Post by Giselle on Apr 17, 2008 1:49:03 GMT 3
The tale of the Greñotour (Sony Ericsson Open 2008)
By The Miami fan & Wisebelle
Foreword
I would like to mention here that there were a lot of people and lucky events that brought me to the magical moment of having my photo taken with Marat. For that I feel very thankful. It was truly a dream come true.
Me & my best friend nicknamed this trip as the “greñotour” which comes from two terms:
- Greño: comes from Spanish word “greñero” which refers to having a very messy hair style. Marat earned this nickname “greñas” during his Mulan Man days
- Tour: like a rockstar tour, or a travel tour
I had two years trying to go to Miami since this is the closest event of this magnitude near my home in Mexico. The first year everything was booked already. The second year I couldn’t get days off work. Like the say third time is victorious.
Wednesday March 26, 2008
Well basically we spent the whole day on the plane, my friend Yola & I. We had to take connection flight from Monterrey to Mexico City then Miami. We bought the vacation package offered by the event.
This was my first time to Miami, and the view of the city at night captivated me. Some buildings illuminated in different colors, and the bridges, clear night sky view.
We got to the Hilton hotel and they gave us a room in floor 8 and the view was truly magnificent. I didn’t regret the money invested in the trip.
That night we went to dinner to Bayside Mall and we ate some ice cream. They have Gelato places all over Miami. I found apparently that Gelato and Crepes are the thing now haha.
When we got back to the hotel I was trying to figure out at what time Marat was playing on Thursday. Luckily Giselle had already figured it out so I called her and she told me he was second on stadium. We talked about meeting at the tournament around 11 am.
Then we went so sleep knowing I had in store a big day before me.
Thursday March 27, 2008
We woke up around 8.00 am so we could have enough time to figure out where we needed to take the shuttle to the tournament, which was included in our package.
It turned out we needed to take it at the Marriot Hotel which was right behind ours. We went there and took some improvised breakfast at their marina-view terrace (I felt like a rockstar or something haha) Then took the bus.
When we were on the way to the tournament I saw all the publicity hanging around about tennis and I was just surprised. I got more surprised when we got to the entrance and I remembered looking in photos so many times to the entrance of Crandon Park and I just got so excited of being there!
So we got in and looked at the draw and took some photos. Then we headed for the practice courts. We needed to wait for Giselle because she was getting some tickets and some of her friends were coming along for Marat’s match.
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My first “favorite” encounter was with Chucho Acasuso. He finished his practice and started walking outside the court and I just froze didn’t know what to do. The fact of finding tennis players in the flesh just roaming around the place was too much for me to handle. Luckily my friend Yola, who was not a tennis fan, didn’t mind and chased him until I got my photo with him.
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Of course she started to mock me that I was a fraud, how in the world I didn’t move to get his autograph and so on… Then I just looked at her and said:
- You know, when I told you I could faint if I saw Marat, I was dead serious. Now you understand me?
I bet many of you lucky girls that have been to a first tournament got the idea of what I am talking about here. Is just mind bothering to have most of tennis players roam around, most of them unnoticed… I bet is not the same in Miami than in Paris or NY, but you get the idea.
We roamed around the practice courts and also took some photos with the Mercedes cars (Yola is a BIG fan of cars haha)
Around 12 o’clock Sugiyama was still playing (first in stadium) and we were waiting for Giselle to arrive. She had tickets for 100 level , our tickets were for 400 level, but since we knew it was not going to be packed we thought about strategies to get in all together.
