Deuce
Banned
On to the next day (Wednesday)...
Walking by a practice court, I saw Kevin Ullyett and Wayne Black hitting. But they were doing more than just hitting... they were trading cross-court forehands. But they were doing more than just hitting cross-court forehands... they were each trying to hit a small target placed in the corner of the court. The target was a small bottle of water. I asked Ullyett if they have money on this. He said "No - just favors" - likely meaning things like washing the other's Porsche or Jaguar. Ullyett hit the bottle twice. Black didn't hit it on the forehand. They then switched to backhand. Again, Ullyett hit it twice, prompting me to tell him he should film this as a commercial for Wilson racquets. Again, Black, using a Babolat Pure Drive (or at least the graphics of the Pure Drive) was shut out, thus offering yet more evidence that the Pure Drive is not a control racquet.
I then headed over to one of the outside courts they play matches on early in the week to watch some doubles. As I often do, I sat near a coach - this time, Leander Paes' coach, Balkishen Singh. I soon realized that I was literally in the center of the Paes 'entourage'. They were all nice people and we all had some fun when Paes rather insistently questioned a call on the baseline (which is where we all were sitting). Finally, after the humor died down, I said to Mr. Singh: "I guess the guys aren't very happy about the doubles changes, huh?" He replied, rather emphatically, "Nobody is happy." We engaged in a discussion on the subject, during which he said "The players don't know how or when these changes happened. The ATP is supposed to be an organization working with, for, and by the players - but the people at the top are making decisions on their own."
When I put forth the idea of a doubles-only circuit, Mr. Singh surprisingly wasn't very keen on the idea. He said that the changes are "just experimental", and likely won't remain. He's more optimistic in this regard than are many others.
Saw Lou again, exiting Court #1. I saw that he chatted in an amicable way with the usher. I said to him "Looks like you've got at least one usher in your pocket." He said "Yeah, I'm lucky - he likes me, and so lets me go down." A little later, on another court, Lou actually came up to me to ask the result of a previous match on that court. I cannot describe what an absolute honor that was.
At about 5pm, we were treated to a wonderful sound and light show, courtesy of Mother Nature. Lots of impressive lightning and extremely loud thunder. But only very few widely scattered drops of rain. The rain wasn't enough to put a stop to any tennis - but everyone was pulled off all the courts because of the lightning. This occurred just as the day session was ending, and so the place pretty much emptied out.
After the thunder & lightning moved off, it appeared that things were getting going again around 5:30pm. The linespeople, umpires, and ball kids all resumed their places on the courts, which were still bone dry. But no players came out. I spotted Gayle Bradshaw, and went over to him. Bradshaw is the ATP supervisor of tournaments. He was busy 'eeing and awing' on the walkie-talkie about the weather, and about whether the players should be brought out onto the courts - all while gazing up at the sky. I said to him "The lightning is 16 miles away now." He said "Yeah, but there's apparently more of it coming." I said "Well, there's a window open now to play - it would probably be good to take advantage of it and play." (30 minutes of the window had already been wasted.) He said something about safety and the unpredictability of lightning. I said, laughing, "The problem is that there's too much damn metal around this place." He laughed and said "Yeah, that is a big problem with lightning." I said "The next time they renovate this place, make sure they use plastics instead of metals wherever they can." With that, the rain began. As he headed off, Bradshaw said to me "We'll play tennis tonight - don't worry - we'll play." I said "If not, there'll be a lot of tennis tomorrow." He said "Yeah - it'll be a good ticket."
(Later in the night, after the rain stopped and play resumed, I had the interesting, and rather unique, opportunity to spend about an hour with Mr. Bradshaw, who, in addition to being the ATP supervisor of many tournaments, is also Vice-President of the ATP. We were completely alone - just the two of us - on the top walkway of court #1, from which perch we could see three matches. This was at about 11pm to midnight. I asked him several questions - about Lou, about the changes to doubles, about steroids, etc..., and we had an enjoyable little chat on a beautiful night. I'll put up a separate post - thread - about our conversation later, or tomorrow. I found it to be quite interesting.)
It rained from about 6pm to 7:30pm - and rained quite hard for some of that time. During this time of many umbrellas, I was searching for the exact type of umbrella that I lost about 2 ½ years ago. It is a rare gem - with twice the number of ribs of normal umbrellas - and so very solid. It also has transparent plastic 'windows' for every 4th section, so one can see oncoming traffic, etc. I loved that thing. Alas, I did not see even one umbrella of this type among the hundreds populating the area - that's how rare and special it is.
