees. And femurs.
She also controlled the match, and didn't blink when she had to close it out. Steggy said that Kuznetsova was complaining about the heat in the cafeteria. God knows what she made of the heat on the court.
Steggy: Svetlana was discussing the heat (and how much it impacted her previous match) with Lindsay Davenport -- who was very casual and glowing with health -- and Mary Jo Fernandez over pasta and salad.
Ray: Kuzzie's got great femurs, too. But neither of 'em were a patch on those Serbian flag-waving girls you innocently chatted up about mixed doubles. As a younger man, I admire your ability to think about these issues from a purely formal, aesthetic point of view.
Andrew: Hey, you're not just younger, you're unattached. I was just trying to take out insurance against a whipping in our own Sunday Smackdown tennis at the Holiday Inn Express. Much good it did me: the girls didn't show, you passed me remorselessly with that two-handed backhand, and Steggy was there to record the damage. Never had you as a Hewitt kind of guy, but the camera never lies...
Ray: Well, sometimes the intensity just catches up with you. You should know, after hitting winner after winner and celebrating like the Raj:
Of course, I was handicapped by those shorts you lent me - forget shirtless Chucho, I shoulda gone shortless Stonada.
Steggy: Shortless or not, Ray is one hell of a volleyer. Good forehand, but he'd be wise to ditch the two-handed backhand in favor of a one-hander. Andrew's forehand is a beautiful thing, and his one-handed backhand is quite crisp.
Andrew: Well, we weren't keeping score on the fashion or tennis front, much to Pete's disgust. No warriors there! I think Djokovic must have wished the ATP wasn't keeping score in the first set.
Nadal came ready to play, and Djokovic came ready to - well, hit a 26% first serve percentage, take 2 of the first 18 points, and see the set whistle by. Not quite perfect, IMV.
Ray: The men's final was clearly the biggest match of young VertiDjoko's life, whereas for Nadal it wasn't close to the top five, and as we theorized the night before at the Beer Hunter, that differential pressure showed up as flatness for Djoko. He has more work to do in terms of managing his emotions in matches. But let's give some credit to Rafa, who'll probably take it and hit a screaming down the line forehand off it. His confidence and full aggression are definitely back.
Andrew: We both had Nadal at 65-70% for the win, so I don't think we were shocked. But we were impressed.
I got to do most of what I hoped on the trip, with the painful exception of not seeing Federer play. What were the odds he wouldn't even make the QF? (Powers up Cray, runs Impressive Tennis Software) Maybe 25%. Oh well, ma'aleesh.
I did get to meet you, Pete and Steggy. Ray, your online personality is a street-smart Italian New Yorker. Two out of three ain't bad.
Having a Tribe member next to you in the stands beats match calling. And hey, if you want me to play wingman next time with one of those Serbian girls, I'll grit my teeth for you, bud. We Englishmen will go the extra mile...
Steggy had the most memorable line of the week. Unfortunately it was delivered in the Beer Hunter, and I've forgotten it. I suspect the take-charge persona is a little bit of a mask for deep feeling, but can't hide real kindness.
Steggy: Quit ruining my evil reputation, Andrew! I believe the "memorable line" came when you and Ray were busy arguing Nadal/Roddick over your third or fourth drinks; it suddenly occured to me that I was experiencing TennisWorld.. only it was Live. :)
Andrew: Plus, the lady picked "Fables of the Reconstruction" as the standout R.E.M. album, so she has taste to burn.
If there was one surprise, it was the amount of time we got to hang with our electronic proprieter, Mr. Bodo. I honestly expected a quick handshake, maybe five minutes of friendly conversation, then off to business. Not a bit of it. I hope he had as good a time in our company as I had in his - including a tour of Indian Wells to find an open toy store. And I trust Cowboy Luke got as much pleasure from his "Bob the Builder" as Cathleen did from her "Bratz" doll.
Anyhow, overall verdict: Rafael Nadal - my thumb is up. Murray, The Anti-Agassi (MTAA): up, when he's moving freely again. Men's doubles: down, it pains me to say it. Pete and Steggy: two thumbs, way, way up. Great company, great organizers, know a thing or two about tennis. A la prochaine, sir.