I wanted to make a sign for Marat before leaving for Miami, and Yola decided to help me out. One of her workers knows how to do graffiti style words, and she had paint so she only needed to buy some fabric. So we had a big sign for Marat ready. We showed to Giselle and took some photos with it. The sign read:
Vamos Marat
Love Mexico
Liz y Yolis (me & my friend)
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The funny thing was that even if Yola wrote exactly what the guy needed to put in the sign, he still managed to misspell my name and then we didn’t have time to fix it …
We were just thinking about going again to the practice courts but then I looked and saw the Sugiyama game was almost over, so we headed to the stadium, and got in at the 100 level seats. Just a few moments after they called in Bobby Reynolds (Marat’s opponent) and then…
“former no. 1 and Russian veteran… please welcome Marat Safin”
THERE HE WAS
Oh my God! I can’t describe what got over me. We stood up and went to the front to take photos. We also extended our big sign for him to see (we attempted that during the whole match actually haha) I was just smiling. I didn’t faint, just stood there with a big smile in my face. The whole thing was just surreal because I have seen so many matches, so many photos, so it was old and new for me.
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In our section there was only a few people, and two blondes that seemed quite unfriendly since they ask us to remove our sign because they “couldn’t see” the court. (May be they were Bobby’s fans or just plain bi***)
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The game got on the way and Marat started with the wrong foot. Again his shots were all over the court and he got broken early. Of course Giselle and I started rooting for him. Vamos Marat! Come On Marat! Giselle’s friends arrived then
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++ Poor Yola was having issues with the racing sun on our heads and attempted to cover herself with the sign hahaha She didn’t know what was going on and at some point I think she wanted to sleep but I forgive her because in the end we turned her into another tennis fan! But that’s a tale for later.
The first set went to a tiebraker, and we were screaming at the top of our lungs for him to concentrate and go for it. But it went to Bobby, and we were too disappointed, because a defeat not only meant the end of the tourney for him but also that we wouldn’t get to see him play again on Saturday.
The second set started shaky and then he got a bit more focused. Giselle had the great idea to start chanting for Marat “oe oe oe Safin Safin” so we started chanting between games while we waved our sign. Progressively the audience got into the game as well and started chanting YES GISELLE FOR PRESIDENT!!! Just kidding lol The whole stadium got to chant how cool…I think at this point they were not annoyed by us anymore. Many people started rooting for Marat, Bobby’s fans were sort of quiet. Then they copied our Vamos Marat (oooh how creative) and started screaming “Vamos Bobby”
Funny note: There were some Spanish-speaking people sitting next to us and they turned to ask:
- “does Marat speak Spanish?”
- YES
- “how cool”
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Then Giselle noticed we had back-up. At the top of the stadium seats we saw two young shirtless guys with the Russian flag painted on their torso, and they were also chanting the “oe-oe-oe” we thought they were probably Russian.
The second set went for Marat and we were just hoping on a miracle. Giselle and her friend taught us a cheeky chant we didn’t know that said “Marat, capullo, que todo lo que tengo es tuyo” it means something like “Marat, baby, all that I have is yours” and her friend managed to chant that out loud for him and we started laughing
The third set was also a battle. So many unforced errors both sides… we never stooped rooting for Marat and screaming for him. When the third set went into another tiebreaker, I felt I was leaving my soul right there on the line If you think u leave your soul can you imagine what he leaves everytime he plays like that. I felt at some point I was going to cry. But I stood there and waved and supported, the crowd got really loud on both sides, but at some moments you could hear only Giselle’s voice or mine saying “Vamos Marat tu puedes” (you can do it) it was amazing. Yeah me the screamer
Then he lost. I couldn’t even think about anything because we ran our butts off to the back of the stadium, where the VIP entrance is and where the players take the shuttle for their hotels, in hopes we could get a photo with him. We waited there patiently, trying to act cool so the security personnel wouldn’t kick us out. There was a sign there that read “no photos on this area”yeah right!. And there we were standing camera in hand waiting for Marat…
While we were waiting something funny happened. Xavier Malisse came out to take his shuttle, and looked at us wondering (I think) why on earth we didn’t ask him for a photo or an autograph, but since we were concentrated in Marat we didn’t move. He walked to the car and still turned around to look our way two or three times… poor Malisse, we will make a sign for him next time! It was hilarious he played with his foot against the floor, he looked like a girl waiting to get picked to dance.
