Travel Blog

I arrived early, picked up my one-day press pass, and wandered around the outside courts, where some players were practicing in the morning heat. About twenty to eleven I made my way over to the grandstand. A vounteer in a yellow Lacoste shirt was already at her post.

"So this is your spot?" I asked her.

"For the last 19 years," she said.

"You must like tennis."

"I like watching the people." Though she did criticize the way fans handed pens to players in seeking their autographs: usually with the point facing forward. "That could cut somebody's hand and cause an infection and then lots of people would be out of their jobs."

A woman walked past carrying a microphone and headed toward the umpire's chair. Then a man and a woman came through, carrying an ice chest. Fans were told to keep hydrated. Two tall women with thick blond braids arrived, and stood in the shade waiting to be introduced. The Czech, Petra Kvitova, had a sedate, old-fashioned graciousness, even - later on the court - when she wiped the sweat from her face and arms.

I left the match before the end of the first set and walked to the food court to grab a quick lunch. As I ate, I watched all the people (like the volunteer) and thought of Bruce Matheson, the man whose family gave this land to the city and is opposed to improvements to the facility. (The family retained the right to veto any changes to the land.) A man sitting at a nearby table wore a cap that had the name "Federer" stitched across the back and I wondered: What would possess a grown man to wear a hat bearing someone else's name? The only way I would wear a Federer cap is if Federer wore a Swick cap. And perhaps not even then.

It was now high noon so I retreated to the stadium and climbed to the top terrace reserved for the media. A French journalist was eatng lunch with a Japanese journalist who,  the Frenchman said, had written the definitive book on Nishikori.

"Journalists and athletes have a strange relationship," the Japanese woman said. "We know so much about them, and they know almost nothing about us."

"It wasn't always like that," the Frenchman said. "I used to hang out with the French players. Years ago. We'd be out drinking till early in the morning. I knew things about them I could never write - not even today - and they knew things about me.

"Players were more open-minded then. Today they all have agents. A guy is 150 in the world and he has an agent!"

I watched the Agnieszka Radwanska match from the life-saving shade of the press box, thinking of the days I used to sit there with Bud Collins. How Bud would have admired the crafty Pole's drop shots.

A little after three I finally ventured out again. Walking past the outdoor player's lounge, I noticed that a high white wall had replaced the low chain-link fence.

"The players wanted it," the man guarding the entrance told me. "Gives them more privacy."

So they can talk about deals with their agents, I thought.

"But people can stll look down on them," the guard said, motioning to the fans standing by the railing of the stadium's second level. "Perhaps next year they'll add a canopy to block their view."

I made my way to Court 10, where the top row was completely in the shadows.

"What language are you speaking?" I asked the shaded couple next to me.

"Serbian," they said, adding that they'd come to see the doubles match featuring Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic. "Mladenovic's mother and my mother played volleyball together," the woman told me.

The players arrived, Mladenovic in a colorful tennis dress that looked to be made from swaths taken from various quilts. It gave her a clean, feminine, hobo look. Amazingly, her sneakers matched the dress. 

I left the match before its completion to attend happy hour up on the press terrace. While I was munching my chips and hummus, a woman appeared from the media center and announced that Rafael Nadal was about to give a press conference. Nadal had retired from his match a short while earlier due to dizziness. It wasn't quite like an alarm at a fire department - when half-eaten burgers are left on plates - but a number of reporters abandoned their dips and headed down the steps. I followed them.

Nadal was already seated behind the microphone when I entered. He never seems particularly pleased with life, but now he appeared wretched, with a kind of tacit, accusatory rage. As if we were all part of the reason for his current misery. If looks could kill, there would have been lifeless bodies strewn throughout the interview room.

Answering questions, he was curt, barely intelligible, and always begrudging, even when a young woman asked, in a voice of genuine concern, sounding more like a mother than a reporter: "How are you feeling now?" I was tempted to ask for the microphone and say: "Nadal, you're young. You're talented. You're famous. You play a game for a living that earns you more money than everyone in this room has combined. OK, you're losing your hair, but your life is great. Cheer up." But I didn't think it my place with a one-day press pass. And I didn't want that murderous stare on me.

A more lasting memory from the day came after lunch, when I wandered over to the practice court behind the Stella Artois Center Court Lounge. I didn't recognize the man practicing until I spotted a small boy clinging enraptured to the fence. He wore a red, green, and white striped T-shirt and a red, green, and white striped cap and carried a similarly tri-colored flag. Then I realized that the player was the Bulgarian, Grigor Dimitrov. As he left the court, a small crowd, including the boy, surrounded him for autographs. He hurriedly signed caps, scraps of paper, fuzzy green balls. The boy, who had been one of the first at him, returned to the bleachers to show his mother his treasure. As Dimitrov extracted himself from his admirers, he spotted the boy standing near his mother and in one quick motion tossed him a wrist band. The boy retrieved it, and the disbelieving smile that lit up his face soon transferred to his mother and then to his father. I wished Bruce Matheson had been there to see it.