It’s funny to see how people like to pass their time. For me, as I think I wrote in a previous post, I tend to fall into the hole of being “over-programmed” where I’m moving from thing to thing to thing for days without end until my body finally gives up and forces me to slow down. Nance has a streak of the same stuff in her, and I’ve heard “I can play tennis three times a day, no problem, no I won’t be sore” from her more times than I can count. And no, I can’t count very high, but I’m working on it.
This weekend, however, things went very well, and I think we managed to spend our time rather than pass it, and I think that’s a really important distinction.
Despite having tickets to the finals of the Delay Open (and they were good seats, as you can see from the picture!), the best parts of the day were spent sitting in a booth on Atlantic Ave. (a street which has been gentrified beyond my wildest dreams in the ten-plus years I have been away) watching people and eating garlic bread. Nance and I sat on the same side of our booth, facing the world, and just enjoyed being. Wonderful! We need to do more of this.
And the tennis? Flipping awesome. Cilic is a scrapper, and so is Anderson, so together they put on a show of three very tight sets. Both players were a bit streaky, but what won the game for Cilic was his “one more ball client tennis” as we called it. Despite being able to serve in the 125+ range whenever he wants, he turned everything down and played safe, waiting for Anderson to blow it. That’s smart tennis, because Anderson loves pace; what he got were fairly junk and easy balls. Cilic turned himself into a returner because it was killing his opponent. Brad Gilbert would be proud!