After waiting for about other 15 minutes then Marat came out. I was the one that spot him while he was talking to the valet person. I just managed to mumble to my friends “Marat… Marat…” another priceless moment then they turned around and the three of us approached him. Yola asked if we could take a photo, and Giselle told him the brief version of my story, that I went all the way from Mexico to see him, that we even did a sign for him. He just kindly smiled at us. Now that I’ve seen what he said about the fans travelling to see him, the smiled was more like a smirk….Liz was all quiet, I couldn’t shut up.
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He agreed to sign our big sign, and then held it for the photo that was funny we were arguing who was going to take the photo and he was all quiet waiting holding the sign lol. Then a security person came to yell at us because apparently we didn’t know how to read but the sign said we were not allowed to take photos hahaha but Marat of course, didn’t move and told her “just one photo its okay” and let us take more photos, taking turns to pose with him, all the while he was the one holding the sign!!! Such a gentleman! I loved it when they said “its ok” security must be pissed! I cut the lady off the pic but she said only one photo I was like WHAT all the way here, I’m getting a picture too…you can put handcuffs on me, I’m getting one!
Then a family came along he took some more photos and started walking towards his car. Yola ran behind him and asked him in which hotel he was staying. But he said he would leave the same day (yeah right, clever Marat)I told him LIAR! Then Giselle yelled “good luck Marat” and he turned around and did a “cool” hand sign to us and smiled.The fact that he tourned around walking away and the smile, that made my day heck my week too! I guess he really believes in luck and loves people telling him ”good luck”.
He put his things on to the trunk of a black Pontiac car put me on the trunk, meeee!, then he got into it, and drove away. I wanna be a traffic cop now, he’ll get tickets ALLL THE TIME!.
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I remember I turned around to hug my friends and just thank them for being there with me. He was so nice! He’s always nice…Loved the palm tree shorts and the blue flip flops…
When we were walking back into the courts we saw the two painted- torso guys and Giselle wanted to take a photo with them I remember I yelled to them Russians come here!. We learned they were not Russians, but actually also latinos. We took some photos with them and the sign, now immortalized with Marat’s signature and headed to eat.
After that we discussed we would take a leap around to find out who else was in the practice courts and after we would leave. After some walking we saw a practice court full of people and figured out Roger Federer was there. Yola tourned around and asked me “and what ranking is he?” (like I knew all rankings to the top 100 by memory! Hahaha) and I said “number one” so she got interested! She stayed back while Giselle and I went to take a peek and discovered Rafa Nadal in the other court. Soon after that he finished his practice and we followed him until he got into the stadium. We figured out he would be out soon on the other side so we went there to wait for him.
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While we were waiting we saw Nole Djokovic, but Giselle and I were very shy to take a photo with him, plus we were worried about the security guards. Then Rafa came out and was walking around the entrance… we waited there for sometime but the security guards were very picky and told us we can’t be there. They brought a big guy to try to scare us away and they got very rude. So we left to look for Yola. We met her some minutes after and she told us that she got an autograph and some photos of Roger and we were like “woow, how did you manage?” She’s the competitive type so after that she was telling EVERYONE that she got number 1’s autograph and then got mad at me because I wasn’t there to take the photo of her & Roger LOL
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Friday March 28, 2008
We went shopping during the morning and then we had plan to see Dmitry Tursunov play during the afternoon, but didn’t make it on time, due to well… we sort of got lost in the public transit hahaha So we decided to go around to the VIP entrance to see if we could still catch him for a photo when he left, but we ended up waiting for Rafa Nadal along with a bunch of Rafa’s hardcore fans … I mean kids dressed up like Rafa and screaming mad for him to come out and sign autographs for them LOL We were laughing because one of the kids was asking all the people that walked by (mostly tourney volunteers) “I don’t know who you are but can you sign me an autograph?” …
We waited over half and hour and then he came out and signed some autographs for everyone. While we were waiting we saw some personalities walk by, I managed to see Dinara coming out but she was walking way too fast…
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After that we went to see some of Carlos Moya’s game, after he won we followed him as well but he seemed in a rush, like he had to be somewhere so we decided to call it a day and went back to the hotel.
