So I went out to Palm Springs for the weekend to watch some tennis.
Actually I went out there on Friday and took most of the day off work but don't tell Matt. So anyway, Friday night they had that charity match for Haiti when Agassi and Sampras got into it but my boy Robert and I missed it because we were hanging out back at the hotel
Saturday morning we woke up and made a few calls looking for tickets. This was the first weekend of the tournament and somehow it inexplicably sold out. Tennis, as I'm sure you know, is not at all popular so I'm not sure how that happened but the criminals on Craigslist were asking $100 for nosebleed seats to Saturday's day session.
We decided to head out to the stadium without tickets, or a plan, and I figured we would work something out somehow. Then we hopped in the hotel elevator and met Mike.
Mike's a season ticket holder from San Diego. We chatted for a minute and he offered to get us into the event.
So we skipped breakfast and followed him over to the stadium. Robert had all these samples from last week's Anaheim Health Food Expo so we ate a bunch of random antioxidant Acai chews and such for breakfast on the car ride over.
Ok, the gummy worms did not come from the Health Food Expo - I bought those myself from AM/PM
So we get to the venue and the surprise that Mike failed to mention was that he happens to own the best seats in the stadium.
Front row, inside the coach's box.
Svetlana Kuznetsova's mom was sitting in the row behind us screaming at her in Russian the entire match.
Anyway, around midday the moron tournament directors scheduled the Andy Roddick/James Blake vs. Andy Murray/Some Other Guy doubles match on one of the smaller, outer auxiliary courts.
All seating on these outer courts is unreserved and they only hold a fraction of the people that the main stadium court can. We waited almost an hour to get seats and there were thousands who didn't get in at all, including this Sports Illustrated supermodel chick.
Anyway, good match though. Roddick and Blake took it in straight sets. Then we headed back over to Stadium court to catch Rafael Nadal.
Sitting that close and watching someone like Nadal was insane. It was really an unbelievable experience, and it was so much better because it was a gift from this random stranger who decided to take care of us like his own family. Of course we offered him cash and to buy him food and everything - but he wouldn't accept it. And in fact, he not only got us in for the day session, but he gave us sunscreen and blankets and when he left after the Nadal match he handed us his tickets to the Saturday night session as well.
As you can see, we sat a few seats down from all these guys in Rafa's camp. The one on the end is Uncle Toni of course. My favorite part was in between points when Rafa would glance at his box and I would yell out my own coaching tips to him. I think it would've been more effective had my Spanish been less rusty.
You're sitting so close that you feel like you can literally call the lines just as well, or perhaps even better, than the linespeople. I was secretly hoping to catch one of them slipping and yell out my own call or advise Rafa about a potential lines call challenge but the opportunity never really presented itself.
Look how snuggly Robert looks. I'm not really going to criticize him too much - it got windy and we ended up sharing that blanket for longer than I'd like to admit.
Anyway, we ended up deciding to duck out before Djokavic played in the night session. So on our way out, we climbed to the top of the stadium and gave Mike's tickets to this mother and son who were freezing up in the 500-level bleachers. The gesture felt really good - especially since the alternative we considered at the time was to scalp them outside the box office and make $500 cash - but in hindsight it's abundantly clear that we made the right choice.