Ray: I heartily second your thumbs, and add some of my own. Hantuchova and Djoko: both up after a long-awaited second title and a first career "speech match," respectively. Pete and Steggy: I add massive big ups to your thumbs. My crosscourt backhand: thumbs down. And finally, your daughter Cathleen: thumbs up, for excellent choice of dad. It was a pleasure hanging with you, esse.
[Ed. Note: Hey, Tribe. Codepoke, whose real name is Kevin Knox, filed this Battlefield Report shortly before I left for vacation. This is one bad ex-diesel mechanic, beating up on an elderly Polish gentleman who coaches 'poke's own son. Enjoy, and in the coming days I hope more of you are moved to produce BRs for us!Thanks, Kev, well done -- PB]
I hate playing the old guys.
You know the ones. They bring an extra racket, even though they haven't broken a string in decades. They grimace and regale you with their litany of injuries before you start, and then proceed to paint every line with winners.
My son's coach is one of those. He's a old, Polish lefty who's known the game for longer than my four decades. I hit the ball a good twenty miles an hour faster than he does, and my serve is worth twice as many points as his. On paper, there's no point in us playing, but before last week I had never beaten him.
His ankle was a mess that day. Today is the rematch. He's healthy and so am I, at least by old-guy standards.
I go up 3-0 quickly. I am repeatedly burying him in his forehand corner, and he is barely getting floaters back down the center to me. I let these bounce, and drive them into one corner or the other - at least for those first three games. After putting five or six free points away like this, I begin to think about why it's working. Then I miss one, and I begin asking myself why it's not working.
So I back off, and suddenly nothing's working. By the middle of the second set, I am alternating pretty consistently between bouncing balls into the net and hitting the fence half-way up. In the blink of an eye, it's 4-6, 0-6 and I'm wondering what went wrong. Heck, I'm wondering whether the best fix wouldn't be never setting foot on a court again.
I choked. And I didn't do it in a small way. I'm not one of those guys who can choke and miss by a couple inches. Nope, when the choke is on, I may as well switch to my left hand. (Yes, that's a strategy I'm working on. I have my left hand up to almost 3.0 level now.) So I figured a Battlefield Whinge -- oh, excuse me -- Report on choking might be useful.
I did not know this, but there are different kinds of chokes, and some of us are more susceptible to one than another. When I finally got around to reading John McEnroe's autobiography, You Cannot Be Serious, I learned Mac choked when he fell behind. I treasure that book now, because he describes the insidious voice of mental defeat so well.
For me, the voice is that of a TV commentator.
How Cliff Drysdale's voice got into my head, and why it thinks it knows how to play tennis so well, I'll never know. Once Cliff starts, though, I'm dead.
I suspect most of us are front-running chokers. I know I am. Once I get in the lead, I start thinking about my shots. I start playing smarter. And smart is bad, very bad.
In football the "smart" thing to do is the "Prevent Defense". A smart football coach puts his team into the Prevent Defense when they are winning, and are willing to give up little victories, so long as they don't give up the touchdown.
The Prevent Defense allows everything, except the big touchdown. Which is as good as to say that it allows lots of little touchdowns. More football games that appear to be won are lost by the Prevent than any other single mistake in the football. More tennis matches, too.
In my head, Cliff's voice tells me to wait for my opponent to make a mistake. But by the time his advice reaches the end of my right hand, what comes out looks more like an unforced error. let's just say I have long arms. Somewhere between my head and hand, my thinking fuddles my mechanics, and I start painting the fence. But bear in mind I already was in safe-mode, so the effect of the error is even more demoralizing than usual. Then the next "smart" move is to back off a little more, and keep waiting for my opponent to make his mistake.
I'm sure Cliff told me my opponent would make a mistake. So, why is he painting lines all the sudden?
I'll call the third type of choke the pressure choke. That's the choke that comes at set point, for or against. At that moment ol' Cliff tells me I should gamble, or is it that I can't gamble? He's never sure. I hate that the commentators never know when to shut up.
