Before I left to pick up my friend Leontine this morning, I ran into the shop, to buy my favorite chocolate bar, just in case. I didn't plan on doing that, but after I read all of your messages, I decided I would anyway.
Leontine and I arrived at the tournement
at about 11:15am CET, and guess what it was raining incredibbely hard!! So we sat down a
bit in the promovillage, where you can buy loads of tennis merchandise, and waited for the
rain to clear. Well, that took a lot of patiences and so we decided to walk around a bit.
Nothing was happening, and so we walked to the players village. When we arrived we saw
Yevgeni Kafelnikov, busy with his mobile phone. Something we hear he is crazy
about...anyway, we decided to stick around, since there was nothing better to do. We saw
Paul Haarhuis and Jacco Eltingh, Gustavo Kuerten, Chanda Rubin, Amanda Coetzer and a few
others.
And we also saw Patrick:
He arrived early in the afternoon, alone, and as he came walking down the path to the
door, he looked at the people standing there. And so were we, so he looked, smiled and
said:"Heyyyyyy!!!" I then turned around and wondered who the h*** he was talking
to. He started saying:"Did you bring me some more chocolate....?" And I then
realised he was talking to me!!! He recognized me!! ME, of all people!!! So I almost
freaked out, and I called him, asked him to come to us, but he said:"No, no, no...it
was raining very hard." so I guess, he was afraid of melting:)))
About 30 minutes later he came out, and a couple people asked him for authographs, I told
him I had brought him some chocolate, and asked if he really ate the bar I gave him in
Paris, he smiled and said "yes I did." when I asked him if he liked it he
said:"Liked it?? I loved it, I ate the whole thing that same day!!!". So I
started laughing and was amazed as well since this is a mega chocolate bar!! It usually
takes me a few days to finish it...anyway, when I asked him if he read my letter as well,
he said "he did, and thanked me, he really appreciated it!!"
In the mean time Leontine took some great
pics of our man, I am very curious to see how they turned out!! I offered him the
chocolate bar, and he refused to accept, he said it wasn't good for him and his exact
words were:"If I accept I am going to eat the whole thing, I swear and I just can't
do that, I am sorry...you better eat it yourself"...( so I did..). I did give him a
"little" something else...
At about 4pm the first matches started, and we watched some women's tennis on Centre
court. After that Kraijeck would play Richard Fromberg. And before that match was to start
we went to the practise courts to see what was going on there. Patrick was there,
practising with Paul Haarhuis Raoux and Geoff, and some other guy I didn't know. He was
having fun, laughing out loud and all. I took some pics there as well.
When he came to get something to drink I
spoke to him again, he said that he really loved the chocolate, but really couldn't
accept. He did say it was very sweet of me to bring it, though, he then gave me the cutest
smile!!
Later on we also took another pic with him, but I am not sure if it comes out okay. He
said that he really liked to have seen me again, and to take care...He is such a
sweetheart!! Well I guess that was my story. I am sure I left something out, but I
think this pretty much covers it!!
Joelle