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Saturday March 29, 2008
We arrived early on Saturday in hopes to catch Dmitry practice. We went to take a leap around the practice courts, and I was stupid enough to let the opportunity to take a photo with Misha Teddybear. Again it happened very quickly he was just walking around and I couldn’t make up my mind if it was really him hahaha We went around the practice courts and we catched some of the Spanish players. Then we went to check Tommy Robredo’s game because I had a letter from a friend of mine that I needed to give him, but he disappeared too fast. So Yola & I went to the VIP entrance (again, we should have camped there haha)
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While we were waiting from him we saw Justine Henin waiting for her car, and then some other players came out. Then right when we gave up on Tommy (must’ve been that he had a doubles game later in the day) We found Dmitry coming in for his practice, lucky us! So we ran to him and he took some photos with us and autographs.
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After that we went to see some of Dinara’s match. Then it was time to say goodbye to the Tournament, since we wanted to use some of our time left to go sightseeing. Giselle was kind enough to pick us up and took us for a ride around South Beach. We had a great time there! Thank you Giselle! You’re very welcome!
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Sunday March 30, 2008
Nothing much else to say here, only that we were absolutely exhausted and had to leave early to the airport. We got a pretty nasty sunburn due to we forgot to bring sunblock mostly during Marat’s game so arms, necks and faces were two-colored. All in all we had a great time. To sum up there are quite a few really lovely memories about this trip and I can say proudly because we manage to get Yola into tennis, one week later she was watching the final at home, and now she declared herself a big Nole fan and wants to go back for more tennis!
This is something that Giselle told us, that once you got there, you want to go again, because you have so much fun!
That’s all for me… Giselle can continue since she left for the tournament to watch Dmitry play on Sunday…
By The Miami fan & Wisebelle
Foreword
I would like to mention here that there were a lot of people and lucky events that brought me to the magical moment of having my photo taken with Marat. For that I feel very thankful. It was truly a dream come true.
Me & my best friend nicknamed this trip as the “greñotour” which comes from two terms:
- Greño: comes from Spanish word “greñero” which refers to having a very messy hair style. Marat earned this nickname “greñas” during his Mulan Man days
- Tour: like a rockstar tour, or a travel tour
I had two years trying to go to Miami since this is the closest event of this magnitude near my home in Mexico. The first year everything was booked already. The second year I couldn’t get days off work. Like the say third time is victorious.
Wednesday March 26, 2008
Well basically we spent the whole day on the plane, my friend Yola & I. We had to take connection flight from Monterrey to Mexico City then Miami. We bought the vacation package offered by the event.
This was my first time to Miami, and the view of the city at night captivated me. Some buildings illuminated in different colors, and the bridges, clear night sky view.
We got to the Hilton hotel and they gave us a room in floor 8 and the view was truly magnificent. I didn’t regret the money invested in the trip.
That night we went to dinner to Bayside Mall and we ate some ice cream. They have Gelato places all over Miami. I found apparently that Gelato and Crepes are the thing now haha.
When we got back to the hotel I was trying to figure out at what time Marat was playing on Thursday. Luckily Giselle had already figured it out so I called her and she told me he was second on stadium. We talked about meeting at the tournament around 11 am.
Then we went so sleep knowing I had in store a big day before me.
Thursday March 27, 2008
We woke up around 8.00 am so we could have enough time to figure out where we needed to take the shuttle to the tournament, which was included in our package.
It turned out we needed to take it at the Marriot Hotel which was right behind ours. We went there and took some improvised breakfast at their marina-view terrace (I felt like a rockstar or something haha) Then took the bus.
When we were on the way to the tournament I saw all the publicity hanging around about tennis and I was just surprised. I got more surprised when we got to the entrance and I remembered looking in photos so many times to the entrance of Crandon Park and I just got so excited of being there!
