Yesterday I woke up without a phone or iPod alarm, both of which are lost or gone forever. Maybe on a beach, maybe in a pocket of some pants on my floor. I woke up with just enough time to get ready and walk to Foro Italico for the Internazionali d'Italia tennis tournament. I could have taken a cab, but it is summer in Rome. So that worked out pretty well. It was a nice hour and twenty minute walk. The majority of the time I was stewing about how the website I bought six Ground tickets off of would not let me print them out, leaving me with just a confirmation sheet. When I got there I was met by Tally, Alex and John Edwards, who played tennis is high school. I know a fair amount about tennis, but he was sort of our tour guide to tennis. I told them we should try to just act like they screwed up the ticket-printing fiasco, which they sort of did, since there were never tickets online to print out. I told the ticket taker in my humorous English/Italian combo that I had tickets but I had to pick them up. I was pointed in the direction of a make-shift ticket office. I could immediately see this ticket office was for sponsors and ATP execs to pick up their VIP passes. I used my skill of "Act like you know what you're doing, and you'll get what you want" to use. The ticket ladies, all of whom undoubtedly worked as models at some point in their life, told me I had to go to the other ticket office. I asked how to get there. One of them said I had to go out the way I came and around the exterior fence. A couple of others chimed in and basically said there was no one checking tickets at the entrance 5 feet from me with a half-wink. So in a way, justice was served. We did pay for our tickets, but instead of having to pay for another set, we waltzed right in. What we found was a much more organized and attractive area than we imagined. In terms of athletic arenas and areas, Foro Italico was pristine. We walked a few hundred metres (not feet, or metERs) to find a pseudo-ancient-statue-lined practice stadium with rows of marbles seats where Maria Sharapova was practicing. One of the most well-known modern WTP tennis players. You've seen her in camera commercials.
We watched hours of world class tennis in the 7 ground courts throughout Foro Italico, including top-100 ranked American Sam Querrey.
The best part about the tournament is the access you get to the courts. The Rome tournament is one of 9 ATP 1000 events in the world. These are the biggest Tennis tournaments besides the 4 Majors (US, French and Australian Opens plus Wimbledon). Of the 9, Rome is usually considered the biggest. It is played on red clay and is the final warm up for the French Open. So there we were at the 5th biggest tennis event of the year, sitting front row, and we didn't even show our tickets.
After 2 great matches we decided to see who was practicing where Sharapova was previously. We sat down at mid-court in the first row to see the end of two guys finishing their session. Not fifteen minutes had gone by before we saw a guy coming out of the locker room for his session. This guy:
The man in the orange hat is Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest tennis players ever, and THE greatest clay court player ever. As soon as he walked in the mini arena filled up within 2 minutes. People came sprinting over from all around the park. Nadal's practice sessions are more meaningful than almost any other player's real matches. I'm sure the other matches were deserted. (I actually didn't bring my camera, these pictures are Max's.) For the next two hours we saw Rafa practice against David Ferrer. At the beginning of the session, Rafa was the No. 2 tennis player in the world, at the end he was actually No. 3, since Federer had passed him after playing in Madrid. This is pretty much the golden age of tennis. Nadal and Federer are 2 of the top 5 players ever, and the current No. 1, Novak Djokovic, will be up there after a few more years. His fellow sparing partner and fellow Spaniard David Ferrer is no slouch either. He's currently No. 6 in the world. Few people get to see what we saw. We really lucked out.
Ferrer
Our seats
Nadal
The experience was so great that Alex, John, and I bought tickets for the main stadium Thursday night. The winners of the matches will go on to the Quarterfinals. Since the top 4-8 players are so much better than everyone else and always advance to the end, we are nearly guaranteed to see more great tennis.
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