“Thank God for the rare people who listen without judgment, help without keeping score, understand without pretending, and love without condition.” ~ Unknown
beginning of the day
I’m pretty sure both Stacy and I checked off a bucket list item today by attending the Cincinnati Open. Known by a variety of names over the years, most recently as the Western and Southern, “The Cincinnati Open is the nation’s longest-running professional tennis tournament played in its city of origin…Founded in 1899, the Cincinnati Open is an ATP Masters 1000 and a WTA 1000 tournament. The Cincinnati Open annually welcomes over 200,000 fans who come from all 50 states and more than 40 countries.” I had never seen a professional tennis match in person before today, and just as I’d been told, the ball moves a lot faster in person than it does on TV. Some of those players are pushing 130 MPH serves. It’s impressive, to say the least.
center court
Thanks to Jennifer Adkins Reynolds, an old pro at the Cinci Open at this point, we were well coached for our first trip. We bought day tickets for the third round, sure to catch many of our favorites, and boy did we. Our day started at Center Court (above) with a match between 5th-ranked Iga Swiatek of Poland and (32) Marie Sakkari of Greece. The photo makes it look like an enormous court, but in truth, it’s not that big, and there are no bad seats. The worst thing was the heat and facing the morning sun. Lucky for us, it was mostly cloudy, which played to our disadvantage later in the day when there was a rain delay. In fact, in the adjacent Grandstand court, we were watching my new favorite, Great Britain’s Arthur Fery (below, right), face Australia’s Alex de Minaur when we should have been watching one of Stacy’s favorites, Jessica Pagula. Fery and de Minaur had suffered a rain delay, which pushed them back significantly, but as you can kind of see on the left side of the sky, it was about to happen again.
grandstand and practice
Because Jen gave us all the best tips, we were able to see many of our favorite players practicing. That’s the beauty of this tournament: the Lindner Family Tennis Center did a $260 million dollar facilities upgrade, making it easy and practical to wander around watching whoever you want. You just need to know the practice schedules. In between courts are water refill stations, ice refill stations, plenty of restrooms, and eateries, but you better take out a second mortgage for lunch. Nothing about this place is cheap. No matter, because today on the practice courts we caught American rising star Frances Tiafoe, or Big Foe as he has come to be known (upper left), and the number one women’s player in the world, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (upper center). She is as stern-looking in person as she appears in her televised matches, and we had to watch her from a tiny crack in the fence.
end of the day
The rains returned, so with sunburnt knees, we left near the end of the day’s sessions because everything was being pushed back yet again, including the big match of the night, the Williams sisters’ doubles. We were hoping to tough it out and stick around for that match, especially since Jen was there with a friend in the P&G clubhouse to see it, too, but we figured they wouldn’t start until 9 PM, and we were right. They started at 9 PM. It was fine, though, because we had an incredibly fun day, despite the rain and heat, and we’re already making plans for next year’s extended stay. We’re looking at this year’s trip as reconnaissance. I’ll say this: I haven’t seen Stacy this happy in years. She’s an enormous tennis fan, and it’s all her fault I’ve become one, too. She had the time of her life today, and I think she will agree that it was worth every penny.
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