Travel Blog

I don’t run into many famous people – clearly, we inhabit different realms – and when I do I tend to leave them alone, not wanting to interfere with their privacy. But lately I’ve been more bold. Back in July, eating dinner in D.C., I spotted Bill Kristol enter the restaurant and take a table not far from ours. As we got up to leave I walked over – his meal had not yet arrived – and introduced myself as an occasional reviewer for his now defunct magazine The Weekly Standard. (An old college friend had become the literary editor and sometimes gave me travel books to review.) He was very gracious – he stood up to receive me – but he didn’t remember my byline.

Then last month in Warsaw I was sitting in the lobby of the Marriott hotel, waiting for a friend, when I saw a young woman standing in the check in line with a large red Wilson tennis bag strapped to her back. It was not Iga Świątek, who had recently won the U.S. Open; this was her hometown so there would be no reason for her to stay in a hotel. But I wasn’t sure who it was. Then as she turned and headed toward the elevator I recognized her as Shelby Rogers. I immediately got up and followed after her to the elevator. Most players, including Świątek, I would have let go, but I had something I wanted to say to Shelby Rogers.

“Excuse me,” I said, “are you Shelby Rogers?”

“Yes,” she said. She was waiting for the elevator and looked surprised but not unpleasantly so. I told her I had become a big fan of hers after last year’s U.S. Open when she beat Ash Barty and then, during the on-court interview after the match, explaining how she had done it, she said something about just fighting for every point. Immediately she stopped herself and said, “That’s such a cliché. I’m sorry.” It was the first time I had heard an athlete apologize for using a cliché.

Anyway, I told her how much I appreciated her self-editing, adding that I was a writer. We chatted a bit – she was as friendly as she appears on TV – and I learned that her coach was Polish and that she was headed to a tournament in Estonia. Then the elevator arrived and we said goodbye.