Tennis, Training and Tolerance

Sunset in Palm Springs

Hubby and I spent the last four days in beautiful Palm Springs and Indian Wells with my mom for the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament. What a fantastic weekend of tennis and glorious weather. We saw some of the most intense battles to-date, including the match that bumped Federer down to #3 in the world after losing to Djokovic in the Semi-finals. Djokovic went on to beat Nadal in a fiery men’s final match. As of today, the top 3 ranked men in order are Nadal (ESP), Djokovic (SRB) and Federer (SUI). Some might say they knew this was coming. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) beat Maria Sharipova (RUS) in the women’s Semi-finals and Marion Bartoli (FRA) in the Finals. Very exciting!!

View from our seats inside the main stadium:

Mom and Me

The moment Djokovic won the 2011 Men's Singles title (on left):

Djokovic def Nadal in the Men's Final (Nadal on right)

 Hubby and I snuck out early on Friday and Sunday morning for a couple of medium distance runs through the streets of Palm Springs; 8.5 mi and 9.75 mi, respectively. Running on vacation is an experience we always look forward to as it provides us with a completely different view of the city we are visiting.  Had it not been for these early morning jaunts, I wouldn't have been able to share these pictorial gems with you:

It doesn't suck to run here. ;-)

Aside from 2 fantastic runs and spectacular tennis matches, what else is there to talk about but BBQ and beer at Babe’s BBQ and Brewhouse!  My mom is obviously a bad influence despite her claim the opposite is true. All I have to say about that is ‘like mother like daughter’.

The Scotch Ale was my favorite, hands down!

On the menu......

The Last Word - A letter to an ignorant attendee

Dear Sir (and I use that term lightly),

This letter is in response to your outburst amongst an international crowd in which you shouted out “You’re in America, speak English!”.  If you haven’t noticed, tennis is an international sport, drawing hundreds of thousands of fans from all over the world. The fact that you blurted this out at a tournament whose primary sponsors are a French bank and a foreign airline (Emirates- national airline of Dubai, United Arab Emirates) while watching a match between players representing Spain and Argentina is outrageous, intolerable and disgusting.

What exactly is it that threatens you? Is it the unbridled enthusiasm of fans supporting athletes representing their homeland country in their native language? How terribly offensive that must have been for you. Tell me, would you be supporting American athletes at the French Open by shouting out encouragement in French? Right.

You are a disgrace, not only to the people of the United States, but to this world we live in. What goes around comes around and you’ve got some very bad karma coming your way.

‘Nuff said.