Actual Miles Flown Since 1/1/00
Well, a long stretch got longer as things did not go particularly well
in
rainy Charleroi. My best performance of the week was my karaoke
rendition of
"The Locomotion" at the player party and that's not setting a high
standard,
believe me. I played with Jim Thomas (USA) and we lost to Luxa-Skoch
(CZE),
6-2, 6-4. Some positive news to report is that McDonald's continues
to
penetrate additional markets in their "Hype Halloween Until Everyone
is Trick
or Treating Globally Campaign".
Wasn't sure if I would play this week, but in the
end decided to head to
Lyon. I was flying out of London on Saturday and missed my flight
by seconds
due to the trains running late from Victoria Station and the British
Airways
representative assuring me that I had plenty of time to make it through
the
"queue", so no need to go straight to the front. I may have made
the flight
had the check-in woman not asked me for a return ticket proving that
I would
be leaving Europe; this is a technicality concerning immigration which
is
rarely followed for flights within the European Union. In fact,
it's rarely
checked anywhere, but she was on a mission. Unusually, I actually
did have a
return ticket from Frankfurt back to Milwaukee which is part of an
around the
world ticket that I bought in Australia back in January. However,
it took me
about a minute to locate it and she had to finger through it for a
while and
by the time she checked the flight, she said the flight had just that
second
closed. No problem though, I could just take the next flight
at 4 PM; punch
line is that it was 7:30 AM at that point and I'd gotten up at 5 AM
to try to
get this flight. Fortunately, I had my private valium stash to
help deal
with my emotions and got through the day.
My luck turned as I found someone to play qualifying
with and we got a
first round bye (and thus a day off and a Monday start) as few people
showed
interest in playing doubles. Ivan Ljubicic and I won our first
and last
round qualifying match on Monday vs. Roux-Sauliner (FRA) 7-5, 6-3.
We were
down a break of serve in each set and came back to take each.
We played our first round main draw match today vs.
Rafter-Woodforde
(AUS). We played a good first set, but lost it 6-4. We
scrapped out a break
of serve in the first game of the second set and went on a roll from
there to
win the second 6-0. We had break point at 1-1 in the third and
Woodforde hit
a second serve into my body. I turned on a forehand and went
up the line
with it hoping that Rafter would poach. He did; the return landed
in; and we
went on to win the match 4-6, 6-0, 6-3.
I would have given you good odds that this would
not have been the
scenario this week as I was spending a glorious 9 hours in London Gatwick
the
day before qualifying was due to start; c'est la vie.
~Jack
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