tennis, life and a few things in between

This year ATA is held in NY.  Kids around country are competing in the big Apple, in their appropriated age groups.  The little cutie from DC told me that she’s already lost, came with her family.  It’ll be a great experience for the youngsters.  Most of them do look and act confident and mature for their age.  I’ve seen the ATA sign last weekend, now I found out what it is.

Kerner is running his summer camp at the park, and asked if we’d like to join.  He works the kids on the court in the AM and bus them to the pool in the PM.  I might do it, since his camp ends in late August.

Irene L is the one who got me started to play in the city parks.  It’s more expensive than our home courts, $100 vs $35 annually, hard court vs har-tru.  Many times, the courts can be messy.  But I enjoy it, for the company, except only the ugly man.  There is a huge contingent of Filipino players at Cunningham.  Most of them play at arond 3.5 and 4 level.  They’re fun to play with and to be around.  I’ve heard from other players that there are few city courts on the USTA ground.  Today I got a chance to check it out.

Years ago when Dinkins was the mayor, I saw him playing at the USTA often, in the late mornings.  Watching him play was painful, his style was more of taiji quan, slow and measured; and the entire city was in disarray under his reign.  Supposedly, he rushed to negotiate the USTA contract before being beaten by Guiliani (Rudy probably could have beaten him on tennis court as well, won with his left hand, lol) which put NYC in disadvantage.  I’m not sure the city courts were there prior to the new contract.

Burt is an elderly gentleman working at the park office.  He couldn’t stop talking. I only had couple of questions, but within 15 minutes, I learned about all his family, grand kids included.  6 courts in front of the office are newly done, with 5 layers of rubbers, used by Reebok urban youth league.  Reebok is still in existence?  The other five are re-surfaced, open to public.  I got to hit with Vicky, a college girl on the Stoney Brook’s team.  She has the build of Amanda Coetzer, bit looks like her too.  What strikes me the most was her lifeless demeanor.  Finding a player there is hard, Burt said everyone comes with their partners.  Oh well, I have 10 days to go, maybe I should put an ad on Craigs List, looking for temp partner.  I saw Paul and Xiao Lee when I went to pick up.  Should ask them to come early, :).
Contrary to Vicky, this busload kids screamed in joy when they saw the courts.

Last Thursday, Simon ran into Sunny at a restaurant, called me up half drunk, saying I need to show up early for work this weekend.  Sunny grabbed the phone mumbled something too.  Friday night I played with Simon, he explained soberly that they arranged a doubles, and Sunny needed me there early to warm up.  He’ll team with Sean against Sunny and Charlie.  Not sure who challenged who, Sunny never played Simon before.

We played 3 sets of doubles with Charlie and Albert.  I was the 3x loser, 6:3 with Charlie and with Sunny, 6:0 with Albert.  Sean is kind of nerdy, half the time as if he’s in the space, the other half came without etiquette, armed with funny strokes.  He consistently loses to Sunny but he’s the captain of 4.0 league and Sunny only plays on the 3.5 league.  Oh well.  Sunny must have ran out of things to tease me, so now is that I have a secret admirer, Sean.  Ok, the outcasts, nerds, dorks and geeks are my open admirers.  How charming and flattering, :))  Anyway, I played fine, didn’t get yelled at.  He talked throughout the match, which meant he’s happy, lol.  He told Charlie not to hit too hard, Charlie replied with his poker face, “she can take it.”  Oh boy, can I???  The match went to Sunny on Saturday and gone to Simon on Sunday.  So they made plan to play this Sunday.  The new rivalry is born, :).  Sunny told me that he and Charlie’s been kicking butts, beating many better players.  Simon is impressed with his forehand.

On the way to her camp, the 93.6 FM played Carmen, arranged for a solo violist (forgot his name, lol) with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,conducted by Claudio Abbado.  I thought about the East German figure skater Katarina Witt (where is she now?) who won her second gold medal on Carmen (long program) in 1988, worn a blood red dress.  That’s was one of the best performance.  It etchs to my mind so vividly and deep that every time when I hear the Carmen arias, Denyce Graves comes distance second.

Got up and left for tennis in a hurry, my brain was kind of dead, waiting for traffic light right before LIE, didn’t know which direction did I want, one place is toward West and 2 toward East.  Gosh .. but got a win over Andy, so I can spend my summer in peace, :).  Driving home I past by the pool, lord, haven’t set foot in there for few months!!  Got to find time go there before the summer ends!

FedEx got his 5th win, consecutively, at Wimbledon, cool.  Ok, great, :).  The trio at NBC (Mary, John n Bill?)  were saying that Wimbledon packaged the match between Sampras and FedEx in the 4th round back then and selling it, 5 sets, the win gone to the younger one. … Are they kidding?   

It’s been a pretty good week for me too, got 2 wins on Wednesday with Eric, one in particular was against Simon, 6:3.  .. Friends are coming for dinner, got to go now.