First, a quick update on the next few days: Today, my wife Lisa is coming out to join me in the President's Box, which is my little annual peace offering for being AWOL from home for the two weeks of the US Open. I will not do a game-based post today, but if I have time late this afternoon (Lisa has to go home to relieve the sitter), I'll post some general thoughts on the USO. No promises, though. If I add them, they'll appear appended to this post.
Now for tomorrow: I am not going to be at tournament at all, but will be replaced by the formidable pinch-hitter, Asad Raza, who began his arc at TennisWorld as comment poster Ray Stonada, known mostly for his Cape Cod red slacks and the distinction he owns as having been TW's first poet laureate. If Asad upstages me with his prose and insight, it won't be the first time.
What could tear me away from Flushing Meadow on Labor Day Saturday, you ask? Try this: Tennisworld's first ever wedding. That's right - two true elders of the TWibe, known to most of you for ages now as AmyLu and Juan Jose, are getting married tomorrow near Amy's home in Pennsylvania. Among other things, this explains why both of them have (I think) been conspicuously absent from TW in recent weeks. I've had a warm inner glow for days, just thinking about how all this has come to pass, and at an appropriate time I may post on the experience.
I'll be back Sunday, full-on blogging for the rest of he USO. Meanwhile, feel free to write a comment for AmyLu (in days of yore, the "petite shoe-thrower"), and Juan Jose (v-er-t-i-d-j-o-k-o . . . . . ).
--- Pete