Tennis is part of my DNA. My grandfather watching the Davis Cup final between the US and Romania in 1972 is one of my earliest childhood memories. I watched Nastase winning the French Open, losing in the finals at Wimbledon. In primary school I passionately played with an old Chinese wooden racquet on a hot, melting asphalt court using just a white cotton string as the net in an run down park in old communist Bucharest. I became a Boris Becker fan after watching him win Wimbledon at 17. I always loved Steffi Graf. As a poorly paid sports journalist, I spent a good part of my 20s covering tennis in Romania when no-one really cared. I was in the stands when Ruxandra Dragomir lost in the quarters in Paris. I was in the stands when Irina Spirlea beat Seles and then literally bumped into Venus Williams at the US Open. Ive alienated countless girlfriends (on occasionally my wife and son) with my imposed regimen of thousands of hours of tennis watched on TV. But I could not help getting the shivers and mildly breaking down in tears after watching Simona Halep qualify for the finals of the French Open today.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 18:39:54 +0000
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