I was only at a set
and a half of a Tommy Haas match. He was playing against Verdasco who beat him
in 5 sets. If I hadn’t watched a few games of Jelena Jankovic’s match, I would
have seen some more of it. The court was so crowded that I had to stand.
Mike came over to
it after the Jankovic match which she lost. I didn’t see him until afterwards
though. He got Verdasco’s autograph. I sort of wish that I had to but at the
time I was mad that he beat my Haas.
I had wanted to see
Haas’ doubles match but I stayed with him for Errani. I wish that I had gone
with the voice in my head that said to leave after the second set so I could at
least see some of that. I ran over to that court afterwards but it was over.
Luckily, they were
still at the court signing autographs so at least I got to see him. Mike had
already gotten that for me several years ago. I got a couple of nice photos of
Haas.
I wouldn’t even be
into tennis if it wasn’t for Haas. I was depressed about Mom being in the
hospital psych ward so I put the TV on to watch “The Price is Right” only it
wasn’t on because the tennis coverage was.
I saw 2 cute guys,
Haas and Ginepri, which got me to keep this on. Then I was kind of getting
interested in the actual sport that I used to think was boring. That was in
2006.
Would I have
watched it if they hadn’t been cute? Maybe not, which is so bad. Yikes, I am
pretty embarrassed about this.
I wish that I
hadn’t been so afraid to go to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in
Queens for this event in 2007 and 2008. I would have gotten to see more of my
favorite guys matches. I only got to see one Safin match which he lost against
Melzer in 2009. He retired at the end of that year.
I shouldn’t have
been afraid to ask my brother to get his autograph for me after his practice
session then. I was the same way about James Blake another year. Mike has
gotten me at least 8 autographs of tennis stars.
My brother has many
more autographs of them than me. He even got Sania Mirza’s three times. And he
calls me obsessive for getting John Taylor’s twice. He was at the Mirza/Hingis
match then joined me for the Gasquet one.
We saw Victoria
Azarenka at an autograph signing booth. My brother sort of regrets not standing
in line for this. We watched Djokovic on the practice court for a couple of
minutes. As we were leaving the center on our 4th and final night
there, we saw Federer at the ESPN booth doing an interview.
The long, tiring
days were well worth it. One year we went the first 6 days of it; I think that
was 2010. The 6th day was a last minute decision. I really wanted to
see Fish and Melzer in their 3rd round matches. I didn’t get to see
all of Melzer’s though because the Fish one was very long.
I didn’t like
Melzer when he beat my Safin but the following year when Haas was out with an
injury I was rooting for him a lot. I went to 3 of his singles matches and 2 of
his doubles (with Petzschner) then.
This was our last
time ever at that event. We had gone there for 7 straight years. It is no
longer in our budget. Mike said that he might try to save up and go to it again
in a couple of years but I won’t be able to do that.
Tommy Haas
Hewitt
Feliciano Lopez
Tommy Robredo
Fernando Verdasco
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