tennis, life and a few things in between

This June article on Rafael Nadal

At tournaments, teenage girls scream when they see Nadal walk onto a tennis court, literally shriek and leap to their feet and clutch each other; women older than his mother shiver and elbow their friends; men raise their cameras aloft;

What Cynthia Gorney is talking about? We, the older women gone crazy over Nadal? Am I the third sex or what? I’ve never seen it. I remembered seeing rows upon rows of lesbians (most of them wear short bob haircuts) came out in force when Martina Navratilova played. The ladies didn’t scream but they sure did elbow their friends (when Martina his a winner) and raise their cameras a lot.
However, I do gradually develop the liking of Nadal as a person, a humble small town boy. On court, I choose Roger and Pete any given day. Nadal doesn’t play ugly – Winning Ugly, coined by Brad Gilbert, but there isn’t prettiness about Nadal’s style of play. I prefer finesse over brute, which is the way tennis suppose to be played. Yap, brute is the word associate with Nadal in my mind.

Gorney did get the G string part right …

Nike, which pays Nadal more than $3 million a year to wear its clothes, has never designed a pair of shorts that kept Nadal from loosening the seat just before he serves the ball.

When Nadal serves, after loosening his G string, his face twisted and followed by a grunt, releasing the lethal weapon – the little yellowish ball that travels at the speed about 130 miles an hour.

There are many handsome players with a pretty and sassy playing style: Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Patrick Rafter, etc. I would consider Amélie Mauresmo. Too many to name, but Pete is definitely the best-looking man around.

Michael Chang and Ivan Lendl are the same: they lack the apparent innate talent and they relied on their only talent that is working hard. I don’t like to watch that, the counterpunchers. It’s too cruel, too harsh and too brutal. Like watching Patrick Ewing. Not pretty.

There are many players that I enjoy playing with, and there are few I do not. Among the few, not they aren’t good players, but they aren’t. Some little things tend to bother me. Like they play sissy. I can not stand a man being sissy, like pacing the baseline, stocking time to regroup – that’s cheating. There is limited time in between point, 10 seconds or 30?

Well, I couldn’t say my dislike is due to my weak mental toughness or just plain disdain of the sissys. Many times, I just lost my patience, wondering how could a man act so dishonorably?

The main street is always slower than Wall Street. When something hit the main street, it is either the game is over or too late.

Duh.

Everyone on WS knows this. Why did it take Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone and the like this long to write for the main streeters?

The Wall Street Bubble Mafia. How Goldman Sachs took over Washington? By engineering every major market manipulation since the Great Depression. If someone believes that the president of the United States runs Washington, then he or she hasn’t lived long enough.

The celebratory dinner was at
Pine Court Chinese Bistro
249-32 Horace Harding Expy
Little Neck, NY 11362
(718) 279-1999

Lou is the food connoisseur if not the epicurean.  Dishes at Pine Court are mostly decent.  Service was slow that night (wasn’t crowded), and the lamb chop was too salty.  The fish soup was great.

We almost had the Ocean Six reunion at the tennis tourney: Lou and Simon were there; Larry came to be DQ’s groupie; only missing Clay.

The big babe tennis 🙂 They’re all much taller than I’m, 5’6″ or 5’8″. When we take pictures, they tend to bend their knees so not to bury me. We had three tables about 30 people, mostly players and few spouses/friends/groupies.
I’m a Home Depot groupie.
Oh, talking about groupies, I had to share this.
First time I attended the tennis year end party, sitting at a single table because a widowed g/f wanted to meet someone.
As soon as I sat down, a middle aged man to my right introduced himself.
“I’m a podiatrist and single.”
No wonder he’s still single.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that many single women came because they perceived tennis players are loaded sugar daddies.
Sight.
I could only shake my head.
It turned out, the Dr. Single and I had a mutual friend: Art Gudeon, a little famed podiatrist I used to play tennis with. Art has an office in Rego Park and used to be on the medical staff at USTA during the Open. He’s a huge tennis bum, would camp out at the stadium two weeks straight every year.
Dr. Single joked,
“Is he still alive?”
Geee… seriously I don’t know. We haven’t been playing for few years.
Art is really fun to have around.