I don't worry too much about the pressure choke. I do alright under pressure, all things considered. Everyone chokes under pressure (well not Mr. Federer, but you know what I mean) and I can fight the pressure choke better than the front-runner choke. There's something about knowing that my opponent is definitely coming to my backhand with set point on the line, and that helps me settle down and hit my first decent crosscourt winner of the day.
All in all, though, it's that front-running choke that repeatedly kicks my butt. I've tried all the mental games that are supposed to keep choking at bay in that situation. Tell yourself you're behind - check. Say reinforcing phrases to yourself - check. Pull back your shoulders, and lift your head - check. Worry about the process, not the outcome - check. Just play this point - check. Play the opponent - check. Don't play the opponent, play the ball - check.
Every one one of those ideas works brilliantly until I'm up 4-0 against a competent but beatable opponent. Then, suddenly, it's Cliff repeating them to me. Oddly enough, when spoken in his accent but in my head, the bromides don't seem to help.
So the other Friday, I decided to try a new mental game. The Blitz.
Again for those of you who don't follow football, the Blitz is the opposite of the Prevent Defense. The Blitz is what happens when the defense decides to get offensive. The Blitz says, "You'd better score a touchdown on this play, because I'm gonna make you hurt whether you do or don't. The Blitz risks everything for the chance to hit an opponent with a pre-emptive, first strike. And let's face it. There's no 7-point touchdown play in tennis. So why not Blitz? It just makes more sense.
On Friday, I went up 4-0 on my opponent - a guy who had erased a deficit the last two times we played to come back and beat me. So, when I lost the fifth game, it felt more like I was behind 1-4 than ahead 4-1. It was then the evil Mr. Drysdale started going on about "the ol' momentum shift" and "the last two meetings between...," and "what a career this Knox could have had."
The mind is a funny thing, and the fragile mind is an absolute riot. I swear, if squirrels were this stupid, the whole high-tech bird feeder industry would dry up overnight.
With the serve back on my side, I found myself preparing to lose from a 4-1 advantage. My arm wanted to twist the next 4 services in so badly it hurt. Cliff agreed. He reminded me repeatedly that this would be a horrible place to double-fault -- and that was just during my service motion. You should have heard him between points.
I delivered a big serve anyway. I blitzed.
Nobody was more shocked than me when the score clicked up to 5-1.
I made my opponent work for 2-5, but when the balls came back to my side I STILL wanted to spin my service in. Had I learned nothing? I still wanted to send forehands straight down the middle, and I still wanted to put a little more top on the ball, "just to be sure." Cliff started to say something, but I stuffed that third Wilson 4 tennis ball in his mouth, and kept blitzing.
It took everything I had to really unload on that last crosscourt forehand, but I did it, and it was a clean winner.
Just like Mr. McEnroe, my main feeling was not elation, but relief. I took the tennis ball out of Cliff's mouth, since accolades are actually fun to listen to, but he seemed to be at a loss for words.
Relief can feel pretty good. Maybe I won't quit this game quite yet.
Do y'all have any internal announcer moments? I'd love to hear how P-Mac would handle this..
Howdy, everyone. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. It’s Wednesday afternoon here in game-rich Andes, where we had three inches of snow overnight. We’ve just come in from a Redneck sleigh ride. I rigged a black plastic punt (the kind used by ice-fishermen and duck hunters to drag around gear and decoys) and 40 feet of strong poly rope to the back of the All-Terrain Vehicle, convinced Lisa and Cowboy Luke to sit in it, and then I dragged them around the back hay meadow. It was a big hit with Luke, and slightly less so with Lisa.
I’m especially proud of the dampener I made from two heavy bungee cords; it keeps the sled from jerking too much when you get a little slack in the tow line. Luke enjoyed dipping his hand over the side to scoop up snow to eat – you can do that in the woods.