At 7:30pm, the noise began. The noise of the various court drying machines, most of which use very loud and polluting gasoline engines. Along with the noise, the smell of gasoline was everywhere. While I was walking around waiting for play to resume, I saw Mr. Bradshaw again. As I passed him, I said "You were right" (about not bringing the players onto the courts and about the weather). He smiled and said "Sometimes I get lucky."
8:15pm - A golf cart passes in front of me. All around its perimeter are 5 security men, almost hanging off the sides of the vehicle. I look a little closer and see that there is someone sitting in the middle of these men. It's Nadal, and the security guys are making an obvious attempt to conceal their human cargo. Nadal gets out and begins hitting with Ferrer on a still soaking wet practice court - one which has not been scheduled for drying. Both Nadal and Ferrer are playing later tonight. They hit for only 15 minutes, not moving very much, due to the wetness of the court.
Saw Norm Chryst, and wanted to ask for his perspective on ShotSpot - but with the court drying machines, it was far too noisy to even attempt verbal communication.
Went over to watch the El Aynaoui - Robredo match. On the very next court was Nalbandian - Beck. The Robredo courts had a small section of benches on both sides of the court, capable of holding no more than a few hundred people if packed full. The Nalbandian court had no seating at all (they played there due to the rain screwing with the schedule). So I (and several others) climbed to the top bench on the Robredo court, which position offered an excellent vantage point of the Nalbandian court. We were actually physically closer to the Nalbandian court than to the Robredo court, to which these modest benches belonged. Both matches went to tiebreaks in the first two sets - that's 4 tiebreaks in the first 90 minutes. Robredo won both of his tiebreaks, thus disposing of crowd favorite El Aynaoui. Younes nonetheless happily posed for photos and signed autographs for fans - most of whom appeared to possibly be of Moroccan descent - after his loss.
There was slight controversy in the match. At one point, the umpire told Robredo that he has to stop talking with his coach(es), because El Aynaoui can't understand what they're saying. Robredo seemed genuinely surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and just said "Ok." At the handshake when the match was over, El Aynaoui said something to Robredo - not really in anger, but more in a way that seemed like Younes was trying to explain something to him. Robredo just shrugged his shoulders again, as if he truly didn't understand what the big deal was.
(continued below...)
Walking by a practice court, I saw Kevin Ullyett and Wayne Black hitting. But they were doing more than just hitting... they were trading cross-court forehands. But they were doing more than just hitting cross-court forehands... they were each trying to hit a small target placed in the corner of the court. The target was a small bottle of water. I asked Ullyett if they have money on this. He said "No - just favors" - likely meaning things like washing the other's Porsche or Jaguar. Ullyett hit the bottle twice. Black didn't hit it on the forehand. They then switched to backhand. Again, Ullyett hit it twice, prompting me to tell him he should film this as a commercial for Wilson racquets. Again, Black, using a Babolat Pure Drive (or at least the graphics of the Pure Drive) was shut out, thus offering yet more evidence that the Pure Drive is not a control racquet.
I then headed over to one of the outside courts they play matches on early in the week to watch some doubles. As I often do, I sat near a coach - this time, Leander Paes' coach, Balkishen Singh. I soon realized that I was literally in the center of the Paes 'entourage'. They were all nice people and we all had some fun when Paes rather insistently questioned a call on the baseline (which is where we all were sitting). Finally, after the humor died down, I said to Mr. Singh: "I guess the guys aren't very happy about the doubles changes, huh?" He replied, rather emphatically, "Nobody is happy." We engaged in a discussion on the subject, during which he said "The players don't know how or when these changes happened. The ATP is supposed to be an organization working with, for, and by the players - but the people at the top are making decisions on their own."
When I put forth the idea of a doubles-only circuit, Mr. Singh surprisingly wasn't very keen on the idea. He said that the changes are "just experimental", and likely won't remain. He's more optimistic in this regard than are many others.
Saw Lou again, exiting Court #1. I saw that he chatted in an amicable way with the usher. I said to him "Looks like you've got at least one usher in your pocket." He said "Yeah, I'm lucky - he likes me, and so lets me go down." A little later, on another court, Lou actually came up to me to ask the result of a previous match on that court. I cannot describe what an absolute honor that was.
At about 5pm, we were treated to a wonderful sound and light show, courtesy of Mother Nature. Lots of impressive lightning and extremely loud thunder. But only very few widely scattered drops of rain. The rain wasn't enough to put a stop to any tennis - but everyone was pulled off all the courts because of the lightning. This occurred just as the day session was ending, and so the place pretty much emptied out.
