!Jmdp by Jackie Roe, TW Social Director
Welcome to an early edition of the Deuce Club! Last week, a number of you requested that I put something up in time for the Royal Wedding and I was happy to oblige. (Ask and ye shall receive—that’s how things work in the DC!) But before you work yourselves into a wedding frenzy, check out this special write-up from our very own gauloises, aka Hannah Wilks. She’s been covering the Estoril tournament for Tennis.com—you can read her terrific “Postcards from Portugal” here—and took some time out of her busy schedule to reflect on both her tournament experience and the wedding of the century, just for us. A fun, enlightening read (would we expect anything less from Hannah?). Enjoy, everyone!
Time changes when you’re at a tennis tournament, don’t you find? As you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve been at the Estoril Open in the suburbs of Lisbon this week, and it’s extraordinarily difficult to care about anything else happening in the world, especially when—in the course of trying to write decent coverage for Tennis.com—I end up rushing from match to match, press conference to caipirinha, expending a wildly disproportionate amount of time and energy in relation to what I actually produce. But seriously, a tennis tournament can become your whole world when you’re spending every day there. Munich? Who cares! Serbia Open? The what Open?! Madrid? Whatever—the real competition is happening here in Estoril.
Actually, I plan—or more accurately am resigned to—spending much of Madrid (it’s next week, right? I don’t even know) curled up under a blanket quietly weeping. You know that feeling you have when you come home from your local tennis tournament unable to believe that it’s going to be a year before you get to see live tennis again (that feeling that often leads to an impulse credit-card purchase of tournament and plane tickets that you can’t possibly afford in order to see some more again sooner than that)? Multiply that feeling by a thousand, and you have what it feels like to wake up in the morning and realize that today you don’t get to write a thousand words on whatever the hell seems interesting to you.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton seems like something that is happening on another planet. Even if I was at home, I think I’d still be at a loss to understand people’s excitement; not only do I consider the royal family basically a harmless irrelevance, but I never dreamed about my wedding as a child and don’t want to get married as an adult, either. If I ever wanted to be a princess, it was the sort that put on armor and grabbed a sword and went out to defend her kingdom when in danger. But when my friends in London keep texting me to invite me to either royal wedding parties or anti-royal wedding parties (forgetting I’m in Portugal), there’s no denying such enthusiasm is real. There’s obviously been a swing in sentiment back towards the Royals in recent years, due partly no doubt to the fact that our politicians have been revealed to be lying bastards and partly to films like The Queen and The King’s Speech, but judging by a quick scan of the comments at TW over the past few days, this enthusiasm is world-wide.
So for those of you at TW who are fascinated by the big event, I suggest everyone comments using their “royal name” (you can generate one here, or alternatively take either “Lord” or “Lady,” combine it with one of your grandparents’ name, then for a surname take the name of the street you grew up on and double-barrel it with the name of your first pet—for example, mine would give Lady Violet Broomleaf-Scully) and generally go mad with the virtual Pimms and champagne cocktails. [JR: My name? Duchess Jackie Eugenia Roeskitt of Chicagobury. HA.]
As for the rest of us, whom I hesitate to call the sane minority . . . well, Portuguese TV is covering the event live from 9 a.m. apparently. I shan’t be watching, and will instead be enjoying a splendid quarter-finals lineup in Estoril and trying to decide what to write about (and ignoring the texts from already-drunk friends once again forgetting I‘m in Portugal and telling me just what they think about whatever Camilla‘s wearing). Let’s revive the always-young topic of favorite tennis tournaments to watch live, shall we?
The photos posted here should give you a flavor of the Estoril Open, but they can’t capture its charm. Located in Jamor, a suburb of Lisbon, it is like the city itself an extraordinary mixture of chaotic energy and laid-back pleasantness. Court Central, the stadium, is nice enough, but Centralito—a sunken clay court with stone bleachers rising to colonnades and arches—is almost absurdly beautiful, especially in late afternoon when one side of the court is in shade and the other is bathed by sinking sunlight. The layout of the site is sufficiently Byzantine that everything is close to everything else—walking from the restaurant to Central, for example, you can stop and look down on what’s happening on courts 1 and 2—but intimate enough, divided by palm trees and thick hedges, that whatever space you’re inhabiting feels enclosed and somehow special. The fact that it’s a joint ATP and WTA event means that courts are at a premium and there’s plenty to see even late in the week with a grounds pass. Moreover, your unscripted encounters with players are likely to prove even more satisfying. Yesterday, for example, we saw Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, disregarded, having to push through a crowd of Verdasco fan girls and then explain to a security guard who he was just to get to a practice court. You don’t see that sort of thing at a Grand Slam.
So let’s hear about your local—or favorite—tennis tournament. Where do you go when you can, and what do you love about it? Have you ever seen an unguarded moment from a player that’s become a cherished memory? If anyone has any questions about Estoril or the players that I’ve seen there, I’m here to answer them. And if everyone would rather discuss the royal wedding, that’s fine too. This is a safe space, TW. Go nuts.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Hannah. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and we look forward to the rest of your Estoril dispatches!
Enjoy the wedding and have a great weekend, TWibe!