Thursday, July 3, 2008

My link with Pete Sampras

Tonight on my sportscast I showed highlights of Serena Williams advancing to the Wimbledon final with a 6-2, 7-6 win over Zheng Jie. In those highlights, I showed a ballboy who collided into Serena at almost full speed. It brought back memories of my days as a ballboy. That's right, I had the Reebok red and blue outfit in the back row of the 1987 US Open. I went to a tryout at Flushing Meadow and the USTA National Tennis Center and made the cut to work the back row. Basically, I was throwing balls on one perfect bounce to a player and during changeovers, throwing balls across the court to my comrades in the back row. There is a pecking order in the ballboy world. A newbie like myself was not going to get thrown on the stadium court or the grandstand. I never did get on to the main two courts - my highlight of my ballboy career was working a match on court 16 (at the time, one of the larger outer courts in Flushing Meadow) with Carling Bassett-Seguso, who was the Anna Kournikova of 1987. As for the low point of my ballboy career, that would come in a women's doubles match. Raffaella Reggi, who was an Italian ranked in the top 20 in women's singles, was playing in a doubles match. During changeovers, we would have to throw tennis balls across court and I was in my routine of throwing line drives when miss Reggi walked right into one of my throws. It hit her sqaure on the head. Fortunately, there were only about 50 people watching the match, but they all managed to gasp. I thought it was going to be my last match. It probably would have been if it was on the stadium or grandstand, but Reggi laughed, I apologized profusely and she and her partner won the match easily in straight sets.
The highlight of the ballboy experience was getting the chance to actually play at the USTA National Tennis Center. My high school teammate, Chris Gambino, was a highly ranked national player who was on standby to get into the US Open boys singles draw. He didn't get to play in the event, but he was working as a court attendant during the Open and was allowed to practice on the courts because he was on standby. We would get there early and hit balls before the matches got started at 11am. The court attendant gig was way better than ballboy - all you had to worry about was getting towels, and relaying scores.
I can thank Chris Gambino for my one and only significant match as a varsity tennis player in high school. I started playing tennis at around the age of 12 and got hooked. There was a tremendous public courts program that became my summer job and was responsible for my passion for tennis. My high school, Christian Brothers Academy, had the reputation as one of the best tennis programs in New Jersey. For five years, I practiced and took many lessons with the hopes of maybe, just maybe I could start for the CBA tennis team in my senior season. Alas, I got to my senior year and was the 8th player on the depth chart. Unfortunately, seven players play (3 singles and two doubles teams). All of the hard work did not pay off. The beauty of tennis is there is no one to blame about the starting lineup. You beat a player head to head and you move up the ladder. No excuses, I was the 8th best player. Granted, I probably would have started for any other team in the state of New Jersey. That's what many people told me, and I didn't believe them until mid-season.
Newark Academy held a mid-season tournament where the top 8 teams in the state were invited to play head to head and have an idea of who was the favorite heading into the later part of the year. We were ranked #2 in the state and drew the #7 team in the first round. I was ready to ride the bench as usual. Gambino was playing in a pro qualifer tournament the same day as our match. He was playing a world ranked player and he thought he'd be able to come to our match in plenty of time. We were getting ready to leave for our match when our coach got the call - Chris beat this world ranked player and would not be playing in our match. For the first time ever, I got the call to play in a varsity tennis match. I played second doubles with Brian Bocker and won the match in straight sets. While I was playing my first varsity match, Chris Gambino was playing a 16 year old phenom named Pete Sampras (he lost to Pistol Pete 7-5,7-5 if I recall). Our tennis team went on to a perfect season and a state championship and I played in a handful of matches against weaker teams on our schedule.
The confidence of that one match kept me going. I won a doubles invitational with our #2 player Joe Clemente after the season and got a chance to play tennis at Saint Bonaventure. I played three years of NCAA Division I tennis despite playing a grand total of 8 matches in my high school career.
Sure, it's sixteen degrees of separation, but I always feel I'll be forever linked to one of the greatest tennis players in history and if it wasn't for him, I may have never felt what it was like to truly win on a tennis court.

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