Tennis Week 2016 - a grand and glorious week (part two)

Here's more of the fun that happened during my visit with my mom for the US Open qualifying tournament...

Wednesday, I already knew we would have a half day, at best, because I got tickets to see a friend's play in the NY Fringe festival.  I'd already seen this play a number of times (it's the one I saw repeatedly in Dublin) and I was so excited there would be a performance that I could take my mom to.  I knew she would like it and she's never seen my beautiful gal pal onstage before.  Win-win, as far as I'm concerned.  So I took a hard look at the tennis schedule to make sure we got the most out of our half day.  We started over on Court 17, which has a shady section, thank you very much, and watched a young American, Ryan Shane, take on Belgian Kimmer Coppejans.  I remember watching Coppejans last year and enjoyed his game, plus I do like checking out the up and coming American players.

Shane lost the first set pretty quickly, mainly because

he was hitting too big and couldn't control his shots, but he dug in and started finding his range in the second set.  Plus, Coppejans was having trouble finding a first serve throughout the match.  He also seemed to get frustrated that his game plan which won him the first set didn't work anymore in the second and third set.  The crowd was overwhelmingly on Shane's side and we cheered loudly for his come-from-behind third set win.  I think he has tremendous upside - his serve is good, when he calms down, and he hits pretty big off both sides.  He was very happy to win his first round match and even did a little interview outside the stadium afterwards.  He seems like a nice kid.  As Mom and I were walking to the food court area for a snack, we saw Coppejans being consoled by his girlfriend in a very long, sad embrace.  It reminded us of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Mom and I knew we wouldn't really have time for dinner between the tennis and the theater, so we decided to have a big-ish lunch at the food court.  I went to one of the new concession stands and got a tasty fried fish sandwich and also got some of our favorite waffle fries.  We were disappointed that the fries weren't as tasty as they normally are, I think they were underbaked or something, but the fish sandwich was tasty.  

After our little lunch break, we went back to the old Grandstand and watched a match of two new-to-us players: Konstatin Kravchuk from Russia versus Stefano Napolitano from Italy.  Being a lover of all things Italian, I was especially keen to check out this match.  In the shade.  :)  We only had time to watch the first set, but it was a pretty good one. Kravchuk was clearly the better player, with more pop on his serve and more oomph behind his shots, but Napolitano did have some guile and did well when he approached the net.  His serve, though, was not good.  Actually, both guys had really wonky service motions. Anyway, Napolitano may not have gotten a first serve the entire first set, if I think about it.  But it was a nice set of tennis (Kravchuk won it and ended up winning the match).  Oh, and we had some wacky seat neighbors who bickered like The Honeymooners or something. Here is a bit of their conversation (my mom got a kick out of my getting my phone out to write stuff down).  This was all during the match:

Guy 1:  I'm never coming here again.  Parking was atrocious.

Guy 2:  I TOLD YOU:  I've taken cabs, I've done Uber, I've driven myself and the only way to get here is on the subway.  Or the Long Island Railroad.  I TOLD YOU THAT.  You should always listen to me.

Guy 1:  Whatever.  I'm going to leave soon to go play tennis.

Guy 2:  Why?  No one wants to play with you.

Guy 1:  Michael does.

Guy 2:  No, he doesn't.  You just think he does.

Guy 1:  Well, then, I'll play with Robert.

Guy 2:  Robert doesn't want to play with you either.

Guy 1:  Whatever.  Let's go get beer.

They were a laugh riot.  I was almost sorry to see them go.  But we had to go, too.  Mom and I had to get back to my apartment to change clothes before heading off to see my friend's play. We got back to my apartment, sat in the air conditioning for a few minutes, then set off to trek to the Lower East Side.  I wanted to make a stop at Economy Candy, where we had gone last summer, because they have a ginger candy there that I especially like.  For once, I didn't get completely lost down there; for some reason, I always go in the wrong direction in that part of town.  I was pretty proud of myself for finding the store and the theater pretty easily (ok, so I used my phone's GPS, sue me).

The theater space where my friend's play was taking place had three other shows going on at the same time, but they had a lot of signage and volunteers wandering around to make sure you got to the right show.  I was happily first in line for seats to my friend's show, which was fun.  The theater space was actually very nice, with high ceilings and a comfortable bit of air conditioning.  And the show was, as always, wonderful.  You may remember that I have no objectivity when it comes to plays written by and/or performed by dear friends, so I was predisposed to enjoy it yet again.  I laughed, I teared up and I heard a few new things, as I always do, so it was great.  My mom enjoyed it, too, thankfully, so we had a really good time.  I introduced my mom around after the play, which was fun.  I only talk about her all the time, so it's nice for people to be able to put a face to the name. At least I think so.  

