Mornin'. It's a good day to do a little housekeeping around TennisWorld, and to give y'all a new space to discuss the momentous or even mundane tennis events of the day, starting with Juan Martin del Potro's surprise announcement that he hopes to return back form his long layoff in time to help Argentina win in the Davis Cup semifinal round.
Look for a new post over at ESPN on this subject, and what it might mean as the U.S. Open rolls around (Hey, you can't expect a guy to play in the Davis Cup semis, which take place right after the U.S. Open, without some match-play seasoning, right? Wink, wink . . .)
And have you all checked out Patrick McEnroe's Facebook page? The Captain is Facebooking, Tweeting, working overtime to make sure the book I helped him write finds his audience. For those of you who aren't familiar with publishing, that's the grail these days – finding and connecting with your audience. They're out there, in every field of endeavor. But penetrating through the white noise of their everyday lives can be a daunting task. All kinds of interesting folks are cropping up now to help with that effort, people like Michelle McCormack at Love the Cool.
I need to thank comrade Steve Tignor and our frequent Tennis.com contributor, Kamakshi Tandon, for choosing to discuss Hard Court Confidential as part of their "book club" series over at Steve's Concrete Elbow blog (Scroll down to see it, but Steve also has a nice fictionalized tale you might enjoy up at the top of the blog).
I also want to clear the air on an issue that has cropped up in many of the reviews of and comments on the book. Many readers have noted that Patrick tells a few stories about Pete Sampras that helps drive the "Pete is cheap" narrative. This is a particularly painful development for me, partly because I was also the co-author in Pete's autobiography, A Champion's Mind. And Pete was fair and generous as a partner and frequent host at his own home while we worked on the book.
Here's my problem: That incident at Indian Wells during the Hit for Haiti charity, which rekindled the "cheap Pete" discussion, occurred after Patrick and I had put our manuscript to bed. It was too late for us to backtrack and take that into account the punishment (undeserved, IMO) inflicted on Pete by Andre over what was, in the end, a minor anecdote about Pete's tipping habits. But as the Indian Wells confrontation between Pete and Andre went viral, it suddenly threw Patrick's anecdotes about Pete into a different, more notable light. In fact, if you didn't know better, you might accuse Patrick of piling on.
The bottom line is that Patrick wrote honestly and openly about his experiences with Pete (and Andre as well, in sections of the book that some think is the best and most revealing material), but he wasn't trying to advance a given narrative. And Pat's big-picture attitude (and mine as well) is that a fella's degree of frugality isn't some larger indicator of character or lack thereof – it's just a trait, like being talkative or reticent, friendly or shy. Unfortunately, the theme took on a life of its own and became disproportionately large.
On a more pleasant note, I'm going to a major league baseball game tonight, for the first time since I wrote some about the sport, decades ago. Yankees vs. Tampa Bay. Maia, the daughter of our friends in Montana, is in New York for the weekend with a friend from Havre (both girls are working in Washington for Congress this summer) and staying with us. They really wanted to go to a Yankees game, and my wife Lisa and Cowboy Luke are coming, too. Luke is going to bust me with those $20 hot dogs and cotton candy. . .
On Monday, I'll be going to the New York Sportimes World Team Tennis clash with the New York Buzz. For some insane reason I'm really fired up about this and hope many of you readers in the New York area might come out as well. The Sportimes (led by John McEnroe and Kim Clijsters) will be meeting a team led by Martina Hingis. I'm eager to see Hingis the Firekitten in action again, and will certainly write a couple of posts based on what I see.
Have a great weekend. I'll be around and posting.
— Pete