The war is playing out at Center Court in Wimbledon at the moment between 19 years old Sabine Lisicki, a German and choking artist and Number 1 Dinara Safina, 23 years old.
The German was serving for the set at 5:3.
But was unable, due to melt down.
Then she had the set point and missed an easy put away.
But no worry.
The Number One returned the favor instantly by double faulting.
Now they’re trading double faults and breaks, the play is just below the standard (it felt a high schooler could go out there and win) .. .. and … then there is Safina’s belly.
Man, that isn’t a pretty picture.
Aside from the pork belly hanging out, there is screaming, head banging, frustration in plain sight .. .. all from the current #1 ranked player who never wins a slam. Cool.
John McEnroe has bad temper on court, but that’s entertaining. The pork belly isn’t. It’s painful to watch, to a point of pity.  Desperation produces lousy games.

im not trying to be an ass, but she’s not pregnant is she? Damn, in her last match at the australian open, her belly was bulged out way passed her chest. just wondering. I mean, i now she cant be cause she wouldn’t be playing right?

Another fan added: “I know I should concentrate on the tennis and not the fashion, but why doesn’t Dinara Safina find a top that fits her? The top rides up practically every point. Will somebody get Adidas to suggest she might like a dress rather than separates for the next event?”

Mary Joe Fernandez was one of the commentators, and she said in a firm tone that Safina’s
“outfit has to go.”

Another fan, a male, said:

“I am watching right now the game between Safina and Mauresmo on Centre Court. In my opinion I am really surprised to see that the Wimbledon committee is allowing Safina to be dressed up like this on the probably most important court of the world. Look at her, she is probably wearing the shortest possible top and her belly is looking out of it very often. How is this possible according to the rules?”

Update: Venus sent the world number 1 home on [almost] a bicycle: 6:0 and 6:1 during their semi match. Don’t we get a new biker? Venue didn’t even break a sweat. The ranking system really need an update.

This picture was taken on the way home from the CatsNY tourney last Saturday 6/27.

Oh man, oh man… Let’s see
– Gerald (or Gerard Gonsalves?)… oh Man, he taught me the serve
– Rain storm … Oh well, mother nature
– 陪了三个男人 … Oh Man
– A win … OH MAN
Ya.. a win !!
.
Queens College.
21 years ago.
A coach with soft Jamaican sing-song accent (he might not have accent at all … my hearing is going), long hair …
Dick and his sidekick Fred were taking lessons from him too. So I got to know Dick and big Fred.
I didn’t remember much but I credit Ger for my serve.
He made the motion as a swan.
“Just, like, a ballerina.” He repeated.
I haven’t seen him since.
Why Dick brought a coach as his partner?
Ger is the assistant principal at Bayside High; married to Susan, has two boys, 8 and 13. Oh man. He hasn’t changed much, except losing some of his hair.
He still looks fit and handsome but I didn’t get to play with him.

Given the fact how much rain we’ve seen here (hint: feeling like the The Hundred Acre Wood in Winnie-the-Pooh), the weather was awesome, cerulean skies with few clouds. I teamed up with Charlie Chiu against the Mengs; we won 6:2. Haven’t played with Charlie for a long time but we matched well.
Xing ba 星爸 Tom was my original partner. Poor Tommy tried to wrestle out of this lousy arrangement by circling around Queens in angst. Finally out of consideration to Andy, he showed up at 11. We promptly put to work, playing the twin sisters.
There were two all women teams playing in the mixed doubles.
I was wrong. Tommy not only knows how to play singles but is a strategist and theorist also good at coaching too. But unfortunately we received a bagel. We had good time playing, 100% 阿Q精神.

… Then the downpour came.
The water began to wash the tiny little earth that was mattered to us only at the moment, out of nowhere. Did someone forgot to pray in the morning? Large part of the sky was still blue with sunshine.
Ha, good excuse.
Xing ba dashed off like a missile to Gulag. Yes, laboring there beats playing with Irene :(.
I was effectively got dumped.
No wonder the arranged marriage thing only worked in the past. 自由恋爱 is the way to go in the 21st Century.
The gang who organized the tourney perhaps felt bad for taking my money, so they arranged another an unsuspecting man, Jimmy Wang. I’ve seen him here and there but never played with him.
Our first opponents were Josh and DQ. As we were warming up, Jim called me to the net and said,
“Don’t over kill. When you do that, you lose your forms.”
Ok Jimmo.
Jim seems to be a tacit man, mild mannered.
That’s good.
We went to work.
It turned out, we matched pretty well. He saves all the balls that escaped me, which were often. We won 7:1. I lobbed quite a bit.
I always felt unsportsmanlike hitting to the weaker player when I have the control, which wasn’t often the case. But when a match is on the line, over the years, I have less and less qualm of doing so. It’s also out of consideration to my partner. Often I’m being the weakest link on the court I don’t really have to entertain such dilemma.
Our next assignment was, well, against Mary and Paul. Pual Lin that was. Many players had whispered that Paul was the number one player [I assumed in NYS].
I saw Paul play for many years and hit with him, only once; ok twice.
Mary who likes to play with the guys only is considered the best female player in our group, a 4.0.
So, I took gulp. I already got a bagel. What could happen? Adding an egg? That’ll make a bicycle 🙂

Remember what Simon says?
I lobbed.
I lobbed.
I lobbed.

