I was lucky enough to score some good press seats for the World Team Tennis Championship match last night, where the Washington Kastles were the surprise winners in their second year of team play. Turned out we were seated directly underneath the stadium's American flag, so when we had to turn and face the flag during the national anthem all that went through my mind was, "Everybody in the stadium is looking at my ass!"
Things got better when the match started, and I managed to get a few nice shots, including Rennae Stubbs and Leander Paes in the mixed-doubles event:
There is a ball in there somewhere, I swear it.
As a long-time tennis player and fan, the entire WTT experience remains a bit disconcerting for me. For the most part I enjoy the team-based approach that differs from the standard focus on individual competition. What's disconceting is the unrelenting pressure to make the even like any other team sporting event, with boisterous cheering, over-the-top announcers, cheeze-tastic music and disturbingly weird mascots. If you have to ask me to make noise, I'm probably not going to be making any noise. And really, Washington Nationals, when coming up with a mascot for your baseball team, who gave the final order to run Teddy Roosevelt through the Pink Floyd The Wall filter, set for "anthropomorphic penis"?
When you have that running around on court with a Geico caveman, two escapees from a mid-80s Pac Man game, an emcee on stilts, and some eagle mascot that looked like it happened to show up at the wrong sporting event, it all congeals into a surrealistic mess like that night in 1994 when I took mescaline at Tracks, only scarier.
But I digress.
While WTT may not be the tennis of a purist's dreams, it's perfectly enjoyable to watch -- good tennis is good tennis. It may not be a pressure-filled as a Grand Slam quarterfinal, but it's obvious that players want to win. Believe me, it was great to see that Stubbs and Paes were putting their hearts and minds into the match. The people who make their livings playing this game are simply on another level from those of us who hack and stumble and shank our way through our amateur matches -- and that's what makes it worth watching.
But let's leave Teddy down at the baseball stadium next year, okay?
That Teddy thing and all his evil cohorts frighten me.
Posted by: jimbo | July 31, 2009 at 05:21 PM