Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Best in Show

I went to the big Pete Sampras vs. Roger Federer showdown at Madison Square Garden last night with my brother Bill and his wife, Jacqueline. All three of us despise Sampras with a passion and love Federer, so instead of enjoying the "competition" going on down on the court, we spent the evening on edge waiting for Federer to finally put the smug American away. (Naturally, it went to a third-set tiebreak before the deed was finally done.) When it was finally all over and I couldn't help but laugh when I realized we hadn't really had much "fun." Between the moaning and the negative body language, I can only imagine what we looked like. (Talk about a show!) I had to laugh reminding my brother that the sport, which I took up way back in 1977, has never been a source of joy for me. Playing only winds up being a symbol for all of my shortcomings and inability to live up to the potential I (want to) believe exists inside me. And watching my favorite players only frustrates me (Chris Evert probably took 10 years off my life) unless they win handily (the way I never could). (What a cruel mistress this game is!) The prolonged match made us miss our post-competition dinner reservations at Craft. But fortunately Crispo was able to take us late and we ended up having a great dinner and catch-up session over a couple of drinks and fab pasta. And by the end we were all able to believe that we're the three biggest tennis "fans" in the world again ...

Sampras, Roy Emerson, Billie Jean King and Federer
Rupert Murdoch and Anna Wintour

6 comments:

Peter Chan said...

Thank you, somebody else cheering for Rog tonight. How ridiculously Sampras favored was that crowd!

Anonymous said...

Is Billie Jean King in Drag? OMG!

Anonymous said...

I can relate to your Chrissie remarks. I forgot all about the match last night.

Anonymous said...

Hell has frozen over. Anna Wintour has a smile on her face.

Anonymous said...

OK, I was always a little suspect of Sampras, but calling him smug vs. the most arrogant bastard in tennis. True, he can largely back it up, let's face it...but he is so contemptuous, and I no longer leave that to a poor grasp of English. He's downright obnoxious, and Pete had him. He has shown some chinks in the armor lately, so he really needs not to blame "mono" and start being a little more gracious.

Anonymous said...

The Fedmeister is nothing but gracious. What the heck have you been reading? :)