So we got in and looked at the draw and took some photos. Then we headed for the practice courts. We needed to wait for Giselle because she was getting some tickets and some of her friends were coming along for Marat’s match.
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My first “favorite” encounter was with Chucho Acasuso. He finished his practice and started walking outside the court and I just froze didn’t know what to do. The fact of finding tennis players in the flesh just roaming around the place was too much for me to handle. Luckily my friend Yola, who was not a tennis fan, didn’t mind and chased him until I got my photo with him.
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Of course she started to mock me that I was a fraud, how in the world I didn’t move to get his autograph and so on… Then I just looked at her and said:
- You know, when I told you I could faint if I saw Marat, I was dead serious. Now you understand me?
I bet many of you lucky girls that have been to a first tournament got the idea of what I am talking about here. Is just mind bothering to have most of tennis players roam around, most of them unnoticed… I bet is not the same in Miami than in Paris or NY, but you get the idea.
We roamed around the practice courts and also took some photos with the Mercedes cars (Yola is a BIG fan of cars haha)
Around 12 o’clock Sugiyama was still playing (first in stadium) and we were waiting for Giselle to arrive. She had tickets for 100 level , our tickets were for 400 level, but since we knew it was not going to be packed we thought about strategies to get in all together.
I wanted to make a sign for Marat before leaving for Miami, and Yola decided to help me out. One of her workers knows how to do graffiti style words, and she had paint so she only needed to buy some fabric. So we had a big sign for Marat ready. We showed to Giselle and took some photos with it. The sign read:
Vamos Marat
Love Mexico
Liz y Yolis (me & my friend)
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The funny thing was that even if Yola wrote exactly what the guy needed to put in the sign, he still managed to misspell my name and then we didn’t have time to fix it …
We were just thinking about going again to the practice courts but then I looked and saw the Sugiyama game was almost over, so we headed to the stadium, and got in at the 100 level seats. Just a few moments after they called in Bobby Reynolds (Marat’s opponent) and then…
“former no. 1 and Russian veteran… please welcome Marat Safin”
THERE HE WAS
Oh my God! I can’t describe what got over me. We stood up and went to the front to take photos. We also extended our big sign for him to see (we attempted that during the whole match actually haha) I was just smiling. I didn’t faint, just stood there with a big smile in my face. The whole thing was just surreal because I have seen so many matches, so many photos, so it was old and new for me.
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In our section there was only a few people, and two blondes that seemed quite unfriendly since they ask us to remove our sign because they “couldn’t see” the court. (May be they were Bobby’s fans or just plain bi***)
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The game got on the way and Marat started with the wrong foot. Again his shots were all over the court and he got broken early. Of course Giselle and I started rooting for him. Vamos Marat! Come On Marat! Giselle’s friends arrived then
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++ Poor Yola was having issues with the racing sun on our heads and attempted to cover herself with the sign hahaha She didn’t know what was going on and at some point I think she wanted to sleep but I forgive her because in the end we turned her into another tennis fan! But that’s a tale for later.
The first set went to a tiebraker, and we were screaming at the top of our lungs for him to concentrate and go for it. But it went to Bobby, and we were too disappointed, because a defeat not only meant the end of the tourney for him but also that we wouldn’t get to see him play again on Saturday.
The second set started shaky and then he got a bit more focused. Giselle had the great idea to start chanting for Marat “oe oe oe Safin Safin” so we started chanting between games while we waved our sign. Progressively the audience got into the game as well and started chanting YES GISELLE FOR PRESIDENT!!! Just kidding lol The whole stadium got to chant how cool…I think at this point they were not annoyed by us anymore. Many people started rooting for Marat, Bobby’s fans were sort of quiet. Then they copied our Vamos Marat (oooh how creative) and started screaming “Vamos Bobby”
Funny note: There were some Spanish-speaking people sitting next to us and they turned to ask:
- “does Marat speak Spanish?”
- YES
- “how cool”
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Then Giselle noticed we had back-up. At the top of the stadium seats we saw two young shirtless guys with the Russian flag painted on their torso, and they were also chanting the “oe-oe-oe” we thought they were probably Russian.
