Pic courtesy of the International Tennis Hall of Fame
Howdy, Tribe. Today was "beloved wife day" at the U.S. Open; Lisa and I were in the USTA President's Box (how hoity-toity are we, huh, huh?) and then walked around the ground some. I needed the decompression time; I got home after 4 A.M. yesterday. Still processing the Agassi-Baghdatis "Match of the Quarter Century" and will have some thoughts on that, but perhaps not until tomorrow. I have to be back in New York City this evening to do a TV thing, and I'll watch the night matches at home. I may post, if we can get our Internet up at the apartment.
I did a little recruiting for senior Elders at the President's Box, it being full of card-carrying elderly (note that it's different from Elder; can you be too old to be in AARP?). Anyway, I'm trying to bring Maria Bueno on board. We were watching the Justine Henin-Hardenne/Ai Sugiyama match and I asked her if she felt she had anything in common with H-2. After all, look in the dictionary under the word "backhand" and you will see a nice pencil drawing of, depending on the edition, either Bueno or H-2. Bueno, who's native of Brazil, is considered perhaps the most artistic, graceful player ever to win Wimbledon.
Bueno said:
I was a very different kind of player. Nobody plays like I did, except Evonne Goolagong. Even Martina Navratilova, who had a beautiful game, played a kind of mechanical serve-and-volley. With me, I just did something different every time. I always wanted to come in, which nobody really wants to do anymore - on serve, on return, behind drop shots, whatever. Today, most of the women, like the men, have a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A is to hit hard from the baseline. Plan B is to hit harder from the baseline. I never really knew what I was going to do until I did it, but it usually involved coming in to the net.
But I'm not criticizing today's players. There isn't an impossible shot for them. They hit an impossible shot and then the other one hits an even more impossible shot. Eventually, somebody wins. The one thing I can't stand, though, is the screaming and grunting. You don't need to do that, no matter how hard you hit the ball. Roger Federer doesn't scream, does he?
I've always been interested in movement. I think people thought I moved nicely and easily, I had an artistic game. It's fascinating, some players you never see them run, it's because of their anticipation. You don't see Federer run, do you? But you see Nadal run, he runs a lot. Yet they're both great players.
I'm going to try to hook up with Bueno later in the tournament, and I've got her email address (she lives in London now).
Lisa and I then went and walked around, and once again I realized how much I'm missing by not spending a lot of time around the outside courts. I'm always torn between feeling like I've got to deliver the news and press conference nuggets from the top players and, combined with the other aspects of this job, that keeps me almost chained to my desk in the press center, at least until the second week of the Slams. Tomorrow, it's supposed to rain buckets, but I've resolved to patrol the outside courts on Sunday, to try to tap into some of the zaniness that goes on out there.
Well, I've got to run. Steggy's going to mind the store for a bit, and I'll be back with you when I am. Talk amongst yourselves!
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