Christmas Day produced the expectant drama, but in this case it wasn’t the emotional kind, where somebody runs out of the room crying because of a real or imagined put-down or slight. It was a dog fight, between sister Susan’s shepherd mix, Little Bear, and my niece Sarah’s lab-terrier cross, Lucy.
Both of them are alpha females; sometimes they get along fine, at others, they hunt trouble. This time, my brother-in-law David and Sarah’s boyfriend Rob got in the middle of it.
Injury report: one dog and two people KO’d, requiring quick visits to ER at the local hospital and the vet (that one for Lucy, who received puncture wounds in her right hindquarter). David had a nasty bite at the base of his thumb (sustained while rasslin' his own Li’l Bear off Lucy) and somebody left a nice little puncture (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t David) in Rob’s forearm.
It all happened quickly, outside, while I was upstairs playing with the ‘Poke and his new Thomas trains. When it was over, everybody went back inside to have cookies and tea and try to rationalize why the two dogs – and they are good, loyal dogs - went at it. Because they’re dogs. End of story.
So how did your Christmas go? My tally was pleasingly modest: a neat daypack in Seclusion 3-D camo (it will have to go back for the larger model) from my secret Santa, a pair of tan suede desert-boot type shoes (from Lisa), and an indoor-outdoor weather station (from Luke, but it’s to replace the one that broke and Lisa’s been after me to fix forever). Not bad, given that we basically have four Christmases, mostly because of Luke: Christmas Eve present exchange at Susan’s, Christmas morning there (mostly the kids), Santa’s surprise visit at the farm the following morning, and one more to come – Santa’s visit to the apartment in New York. I’ve been stockpiling some of Luke’s haul, which will be re-gifted or given to charity.
So seeing as how off-topic is really on-topic until the New Year, how did you all do? Anybody have a great holiday battlefield report? I wonder if our Jewish Tribesmen go through some of the anxieties and conflicting emotions that Christians (including nominal ones) experience during the holiday season (I hate the commercialism of Christmas. Oh my God! I forgot to buy something for aunt Sylvia’s friend from the Historical Society, what’s her name?, Quick, call Harry and David’s!!!!) . Hanukkah always seemed much more low-key and stress free holiday to me, although the traditions (including music) and iconic images of Christmas are flat-out awesome.
Well, the snow is falling gently again, Lisa’s gone to the gym in Delhi, Luke is pushing his Thomas trains around and I’m trying to write this while impersonating Sir Topham Hatt, the rotund, authoritarian superintendent of the railway on the magical island of Sodor (Playing the authoritarian role comes easily to me. Lisa thinks I’m overbearing and bossy, but hey, I know what’s best for people, even when they don’t, so what’s so pushy about that?).
I’m going to try to post this, or at least email it to Steggy in a few hours from the Andes hotel. Nothing wrong with having one with the stone cutters and loggers while I’m down there, is there? After all, somebody’s got to tell those guys how to run their operations.
PS – Sitting in the Andes hotel, tall beer and popcorn chicken beside me as I post this. Is this Internet thing cool, or what?
Ed. Note: The news of TennisWorld Elder Ray Stonada’s big win on the court a few weeks ago got us thinking, and we decided to add a new feature to TW’s coverage of the game: Battlefield Reports by our readers. A lot of you play tournament tennis, right? You know the issues at stake whenever you keep score for some “official” reason, like a trophy, or bragging rights at your local club: choking, hooking, grinding it out, grinding your opponent down, sportsmanship, self-knowledge, raw, slice-of-life glimpses of humanity at its best – and worst.
So we thought it would be fun to keep a record of the mighty flailings and thrashings, the astronaut or Icarus-like flights toward the sun, the good, the bad and the ugly, and the triumphs and disasters experienced by the TW tribe, in their own words.
Battlefield Reports will not be limited to tournaments, either. If you have a story to tell (I can’t beat my doubles partner in singles, but I can beat everyone who beats her. It’s driving me nuts! or I played my sister in our town tournament and she hooked me on match-point and I went on to lose, or How come my old man can still beat me), shoot an email to me or Steggy, TW’s Hillbilly Princess, and we’ll take it from there. . .