The second set went for Marat and we were just hoping on a miracle. Giselle and her friend taught us a cheeky chant we didn’t know that said “Marat, capullo, que todo lo que tengo es tuyo” it means something like “Marat, baby, all that I have is yours” and her friend managed to chant that out loud for him and we started laughing
The third set was also a battle. So many unforced errors both sides… we never stooped rooting for Marat and screaming for him. When the third set went into another tiebreaker, I felt I was leaving my soul right there on the line If you think u leave your soul can you imagine what he leaves everytime he plays like that. I felt at some point I was going to cry. But I stood there and waved and supported, the crowd got really loud on both sides, but at some moments you could hear only Giselle’s voice or mine saying “Vamos Marat tu puedes” (you can do it) it was amazing. Yeah me the screamer
Then he lost. I couldn’t even think about anything because we ran our butts off to the back of the stadium, where the VIP entrance is and where the players take the shuttle for their hotels, in hopes we could get a photo with him. We waited there patiently, trying to act cool so the security personnel wouldn’t kick us out. There was a sign there that read “no photos on this area”yeah right!. And there we were standing camera in hand waiting for Marat…
While we were waiting something funny happened. Xavier Malisse came out to take his shuttle, and looked at us wondering (I think) why on earth we didn’t ask him for a photo or an autograph, but since we were concentrated in Marat we didn’t move. He walked to the car and still turned around to look our way two or three times… poor Malisse, we will make a sign for him next time! It was hilarious he played with his foot against the floor, he looked like a girl waiting to get picked to dance.
After waiting for about other 15 minutes then Marat came out. I was the one that spot him while he was talking to the valet person. I just managed to mumble to my friends “Marat… Marat…” another priceless moment then they turned around and the three of us approached him. Yola asked if we could take a photo, and Giselle told him the brief version of my story, that I went all the way from Mexico to see him, that we even did a sign for him. He just kindly smiled at us. Now that I’ve seen what he said about the fans travelling to see him, the smiled was more like a smirk….Liz was all quiet, I couldn’t shut up.
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He agreed to sign our big sign, and then held it for the photo that was funny we were arguing who was going to take the photo and he was all quiet waiting holding the sign lol. Then a security person came to yell at us because apparently we didn’t know how to read but the sign said we were not allowed to take photos hahaha but Marat of course, didn’t move and told her “just one photo its okay” and let us take more photos, taking turns to pose with him, all the while he was the one holding the sign!!! Such a gentleman! I loved it when they said “its ok” security must be pissed! I cut the lady off the pic but she said only one photo I was like WHAT all the way here, I’m getting a picture too…you can put handcuffs on me, I’m getting one!
Then a family came along he took some more photos and started walking towards his car. Yola ran behind him and asked him in which hotel he was staying. But he said he would leave the same day (yeah right, clever Marat)I told him LIAR! Then Giselle yelled “good luck Marat” and he turned around and did a “cool” hand sign to us and smiled.The fact that he tourned around walking away and the smile, that made my day heck my week too! I guess he really believes in luck and loves people telling him ”good luck”.
He put his things on to the trunk of a black Pontiac car put me on the trunk, meeee!, then he got into it, and drove away. I wanna be a traffic cop now, he’ll get tickets ALLL THE TIME!.
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I remember I turned around to hug my friends and just thank them for being there with me. He was so nice! He’s always nice…Loved the palm tree shorts and the blue flip flops…
When we were walking back into the courts we saw the two painted- torso guys and Giselle wanted to take a photo with them I remember I yelled to them Russians come here!. We learned they were not Russians, but actually also latinos. We took some photos with them and the sign, now immortalized with Marat’s signature and headed to eat.
