* !US Open 2009 031
*
by Jackie Roe, TW Social Director
Hi, everyone. Let’s dive right in.
I’m off to sunny Indian Wells next week for the BNP Paribas Open and look forward to meeting up with the many TWibers who plan to be in attendance. As is our tradition, we’ll be having our TW gathering at The Beer Hunter (check out that revamped website) on Friday, 3/11, at 9 PM. If you have any questions or would like to exchange contact information, feel free to e-mail me here.
I'll be filing a few reports here, so I hope you'll check them out; you can also follow my IW activities on Twitter.
I love this week’s topic. I mean, I always love our topics, but this is one that really strikes an emotional chord because not only does it involve tennis, but it’s about communication, relationships, connections. And TW. All near and dear to me.
When I first joined TW, I heard about these two posters, AmyLu and Juan José, who met on the blog and ended up living happily ever after(!). Wild, right? And really beautiful. Recently, I was reminded of their story and thought it’d be a great idea if they shared it here in the Deuce Club, both for the newcomers and for the vets, who likely were never apprised of all the details (like me—I only knew the bare bones). AmyLu and Juan José graciously accepted the invite; what follows is AmyLu’s account of how it all went down, with Juan José’s reflections in parentheses/italics. There’s a nice nod to Indian Wells in there, as well—how apropos! Enjoy:
In 2006, I had developed a total obsession with tennis. (Mine had started a year earlier, pretty much after the 2005 Miami final between Federer and Nadal.) In my quest to unearth as much tennis-related news as I could, I stumbled across TW. (I have no idea when I found TW, but I do remember finding Pete, and then being able to comment on the blog. I actually remember my first ever comment, in the days of 15 or fewer comments per post. It was during the 2005 Masters Cup. I claimed Federer had actually tanked a set against Coria, because Federer sensed that Coria would retire otherwise, robbing him of vital match play, having just come back from a serious tendon injury.) I lurked for quite a bit, but TW became a part of my daily routine. I finally de-lurked after the US Open in 2006, and shortly thereafter Juan José and I had our first “conversation” on TW. (Interestingly enough, I had grown tired of commenting at TW at this point, and had considered stopping altogether.) Our first dialogue actually turned into a debate over Nadal’s chances at the Australian Open. (I remember us agreeing that he would make the quarters that year, and we were right: Nadal got slaughtered by González.) I argued that he would win the AO at some point while Juan José vehemently disagreed. (I do remember saying that if Nadal ever wins a Slam, it had to be the AO. But I never thought he’d win either that or the US Open. I’m great at predicting these things. Kind of like how I once wrote somewhere that Azarenka would one day own women’s tennis. Yeah, that’s happening.) Let the record show, I won the first, of many, of our sports-related arguments. (Yeah, yeah.)
Initially the two of us just conversed at TW, but on October 1st, I e-mailed Juan José for the first time. He mentioned on TW that he was in search of scholarly sources on weddings to help aid him with a script he was writing. (Much later I realized that my last post on a crappy little blog that I started was from October 1st, 2006. I guess my writing got directed elsewhere.) I offered to e-mail him an American-centered list of works cited, since I’d previously written a paper on weddings during the course of my studies (Interestingly enough, that project got stuck after just a couple of scenes.) My quick e-mail, and JJ’s quick reply, led to a lengthy correspondence over e-mail. (I always say that it all happened very easily: Amy emailed me. I emailed her back. She responded. I responded. And we only stopped when we were together.) We exchanged at least one e-mail a day and talked about tennis quite a bit; I was, and still am, a staunch Nadal fan while Juan José was a Federer fan, with a growing fandom of Djokovic. (NO!!! Amy mentioned my Dark Ages of Tennis Fandom! The summer of 2006 was important for me: at the French Open I was instantly captivated by the lanky and cocky Djokovic, who made it to the QFs. Then, I was monumentally disappointed by Federer’s “effort” in the final. Weeks later, Federer decided to unveil the first of his many ridiculous Wimbledon outfits. By the 2007 AO, when Federer killed Djokovic, my allegiances had switched. Also, back then I absolutely loathed Nadal. He was by far my most despised tennis player. But little by little, the two-pronged approach of Amy’s tireless pro-Nadal propaganda and his own improvement on other surfaces—and ownage of Federer—got me to where I am now: I respect Nadal and I enjoy watching him play tennis. He’s the best tennis player I’ve ever seen. But I still call him The Glorified Claydog.) Despite those differences, we “clicked,” and our e-mails often touched on personal subjects, including our families, our hopes for the future, etc. The fondest memory I have of those first e-mails is that Juan José told me he expected to be married four times throughout the course of his life. I keep wondering when wife number 2 is going to appear . . . (Yeah, that was actually in my first e-mail. Great way to impress a female, right?)
Our e-mail correspondence continued, without a hitch, until Juan José brought up talking on the phone in early December. I am not going to lie, I was initially very hesitant to do so. I can’t describe how much I loved our e-mails and the rapport we had where we could tell each other anything. I was afraid of losing that if we tried talking on the phone. After much internal debate, I finally decided that I did want to hear his voice so I e-mailed him to set up a time. (This sounds like a long process, but it never became an issue. I knew we were taking a big leap, because moving from the written word to the spoken word is not the easiest for everybody. Still, our emails had gotten to a point where I just needed to hear Amy’s voice.) Our first phone conversation took place on December 6, 2006. I honestly don’t remember much of anything in that conversation—all I do remember is that I had him call my office number on campus, and I was late to a meeting because of it! (I remember that it was a glorious summer day in Buenos Aires, and that I didn’t sleep that much. I was so nervous, and yet so very excited. I have no idea what we talked about.) The chemistry that we had through e-mail translated to the phone, and it was like we could just talk for hours. (And we did.) We thankfully found Skype, and our communication broadened: we now had daily e-mails and daily Skype sessions. (Skype saved us as I moved back to Ecuador. In Argentina it was fairly cheap to call the US, but that wasn’t the case in Ecuador. In a way, I think Skype enhanced our relationship, because we were able to talk every single night and do it for as long as we wanted to. That would’ve been impossible over the phone.) During this period, we also “saw” each other, as we e-mailed one another one photo a day. We started from birth and then sent a photo for each year of our life. It was so much fun to reminisce and share memories from our childhood with one another. (The best was that we discovered that we both shared a favorite toy from when we were little—a white and red VW Beetle that you could ride.)
We met for the first time in March of 2007. I hold a very soft spot for Indian Wells because Juan José visited me while it was taking place. That’s the first tournament we were actually able to watch “in person” with one another, as opposed to over e-mail and Skype. (The first sporting event we saw together? A regular season Mavs-Suns game. It was a great one that went to overtime.) I knew Juan José was someone special when he “got” all of my idiosyncrasies during Nadal matches. If things aren’t going well, I will often turn off the TV or change the channel. I also, on occasion, may throw something and my language can deteriorate. (As does mine. Still, I never leave the room or turn off the TV, which are trademarks of a cranky Amy.) None of that fazed him. We also successfully navigated a Nadal/Djokovic final without killing one another, which I thought was a pretty positive sign. (Well, it was all gravy for me, since it was Djokovic’s first big final. I was upset that it took him a set and a half to get his teeth into the match, but was quite happy when he claimed revenge two weeks later in Miami.)
After that trip, our relationship continued as before. Skype, e-mails, and visits between countries every three to four months. When I visited Juan José in Ecuador in December of 2007, we got engaged and we married in August of 2008. It was during the first weekend of the US Open, and we were so thrilled that Pete was able to join us. Without his blog and our love for tennis, the two of us would not be a couple. (Couldn’t put it better myself.)
Tennis has been a constant throughout our relationship. I joked to Juan José that we may have to return to being engaged after the US Open; during our engagement, Djokovic won the Australian Open and Nadal won the French Open, Wimbledon, and the gold medal at the Olympics. Then, we got married, and Federer won another Grand Slam. I’m nothing if not superstitious, so for our marriage’s sake, I’m very happy Nadal won the Australian Open in 2009. (Believe me, this was a joke, but we were also concerned. Very concerned.)
Amazingly enough, we have only seen tennis live together once—the 2009 US Open Final. The tickets were a wedding present from my aunt and uncle. We missed out on our “dream” final, as Federer beat Djokovic and del Potro beat Nadal in the semis, but both of us are avid del Potro fans—in fact, I think he was the first player we shared as one of our favorites. The final, however, started out as a nightmare for us, as it seemed like Federer won the first set in about 5 minutes. Midway through the second set, I was starting to think that these tickets were the absolute worst wedding-gift ever and wondered if I could ask for a refund. My hope was restored when del Potro took the second, only to despair again when he double-faulted away the third. Juan José was much more positive than me, and he kept telling me that the match wasn’t over. (Understatement of the year. Amy said “he’s done” after delPo somehow gifted away the third set, but I knew he had a real shot at turning the tables on Federer. I was really confident about DelPo’s chances if he forced a fifth. You could see Federer running out of gas after playing defense almost exclusively for three sets.) I’m very glad he was right. Seeing del Potro win his first Grand Slam was magical. There’s no other word for it. Plus, we got to celebrate the win with one another. What better present could we ask for?
That story will never get old, AmyLu and Juan José! Thank you for sharing it with us!
Now, TWibe, I thought this would be a nice opportunity for us to reflect on the relationships we’ve developed on TW. How did they come about? What role do these people play in our “real" lives now? If you’re not one to get too entrenched in the goings-on here, feel free to share any non-TW stories along these lines . . . how you met your best friend or partner, perhaps.
Have a great weekend, and I'll see ya in Indian Wells!