Thursday, we were planning a full day of tennis-watching.  We started back at our old reliable, Court 17, due to the shade and the young American playing there, Ryan Harrison (who we had seen briefly on Tuesday).  He was playing against a Belgian I'd never heard of, Joris De Loore.  Ryan was much sharper to start the match than he was Tuesday, though he was still a crankypants throughout.  Mom and I don't really enjoy the crankypants thing.  He was yelling at himself, but still.  He thought about throwing his racket a few times, but to his credit, didn't.  He won a tight first set in a tiebreak, then Mom and I decided to move on. Although there were lots of good matches taking place all day on Court 17, the benches that are in the shade are exceedingly uncomfortable, so we just couldn't sit there any longer.  We decided to take a little walk around the grounds and take a look at the new Grandstand and the practice courts on the other side of the grounds.

The new Grandstand is really pretty, very modern looking and almost looks like the mall Mom and I went to on Monday.  Lots of white.  And it's huge.  Mom decided to sit down at one of the shady tables nearby while I went in to take pictures and see who was practicing.  It was nice to see John Isner practicing, so I stayed to watch him for a few minutes.  But it was really hot there and the sun was beating down.  There are shady seats there, but they are all the way on the other side of the stadium - it seemed like miles away!  After rejoining Mom at her shady table and enjoying a snack, we then walked over to the other practice courts.  They're under cover, but behind netting, so it's shady while watching, but a little obscured by the netting.  Mom was happy to see Nadal practicing so close to her!  I left her to watch him for a few minutes while I ran to get some shots of Angelique Kerber practicing - I like her game very much and have enjoyed watching her have success this season.  We also randomly watched a few minutes of Milos Raonic practicing with John McEnroe and Andy Murray practicing with another Brit. I got some pictures, but that's about it.

We decided we needed to sit in some shady seats now, so we went back to the old Grandstand to watch the end of a women's match before catching two more new-to-us gents.  First we watched Sesil Karatantcheva from Bulgaria take on Elise Martens from Belgium.  Both ladies have strong ball-striking skills and they produced a lot of really good rallies.  But I think the heat was getting to Karatantcheva - after winning the first set, she lost the next two pretty quickly.  But there were some exciting shots before the end. After they finished, we stayed in our seats to watch Aleksandr Nedovyesov from Kazhakstan versus Darian King from Barbados.  I don't think I've ever seen a player from Barbados before, so that was fun.  Both players have very nice games, I especially liked watching King - his movement on the court was very smooth and elegant, though he started to make too many unforced errors and ended up losing the first set.  After looking at my schedule and seeing a match was getting started on Court 17 that I particularly wanted to see, we snuck out to first watch Ryan Shane play his second round match (we didn't see much, he lost pretty quickly, darn it), then head over to Court 17.  Oh, and before I forget, I need to Google and see if there was a story about how next-to-no girls/women tried out to be ballkids this year.  Mom and I suddenly realized that we hadn't seen ANY girls/women until Thursday afternoon.  All the other matches we watched had only ballboys.  Or ballmen (one guy reminded me of Kramer from Seinfeld). It was truly odd.

Once the sun starts heading west, you can sit in the actual seats in Court 17 instead of on the benches, so Mom and I found some good seats for the Taylor Townsend match.  I like Townsend quite a lot - she's a lefty, has a very crafty game that doesn't look like anyone else's, and she seems like a really sweet girl.  I saw her briefly place once a long time ago when she was really young, so it was nice to see her again. She was playing against Olga Savchuk from Ukraine. Taylor played really well in the first set and ended up winning it 6-0.  Then, to our disappointment, even though the Weather Channel app said there was only a 10% chance of rain, it, yes, started to rain.  Hard enough that the court became slippery, so the players came off the court.  Mom and I went outside the stadium and decided we had seen enough tennis for the day.  Plus, the line judge that I had just fallen in love with ended his shift on court, so...  We didn't really want to stand around and wait for the rain to let up, and it got crowded really quickly in the food court area. At first we thought we'd go see the new Meryl Streep movie, but we were afraid we'd fall asleep, so we instead just went back to my apartment to veg out.  Nothing wrong with that during a vacation.

Friday was my mom's last day, so we decided not to go back to the tennis for a half day (besides which, it was HOT), we instead went out to breakfast in Queens, then did a little shopping.  As always, we had a great time, though we were a little sad the week went by so quickly.  At least I'll get to see my family next weekend when I head home for a work event that happens to take place near my parents' house!  And at least I'll get to see two nights of tennis before putting the visions of tennis balls dancing in my head away for another year.