To kick things off, I asked Steggy to write up the first Battlefield Report, based on the quarterly tournament she and a few friends stage in Houston, Tejas.
Her report:
Spuds MacKenzie Summer Invitational When: July 28th, 2005 Where: Courts at the corner of Tanglewilde/Ella Lee Time: 8:00 pm What to Bring: Booze, Babes, Balls, and Bug Repellant Trophy: Vintage 4' tall, 100% Polyester stuffed "Spuds MacKenzie"
For anyone who is passionate about tennis, the heart of the game is not really found on the world stages of Melbourne Park, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, or Flushing Meadows. Rather, it beats and makes itself heard out on the anonymous, sodium-lit backcourts where Joe Q. Public battles DNA, self-doubt, and bodily punishment in order to win the ultimate prize: bragging rights for an all-too-brief season of glory.
Time flew past during my stint as reigning Spring Champion of our quarterly Not-Quite-Grand-Slam and my stats pedigree going into the Summer tournament (held this year in honor of my 32nd birthday) was modest; I was ranked #3 out of eight in our league standings. I was in passable shape and did not consider my advancing age to be a hindrance against my rivals, who represented both sexes and a span of ages and talent levels.
I felt good going in.
My preparation was erratic; while I thoughtfully took along an extra can of balls, I managed to forget the bug repellant. We crowded bags and bodies into three cars and headed off to the courts where we started things off with a small birthday champagne toast -- two magnums' worth. Then, elegantly and with great ceremony, names were drawn from an empty Cheetos bag. I was in the “soft” top half of the draw, along with two ladies in their 30s and one man in his early 40's. The bottom half of the draw was stacked with youth, masculinity, and brute-force power; four men in their early to mid 20's.
I managed to make it through the sudden-death first and second rounds (we only play one set in each, winner advancing in the single-elimination format) despite feeling slightly dizzy and overly loose from the pre-match champagne.
It was down to me vs. Geoffrey in the final, a David and Goliath match-up . Geoff is eleven years younger, five inches taller, twenty pounds heavier - and has the advantage of a testosterone-driven 130mph serve on his side. I had knocked Geoff out in the first round of the Spring tournament. As a result, I knew he would be out for blood, both physical and mental.
As we flipped a coin to see who would serve, Geoff fired his warning shot across the bow. For the second time that day, he wished me a happy 32nd birthday and inquired "So, how's it feel to be playing to five at your age?" – a reference to our old school, Grand-Slam-grade, five-set final.
Geoff, for the record, is a strapping 21-year old who pops five-setters like Smarties. I smiled sweetly, told him to go roast in hell, and prayed that my knees wouldn't let me down.
They didn't. I blistered Geoff in the first set by blunting his power with tactical precision and extreme pace changes. Every drop-shot landed soft and short, forcing him to come scrambling up from the baseline to retrieve. The calculating, angled passing shots I executed appeared to bewilder him. It was no surprise to any of the onlookers, nor me, when Geoff the Hothead sent his racquet flying over the fence to the Back-40 after I closed out the first set, 6-2.
Geoff spent the 3-minute break between sets bush-hogging his way through live oaks and scrub cedar to retrieve his Babolat. I drank more champagne. Enough alcohol in my blood, I figured, just might ward off the mosquitos.
The second set was a reversal of fortune. Geoff kept me pinned to the baseline with his forehand and a feral gleam in his eye. His shotmaking was, I admit, gorgeous and precise. From one corner of the court to the other, game after agonizing game, he kept stretching my reach out wide until I could not return the ball. Geoff finished the set off at 6-3.
While he basked in the attentions of his blonde admirers during the break, I spent the time chugging water and cursing myself, my ageing body, the vicious bugs, the fuzzy balls, and my absolute lack of the latter.
Intense self-loathing occasionally proves useful on court. I managed to eke out the third set (mostly due to luck), 7-5. Geoff countered with 6-4 in the fourth, brutalizing my body at the baseline once more and bringing us all even for the final, and deciding, set.