After the thunder & lightning moved off, it appeared that things were getting going again around 5:30pm. The linespeople, umpires, and ball kids all resumed their places on the courts, which were still bone dry. But no players came out. I spotted Gayle Bradshaw, and went over to him. Bradshaw is the ATP supervisor of tournaments. He was busy 'eeing and awing' on the walkie-talkie about the weather, and about whether the players should be brought out onto the courts - all while gazing up at the sky. I said to him "The lightning is 16 miles away now." He said "Yeah, but there's apparently more of it coming." I said "Well, there's a window open now to play - it would probably be good to take advantage of it and play." (30 minutes of the window had already been wasted.) He said something about safety and the unpredictability of lightning. I said, laughing, "The problem is that there's too much damn metal around this place." He laughed and said "Yeah, that is a big problem with lightning." I said "The next time they renovate this place, make sure they use plastics instead of metals wherever they can." With that, the rain began. As he headed off, Bradshaw said to me "We'll play tennis tonight - don't worry - we'll play." I said "If not, there'll be a lot of tennis tomorrow." He said "Yeah - it'll be a good ticket."
(Later in the night, after the rain stopped and play resumed, I had the interesting, and rather unique, opportunity to spend about an hour with Mr. Bradshaw, who, in addition to being the ATP supervisor of many tournaments, is also Vice-President of the ATP. We were completely alone - just the two of us - on the top walkway of court #1, from which perch we could see three matches. This was at about 11pm to midnight. I asked him several questions - about Lou, about the changes to doubles, about steroids, etc..., and we had an enjoyable little chat on a beautiful night. I'll put up a separate post - thread - about our conversation later, or tomorrow. I found it to be quite interesting.)
It rained from about 6pm to 7:30pm - and rained quite hard for some of that time. During this time of many umbrellas, I was searching for the exact type of umbrella that I lost about 2 ½ years ago. It is a rare gem - with twice the number of ribs of normal umbrellas - and so very solid. It also has transparent plastic 'windows' for every 4th section, so one can see oncoming traffic, etc. I loved that thing. Alas, I did not see even one umbrella of this type among the hundreds populating the area - that's how rare and special it is.
At 7:30pm, the noise began. The noise of the various court drying machines, most of which use very loud and polluting gasoline engines. Along with the noise, the smell of gasoline was everywhere. While I was walking around waiting for play to resume, I saw Mr. Bradshaw again. As I passed him, I said "You were right" (about not bringing the players onto the courts and about the weather). He smiled and said "Sometimes I get lucky."
8:15pm - A golf cart passes in front of me. All around its perimeter are 5 security men, almost hanging off the sides of the vehicle. I look a little closer and see that there is someone sitting in the middle of these men. It's Nadal, and the security guys are making an obvious attempt to conceal their human cargo. Nadal gets out and begins hitting with Ferrer on a still soaking wet practice court - one which has not been scheduled for drying. Both Nadal and Ferrer are playing later tonight. They hit for only 15 minutes, not moving very much, due to the wetness of the court.
Saw Norm Chryst, and wanted to ask for his perspective on ShotSpot - but with the court drying machines, it was far too noisy to even attempt verbal communication.
Went over to watch the El Aynaoui - Robredo match. On the very next court was Nalbandian - Beck. The Robredo courts had a small section of benches on both sides of the court, capable of holding no more than a few hundred people if packed full. The Nalbandian court had no seating at all (they played there due to the rain screwing with the schedule). So I (and several others) climbed to the top bench on the Robredo court, which position offered an excellent vantage point of the Nalbandian court. We were actually physically closer to the Nalbandian court than to the Robredo court, to which these modest benches belonged. Both matches went to tiebreaks in the first two sets - that's 4 tiebreaks in the first 90 minutes. Robredo won both of his tiebreaks, thus disposing of crowd favorite El Aynaoui. Younes nonetheless happily posed for photos and signed autographs for fans - most of whom appeared to possibly be of Moroccan descent - after his loss.
There was slight controversy in the match. At one point, the umpire told Robredo that he has to stop talking with his coach(es), because El Aynaoui can't understand what they're saying. Robredo seemed genuinely surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and just said "Ok." At the handshake when the match was over, El Aynaoui said something to Robredo - not really in anger, but more in a way that seemed like Younes was trying to explain something to him. Robredo just shrugged his shoulders again, as if he truly didn't understand what the big deal was.
(continued below...)
