Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis
Subject: First three days - U.S. Open
From: <BUSBH@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Friday, 4 Sep 1992 08:20:07 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

Hi fellow tennis fans. I just want to relate some of my U.S. Open experiences.
It may seem a little disjointed, but so much happened its hard to set it down
in one smooth writing. I probably should have taken notes. Next year I will
do better.

I took advantage of the U.S.T.A. offer to members for tickets this year. I
purchased tickets for the first three days and the first two nights. It was
my best Open experience. I arrived about 11:30am apparently 15 minutes too
late to meet Shun. We had planned to meet at 11am. But, he did meet Filaman.

I walked around the grounds to get a feel of the place and the matches that
were being played at the time. I saw many of the players practicing and some
just playing games between one another. I did get to meet and talk to several
players, coaches and media personalities. That is what made this Open the
best for me.

The first match I saw was with M.J. Fernandez she was down in the first set,
then came back to win the match. She beat Donna Faber. Later on I saw her walk-
ing around the grounds heading for a practice court. We spoke briefly about
her game and then off she went. Later I saw and spoke to Anke Huber and her
coach. I was shocked when I heard she lost in the first round. Later in the
day I watched Mary Pierce do her workout and was surprised to see her being
coached by Nick Bouliteri.(sp) Her father was down graded to ball boy. On
Tuesday During Mary's match (she was down 4-5) I met her father again. A friend
and I were remarking that she was not doing what she had practiced the day
before, her father overheard us and came over to agree. It was funny, he then
preceded to tell us his opinion of Bouliteri and his being reduced to ball boy.
So I offered to buy him a drink to calm him down, he refused and said he had
to get back to watching Bouliteri watch his daughter. He was very upset. I did
assure him that his daughter would win, and she did. :) This man has a bad
reputation aound the tennis circuit, but I found him to be a very nice and
caring person. Later I spoke to both him and Mary at length. I also met three
media people from The Netherlands. This was during lunch. People share tables
where seating is available so I saw two unused seats and asked if they minded
my friend and I sharing their table. They said okay as long as we shared our
food. (A joke.) We spoke at length with them and throughout the day and on
the following day I would see them interviewing people about the grounds,
especially from European countries. They would always acknowledge my passing
by.

I met many other people and saw a number of matches. Some of these were:
Seles vs Keller, Guildermeister vs Ruano-Pascual, Date vs Babel, Testud vs
Fusai, Rehe vs Javer, Zvereva vs Graham, M. Maleeva vs Kroupova, Graf vs
Cioffi and so on. These were just the womans, the mens were just as many
and my friend and I covered as many as possible. Its too hard to just sit
for one whole match with so much is happening around you. I did see parts of
the Stich match, Courier, Chesnokov, Wheaton, Forget, Gilbert, Volkov, Ivan-
isevic, Lendl, Becker, Chang and so on. Its was very exciting. Next year
I plan on getting tickets to all the events. Its expensive, but I want to
see it all. I had the pleasure of meeting: Billy-Jean King and Rosey Casals
while they were having a fun match with Diana Smith and another player I did
not recognize. During the match I noticed that these players make many of the
same mistakes that we non-profesionals do. We fans kidded the players about it
and the humor was equally poked at the audience. After the match the players
came over and chatted with me and the other fans that stayed around. Later I
met Aranxia, her coach, mother, father and pet dog. :) We chatted for about
five minutes while she waited to get practice time on the court. I also met and
chatted with Aaron Krickstein, who was on crutches. Some idiot who did not
know who he was asked him, me and others around us if we had tickets for
sale. This request was very funny to all of us. Thats how Aaron and I met.
We were discussing this person who asked for the tickets and not knowing to
whom he was talking to. Aaron had surgery on his left ankle and will not be
playing for a few months. He was very despondant about this.

I did notice that most of the players I saw were much taller in real life
than how they appear on television. This includes Aranxia and Aaron.

This it for now, more to come tomorrow.

Howard

P.S. I wonder if I could get a press pass next year and represent the group?
Again I apologize for the disjointed rteport, I will try to write it by day
one, night one, etc. So much went on thats its hard to organize all my
thoughts on the spur of the moment. I do have to get work done, too. :-)

-------
Howard Zivotofsky       //===\   //===\  //===/        Co-creator R.S.T.
City University       //===/    \===\     //         busbh@cunyvm.bitnet
of  New  York       //   \\   \===//    //         busbh@cunyvm.cuny.edu