It was nearing midnight and we were both exhausted. So tired, in fact, that we had long since stopped swatting away biting insects. Geoff's serving speed dropped off and my footwork became lazy. As a result, the final set became a seemingly interminable battle of service breaks. On match point I made the fatal mistake of trying for a lob and the ball fell short, allowing Geoff to crush an overhead. Game, Set, Match, Goliath. (2-6), 6-3,(7-5), 6-4, 7-5.
I managed to drag my weary feet to the net to congratulate my opponent, thinking little and feeling nothing. Instead I began to see a three month vista of Geoff, newly crowned King of our little hill, exagerrating past rallies over happy-hour drinks and strutting like a rooster at upcoming hitting sessions. I had little consolation in knowing that I had, at least, made him earn his right to rule.
Geoff, not overtly concerned with winning, shook hands and asked where I'd like to eat a post-mortem meal. I paused a moment, and replied "Somewhere without mosquitos." We ate at House of Pies, where Geoff began to enjoy his reign as King by recounting the second set in all of its delicious detail to the entire restaurant staff, demolishing an entire Coconut Cream Pie in the process.
I plan to make his time on the throne very, very brief.
Ed. Note: At various points in the second draft of this communiqué, where I had asked Steggy for things like more details, she inserted comments an strange confessions, like: “I Was Very Drunk, Bitter, and Seeing Things, Pete.”
Okay, that explains why in the first draft this was a (seeing) doubles tournament. I also didn’t know what to make of the rumor the police showed, and Steggy just narrowly averting the humiliation (actually, a triumph where I come from) of being led away from her own final in her own tournament on her own birthday in handcuffs.
Top that, Roscoe! (another Tennessean, I might add.)
Thanks, Steggy. I love a girl who knows what a bush hog is. I'll bet you’re barefoot right now!
NFL fans will need no telling that Denver is a mile high, and the balls really fizz and pop off the court. I also learned that the lower air resistance causes less bite on the fuzzy tennis balls, so it's harder to impart spin. That's my excuse for the number of times my pinpoint groundstrokes went a foot long.
He had a nasty kick serve to the ad court: I found I could slice it back, only to set up a put away volley to the deuce court. When he hit an ace down the T with the same service preparation, I decided it was force majeure. I held him to one break of serve, but couldn't create any BPs of my own. No matter - it was an unanticipated pleasure, and I had to smile when I saw the rack of Tennis magazines on display in the club bar.
Winston-Salem started out as a tobacco town (Winston was a Marlboro competitor and Salem a popular menthol brand), and tobacco money certainly helped W-Sevolve into a cozy town now better known for the Wake Forest University basketball teams and the world-renowned Bowman-Grey Medical Center. I drove for two hours due west in I-40 to arrive at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum (where the WFU Demon Deacons play), along one of the weirdest stretches of Interstate highway you'll find anywhere.
Anyway, I blearily rolled into IW on Saturday morning (emphatically not wearing black jeans, thanks Pete), and you told me that the joint was jumping from a bizarre Friday evening session. What the heck happened?
Andrew, I know you could only see partially, what with your sheikh get-up of hat and headress:
Andrew: Hey, you're not just younger, you're unattached. I was just trying to take out insurance against a whipping in our own Sunday Smackdown tennis at the Holiday Inn Express. Much good it did me: the girls didn't show, you passed me remorselessly with that two-handed backhand, and Steggy was there to record the damage. Never had you as a Hewitt kind of guy, but the camera never lies...
I did get to meet you, Pete and Steggy. Ray, your online personality is a street-smart Italian New Yorker. Two out of three ain't bad. 
Ray: I heartily second your thumbs, and add some of my own. Hantuchova and Djoko: both up after a long-awaited second title and a first career "speech match," respectively. Pete and Steggy: I add massive big ups to your thumbs. My crosscourt backhand: thumbs down. And finally, your daughter Cathleen: thumbs up, for excellent choice of dad. It was a pleasure hanging with you, esse.
For me, the voice is that of a TV commentator. 
Howdy, everyone. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. It’s Wednesday afternoon here in game-rich 
