I've only posted a couple of
times before, back when Pat cut his gorgeous hair off, but I've checked back
into your board (aka--lurked!)from time to time and enjoyed all the pics and
articles you have posted. I've never had anything much to say, tho, until now!
I've lived in Cincinnati for a long time now, but never had gone to the
tourney before; upon news of Pat's possible retirement, I thought that this
would probably be my first, last, and only time to get a chance to see his
gorgeous self live & in the flesh:-).
Altho I wished we (Tony, my VERY understanding husband!, my teenage son Nate--who
thinks I'm nuts, and my sweet 10 yr old daughter Laura who LOVES the tennis!)
could have gotten tickets for every session, we could only manage a few. We
went Saturday, for qualifiers, just to kinda check out the scene, see what we
could see, but NEVER expecting that we'd see SO SO many big stars up close at
the practice courts! We saw an incredible number of guys that day---Sampras,
Agassi, Guga, Hewitt, Safin, Norman, Keifer, Henman, Chang, etc etc etc. (No
Pat, tho---he was still in Montreal).
Laura REALLY wanted one of those big expensive autograph balls, but I couldn't
see spending more than our admission cost on one, and then having to tote it
around the whole time, so we said "NO". But after that day full of
the excitement of seeing all the stars up close, I finally agreed to split the
cost with her and get one when we went back for the Tuesday session.
So.....there we were on Tuesday morning, our big, fresh, clean, yellow tennis
ball in Laura's arms, hunting for some tennis stars. Husband & son went
off to watch a match, but Laura and I hung out by the practice courts, hoping.
No luck. We tried Michael Chang, but he ducked and ran from the autograph
hounds. We decided to try hanging out by the player entrance instead. Safin
came by, but he too was ducking and not signing. Chang came through again,
still waving off the crowd and not signing. As we looked at our empty ball, we
began to feel quite discouraged.
We waited around a bit more. Not much action, but about two dozen folks,
mostly kids and young teens, were patiently waiting for something to happen.
Finally, Jonas Bjorkmann came through---tho we didn't recognize him with his
cool shades on!---and, lo and behold, he signed our ball! At last, ONE
autograph.
After a while more of waiting, this older guy comes through the small
crowd---I recognized him immediately and told Laura to stick her ball and pen
right out there...she didn't know who he was and neither did anyone else. I
said, "Tony, would you sign?" and, looking a bit stern and perturbed
(as he always does), he signed. Then someone asked who that was. I said,
"That was Rafter's coach." After a short silence, it sunk in, and a
collective "OOOOOHHHHHH!" went up from the crowd:-).Then, The Rafter
Look-Out was on!
About 10 minutes more of waiting, this time not so patient! A small group of
teenage girls was behind us, scoping out every car, every guy that came by the
player check-in tent. A large, shiny van, with the words "Tournament
Transportation" on its' doors, pulled up nearby. Finally, one of the
teenagers gasped, "I saw him!" "No you didn't", said her
friend. "YES! I did! I'm sure of it!", said the first. "How did
you know it was him?" asked the disbelieving other. "I saw the WHITE
SPOT!" said the first. Another silence, and then a big "OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
arose from the crowd.
As he walked in through the gates, the small crowd (who had been told so many
times to stay behind the yellow lines to leave a pathway for the players)
rushed forward, pens, balls, and programs outstretched. Pat stopped for a
moment, began to wave us all off with his hand, and it appeared that he
wouldn't be signing either. But he looked down around him and saw all these
kids pressed up against him, looking up at him, and he tilted his head and
pursed his lips (thinking, I guess, "I don't want to do this, but look at
all these kids!") and sighed a little bit and said politely, "Wellllll,
okay, if'll you'll just move back a bit and give me some room........."
And he went on to sign at least 15 or 20 autographs! Laura (she's in the
foreground in the pics, the big, blurry white hat:-).)
was kinda in the back of a group of kids and had to wait a bit, but finally
she pushed through and Pat signed her ball (that's him signing her ball in the
first pic). We sort of worked as a team---Laura lured him in close to sign her
ball, and I snapped the close-ups. He didn't have much to say to the kids, but
was pleasant, and smiled a lot. What a good guy!
After everyone had gotten what they'd been waiting for, the crowd disappeared.
As we were leaving, another young teenage girl showed up...we chatted a bit
and she and Laura began to compare autographs. Laura asked her if she'd gotten
Rafter's autograph. The girl said, "NOOOOOO! Was he here???"
"YES!, said Laura. "Just a few minutes ago!" "NOOOOOOOOO!",
cried the girl. "My aunt's gonna kill me! She offered me $100 if I could
get Rafter's autograph for her. She just LOOOOOOOVES Rafter!" We did
indeed feel bad for her (she'd missed him by just minutes) but we still had
big grins on our faces :-)all the way back to the stadium to hunt up the rest
of our family and show off
our prize.
