Mark Keil commentates on his experience playing this past week’s ATP event in Washington D.C. Playing D.C. is one of the final straws on the road to the US Open. The heat is bearable only due to the fact that the final Grand Slam tournament of the year is soon approaching. I played with the All-American out of Ole Miss Dave Randall in 1992. We lost to Charles Beckman and Brod Dyke in the first round. Beckman was a Louisville product, who had a stellar collegiate career at Texas . His shots were deceiving in that he grunted so loud while making contact with the ball, but its velocity was so soft that it made you swing at the ball early. His partner from Adelaide was a wily lefty veteran. My buddy T.J. Middleton had a few contacts at the White House during the Clinton administration, and we went there and had a hit on the White House tennis court. We received a nice tour of the cabinet meeting room, and it was a hair-raising experience.
I met a future brief girlfriend there, Stacey Certner. She was one of the best looking Jewish girls I ever dated. She would visit me at my home base in Tampa , and I really liked her, but, she dumped me. I think it was because of the tale a former player from Albuquerque ‘s encounter he had on a flight. David Livingston met a female in the first class section of a domestic flight. She saw his tennis racquet bag, and asked him if he was a pro. He said yes, indeed he was, and she asked him his ranking. At the time he was ranked about No. 285 in the world, but rising steadily. He decided to fib a bit, and told her he was ranked 68. She quickly replied, “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get better,” and she quickly went back to reading Vogue, ignoring him the whole flight. I believe Stacey bailed on me because I wasn’t that highly ranked, or because I sent her a whole package of pictures of myself, and then she never called me again.
The next year I played with the best doubles player I have ever played with: Christo Van Rensburg. He was a great doubles tactician, and had a great chip backhand lob return. We beat the team of Axel Finnberg(Ger)/Marcus Zoecke(FRG), and the American duo Mike Briggs/Brett Garnett. Briggs was an unbelievable break dancer, who came out of the great tennis program at UC Irvine. Mr. Garnett was a calm southerner until provoked, with a hellacious kick serve. We lost to Patrick McEnroe and Richey Reneberg 6-2, 6-3.
My final year of playing there in 1999, I teamed up with Notre Dame’s finest tennis player ever David DiLucia. He was voted athlete of the year there, even over the All American football player Raghib Ismail. We lost early in the week to Mikael Hill and Scott Humphries. This event in the nation’s capital is a great introduction to the world’s biggest sporting event.
Take care, and hit ’em deep.