I sometimes would hit with Jennifer Capriati in Florida, and she would hit the ball so deep.  Since I was accustomed to mostly playing doubles, I would play her baseline games to eleven and she would give me a run for my money.  She was a goofy girl, in a good way, and really didn’t like to practice, but we all didn’t really.  She was always talking about her boyfriend at the time, