New Haven Crisis Center: 8.24

I confess I had no idea what happened yesterday at New Haven. I had a fine day at the U.S. Open qualis, the highlight of which was hooking up with Ptenisnet and his lovely wife, Karen, and Ray Stonada, Tom Perrotta, and Ed McGrogan to watch one of the very last of that dying breed, serve-and-volley players - Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi.

Man, I'm so ignorant i don't even know where the dude's first name ends and last name begins, so I'm just going to call him Crush. And crush he can! He put a nifty, bold attacking game to good use yesterday to eliminate Rogerio Dutra Silva of  Brazil.  Crush is now  playing for a Q spot in the main draw;  his last match will be on Saturday.

Is this the man sent by superior beings from the far land of the Sampras to end the reign of Roger?  Ancient legends tell of a mysterious one, long of name, who will come from afar one day, bearing a game strange and unfamiliar to us. .  . . and reality tell us that The Mighty Fed's first two matches will be against qualifiers (after a qualifier shootout), so maybe there's something funky going on with the alignment of the planets here. Or maybe not, and Crush turns out to be just what he appeared as yesterday - an intriguing guy. The road to Wimbledon does not usually lead through Lahore (oh man, could I got to town with that one!), plus he plays a style still beloved only to romantics, contrarians and crazy revisionists.

Anyway, it was just one of those fine extended moments I'm m going to remember, partly because it was spent in such good company. It's just a pity that Andrew Friedman/Rolo and his three-year old son Declan had to leave early. The gray skies yielded to a pretty evening sky with puffy white clouds with traces of orange and lavender as evening advanced.  We sat there way up in the corner of the temporary bleachers at Court 8, an active colony of yellowjackets strafing one or another of us now and then, without making any direct hits. The two USTA hired hands trying to dispatch the bees with highly toxic death-on-contact spray got lured into a pincer move by the bees and ended up shooting each other in the face while the bees got away. Man, that's got to sting the eyes!

We argued about court speed and whether or not racquet head-size has changed the way the game is played, baiting Tommy P, who can get pretty worked up about those things. We watched Crush put on a nice show of the kind of purposeful tennis you rarely see anymore, at least not from the guys who play nuclear-rally tennis. Karen (Mrs. Ptenisnet) pretended to be interested but I had my doubts. Crush represented the dying game with well, and with flair: it was like reading a good story instead of watching  a movie that is one long car chase, although I think Tom might get all worked up again when he reads this. Sigh. I love serve-and-volley tennis. It's as simple as that.

So here's your Crisis Center for today; a post will appear in a few hours to serve as your new OT post. I'm drifting to the farm this afernoon with Cowboy Luke, to see how the pond is coming along and get a little down time before the Big Show. I'll be back and blogging Sunday afternoon from the BJKNTC.