All right, the US Open is bearing down on us, and that always means (tennis) party time in and around New York City. Tennis.com is joining with*Fila* to throw a party to help introduce James Blake's new line of clothing for Fila - kit that Blake himself helped to design to honor his late father, R. Thomas Reynolds Blake. As you all know, James and his father were very close. The details of that touching relationship were beautifully described by TW's very own Andrew Friedman (the artist formerly known as Rolo Tomassi) in Blake's auto-biography, Breaking Back.
I have a strong suspicion that Blake's line will be short on sleeveless Ts and pirata-style shorts, and long on collars and subdued colors, but what do I know about fashion?
Anyway, I'd like to invite a few representatives of the Tribe to the party, which will take place on the rooftop of a famous New York City landmark. Blake will be there, as will a celebrity DJ; there will be plenty of food and drink. If you'd like to attend, email me via the "Contact" tab at the top of this weblog, or my personal email (which many of you have; I will also put it up as the first comment at this post). I have a limited number of tickets, so if enough of you express an interest we'll have a drawing of some kind to determine who gets to attend.
I'll be there, of course, although I may be dressed in rags since we'll probably still be living out of suitcases (the good news is that the co-op board of the apartment house we're buying into approved our application just this morning). I believe Steve Tignor, Tom Perrotta, Ed McGrogan and many other Tennis.com and Tennis staffers will be there as well. And I'm hoping Andrew F. and his bitter on-court rival, Asad Raza, will also attend.
It ought to be a fun, relaxed evening, with great views of the city. So if you're interested in joining us, let me know. I'd like to have your requests by August 12th, so we can get our draw and final list completed by the end of that week.
I'll be back with our surprise contributor's thoughts on the women's hard-court season in a little while, and I'll auto-post a Your Call for tomorrow (it's move-out day for me, so that will be tomorrow's only post unless things go exceptionally slowly).
-- Pete