Howdy. Well, it was an eventful weekend. Thanks for all your kind words. I’m amazed – and proud – that an anodyne post like my last one,“Over and Out” triggered over 200 comments.
Little Son Luke got bored at the therapists and after a pretty good start he rebelled against the entire drill and started trying to boss around the therapist lady (I ain't lookin' at no more stinkin' picture books!) I guess he’ll score low; follow in dad’s footsteps. Sigh. Maybe he’s lucky to have small shoes to fill!
When I saw that Tommy Robredo won in Hamburg, I had to smile. I had promised you a Nadia Petrova/1998 Orange Bowl post, and it just so happens that I first saw Robredo play at the Orange Bowl; he won the Boys 16s that year(see my PS below). I liked his game then, but felt there was something “light” and insufficiently forceful about it.
This turns out to be basically true, at least when it comes to the game at the high stakes table where guys like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, et al play. However, Robredo’s doing pretty well by any conventional standard; they don’t give those Masters Series titles away, even when the two top dogs bail.
The thing I most remember about Robredo in December of 1998 was that I felt obliged to find out about this “Tommy” first-name thing. It clearly was his first name, not just a nickname. So I ‘m proud to inform TennisWorld readers that your faithful correspondent was the first non-Spanish journalist (to the best of my knowledge) to learn that Robredo was named for the rock opera Tommy, by the seminal British pop band, The Who. It turns out that Robredo’s father was a huge Who fan. Tommy (the non-italicized player, not the rock opera) told me this in the locker room at Crandon Park.
I was never a huge fan of The Who, although I have to give them credit as the third-loudest band I can remember hearing, live. No. 2 was The World Famous Ramones, and No. 1 was an early punk outfit out of Toronto, The Viletones. Boy, did they suk! I caught them at CBGB's one night in, oh, 1977? Imagine if the Sex Pistols were four different versions of Sid Vicious. Yeah, it was that bad - and I think the Pistols are one of the greatest bands, ever.
Anyway. . .
I won’t be able to post my Petrova/Orange Bowl item until tomorrow because I'v wasted most of today running around to the doctor and the pharmacist, trying to find out why I’ve been coughing like a character in a Dostoevsky novel (I fancy I’m afflicted by “consumption”).
It’s been pretty ugly, folks; it’s always sobering to be coughing up blood when you haven’t even been in a bar fight. My doctor figures it’s probably some kind of allergy. I admit that I never believed there was such a thing as debilitiating allergies. I’m told that the typically high pollen count of 90 here in New York at this time of year has gone off the charts to 600. Any of my fellow New Yorkers have an opinion?
PS - Correction. I originally wrote that Robredo was a semifinalist in the 1998 Orange Bowl 18s, that being the default division (they also play 16s, 14s and 12s). Tommy was actually the winner in the 16s, which is how we came to speak.