Sorry people. It DOES feel like cheating. I dislike this sissy stuff too. But I do want to win.
I also thought of Wah Zai’s comment that there is plenty of time [to set up a shot]. So took my time. Didn’t rush.
Didn’t Jimmo just say don’t overkill?
We were actually leading 3:0 till Irene served. I haven’t been able to serve regularly for a few months due to the pain in my shoulder. But for some reason, I was able to do half and under-armed the other half. It felt pretty funny.
Serve is a part of my game that’s dependable. The man who taught me well was there too. But I had to invent some way to serve otherwise, to avoid the pain and tenderness. Then it hurt other part of the arm, the inside muscle. Geee, I don’t even know there is a functioning muscle 🙂
There were some tense moments. We lost 2 games at deuce.
But we won at 5:3
OH MAN.
That’s huge for me.
I’ve never beaten Mary.
Thanks Jimmbo. Thanks Simon. And thanks Wah Zai.

Those 4 guys look slow on video – because the TV has trained or altered our eyes – but they’re 5.0 players. Well, I don’t know the pair but IF they challenged Tony, I would assume they’re 5.0 too.

Over all, it’s a great event and hope all had great time.
Andy didn’t get to play: 顾全大局 take the entire situation into account, he only watched. A decent skipper.
Respect is earned.

Wait, who has Jimmbo’s cell number?

Many many years ago when the Williams sisters just began taking over the world, once during a mixed doubles match (a rarity!!), Chris Evert marveled at the power the sisters were dispensing.
“She’s over powering the men …” On both sides of the net.
Then she went on to say …
“During my time, we would just sit by the phone [till the man called for a mixed doubles game]; now they chose. …” I reckon the male players are flattered?
You go girls.
Girls Rule

IF anyone care to remember that Irene had, [pls note: past tense] a grand ambition, to reach the level 4.0. As being Irene, I have to say it’s not going to happen, any time soon. One I’m aging and two I’m lazy … let’s just hope that she obtains the 3.0 first.

So, tomorrow is our summer tennis tourney with 4 divisions:
Mixed Doubles
Men’s Doubles 3.0
Men’s Doubles 3.5
Men’s Doubles 4.0
And the committee decided to limit a player to only one event for easy court management.
So I figure IF I asked a guy to play with me, he’ll miss the real fun and challenge with the boys.
So I decided not to participate.
Seeing the registration getting a slow start, more warm bodies are needed, Irene felt obligated to help out. Ya right.
SO, no man called even I sat by the phone day and night.
SO, I called.
Rob: “Sorry my back hurt.”
Kenneth: “My leg hurt.” Guess I am no Barbie.
Bill: “Sorry … “ he’s hinding out in Europe.
Some popular woman here.
Some thick skinned woman here.

This morning I just found out that I’m in an arranged union. With Tom.
Tom.
The acer Tom?
The Tommy who has the meanest back hand?
The 6’5” Thomas who nails every single shot?
It turned out, the daddy Tom, father of a movie star.
Does Dad Tom even own a tennis racket? Sure the committee just wants my money 🙂

I first met him 5 years ago at a friend’s wedding. Then recently we reconnected at a dinner with mutual friends, the tennis buddies. I sat next to him.
After greeting and intro, he insisted that
“We’ve met before.”
Ok, whatev. I had no recollection at all.
Halfway though the dinner some one mentioned his star daughter, Lucy Liu, then a light bulb turned on.
He’s a sweet gent who always chats me up whenever we meet.
But tennis?
Hey, it might turn out that he’s as good as any other guy who carries Irene through the match.
What does Irene know? It’s a pure miracle that I manage to remember my name.

Allan St. John wrote in the current issue Maxim that back to 2004 when Murray, a Scot has won US Open boy’s title, British tennis officials decided to pay “the esteemed [Brad] Gilbert $1.5 million a year to coach him”, a future UK hopeful.

Interesting.

So far, he hasn’t won a slam (12 singles titles) but is ranked as high as #3 in May 2009. The commentators were amused to discuss the British press putting a cross on the face of the departing hometown players.

It’s so cute and cool. Did any one see it on ESPN2? Pam Shriver, Mary Carillo and Mary Joe Fernandez covering Wimbledon, did this little sketch. Hope no one is going to rise a hell, citing political incorrectness.

American Mardy Fish, who’s seeded 28 just won his match; he’ll face the Joker, Novak Djokovic. Why doesn’t he stripe any more? Don’t be shy