TelMex Tennis
It wasn’t the U.S. Open by any means, but when I heard the ATP Tour had an event in Buenos Aires, I figured it was be a great chance to take in my first professional tennis tournament. Last night Vanesa & I went to the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club (ironically named seeing as how they have clay courts) to watch two quarterfinal matches.
The field was comprised exclusively of Latinos or Spaniards and the number one seed David Nalbandian had been eliminated the previous night. The first match featured the Argentine Guillermo Cañas, a.k.a. “Willy”, versus the Peruvian Luis Horna. During the entire match it was mostly kids yelling out “Vamos Willy” to encourage him. But in the end, Horna prevailed 4-6, 6-2 y 6-2 in a mild upset. The second match was between the defending champ Carlos Moya of Spain and Juan Mónaco, a.k.a. “Pico” of Argentina. As in the first match, the partisan crowd kept encouraging Mónaco with shouts of “Vamos Pico.” The Argentine had to work hard the first two sets, but blanked Moya in the final set to advance 6-4, 6(3)-7 y 6-0.
Vanesa hadn’t slept much the night before, or much in general for that matter. She was really enjoying herself the first set and learned the rules of the game without any problems. But during the second and third sets, she kept performing her best narcoleptic impersonation. Between matches we went out to the plaza to eat and stretch. While she wanted to enjoy the following match, it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen. I told her it was fine with me if she preferred to take a bus home and get some sleep. I could stay and watch the Moya-Mónaco match by myself. She agreed and asked if I could walk her to the bus stop. (It’s amazing how quickly women who lived the majority of their lives alone become accustomed to these things!). This was not what I wanted to hear seeing as how we had already tarried in the plaza and the next match was well underway. It would be a 15 minute walk in each direction and I would miss even more of the match.
Having had many years of singleness to watch other couples, I knew this was one of those small but key moments. I could be a jerk and make her stay out of guilt, tell her to walk by herself, or be a gentleman and walk her to the bus stop with a good attitude in spite of my frustrations. Fortunately, I chose door number three. Vanesa had been telling me how much she appreciated how I care for her and this proved to be another chance to demonstrate that same practice. She was very grateful and later wrote me a text message saying how these little things cause her to love me even more. While we will undoubtedly quarrel from time to time, if we both can continue to make choices like this with both the big and small matters, it will go along way to avoid huge problems. Call it the honeymoon phase or call us ignorant, but we don’t foresee ourselves fighting a lot.