After that we discussed we would take a leap around to find out who else was in the practice courts and after we would leave. After some walking we saw a practice court full of people and figured out Roger Federer was there. Yola tourned around and asked me “and what ranking is he?” (like I knew all rankings to the top 100 by memory! Hahaha) and I said “number one” so she got interested! She stayed back while Giselle and I went to take a peek and discovered Rafa Nadal in the other court. Soon after that he finished his practice and we followed him until he got into the stadium. We figured out he would be out soon on the other side so we went there to wait for him.
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While we were waiting we saw Nole Djokovic, but Giselle and I were very shy to take a photo with him, plus we were worried about the security guards. Then Rafa came out and was walking around the entrance… we waited there for sometime but the security guards were very picky and told us we can’t be there. They brought a big guy to try to scare us away and they got very rude. So we left to look for Yola. We met her some minutes after and she told us that she got an autograph and some photos of Roger and we were like “woow, how did you manage?” She’s the competitive type so after that she was telling EVERYONE that she got number 1’s autograph and then got mad at me because I wasn’t there to take the photo of her & Roger LOL
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Friday March 28, 2008
We went shopping during the morning and then we had plan to see Dmitry Tursunov play during the afternoon, but didn’t make it on time, due to well… we sort of got lost in the public transit hahaha So we decided to go around to the VIP entrance to see if we could still catch him for a photo when he left, but we ended up waiting for Rafa Nadal along with a bunch of Rafa’s hardcore fans … I mean kids dressed up like Rafa and screaming mad for him to come out and sign autographs for them LOL We were laughing because one of the kids was asking all the people that walked by (mostly tourney volunteers) “I don’t know who you are but can you sign me an autograph?” …
We waited over half and hour and then he came out and signed some autographs for everyone. While we were waiting we saw some personalities walk by, I managed to see Dinara coming out but she was walking way too fast…
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After that we went to see some of Carlos Moya’s game, after he won we followed him as well but he seemed in a rush, like he had to be somewhere so we decided to call it a day and went back to the hotel.
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Saturday March 29, 2008
We arrived early on Saturday in hopes to catch Dmitry practice. We went to take a leap around the practice courts, and I was stupid enough to let the opportunity to take a photo with Misha Teddybear. Again it happened very quickly he was just walking around and I couldn’t make up my mind if it was really him hahaha We went around the practice courts and we catched some of the Spanish players. Then we went to check Tommy Robredo’s game because I had a letter from a friend of mine that I needed to give him, but he disappeared too fast. So Yola & I went to the VIP entrance (again, we should have camped there haha)
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While we were waiting from him we saw Justine Henin waiting for her car, and then some other players came out. Then right when we gave up on Tommy (must’ve been that he had a doubles game later in the day) We found Dmitry coming in for his practice, lucky us! So we ran to him and he took some photos with us and autographs.
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After that we went to see some of Dinara’s match. Then it was time to say goodbye to the Tournament, since we wanted to use some of our time left to go sightseeing. Giselle was kind enough to pick us up and took us for a ride around South Beach. We had a great time there! Thank you Giselle! You’re very welcome!
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Sunday March 30, 2008
Nothing much else to say here, only that we were absolutely exhausted and had to leave early to the airport. We got a pretty nasty sunburn due to we forgot to bring sunblock mostly during Marat’s game so arms, necks and faces were two-colored. All in all we had a great time. To sum up there are quite a few really lovely memories about this trip and I can say proudly because we manage to get Yola into tennis, one week later she was watching the final at home, and now she declared herself a big Nole fan and wants to go back for more tennis!
This is something that Giselle told us, that once you got there, you want to go again, because you have so much fun!
That’s all for me… Giselle can continue since she left for the tournament to watch Dmitry play on Sunday…
, then I asked him what’s going on with his website and what I recalled him saying was something about the host or the server, and that he has to get a new one I really don’t remember cause I was oddly hypnotized by his beard which I don’t like in guys but for some reason I picture myself running my fingers through…I was like wow that’s not the proper thing to do when u talking to a guy daaaaaaa! WEIRD! Anyways I thank him for the music AGAIN. He was very nice indeed. I Saw Chance again, gave her my ticket and off to home for the real world.
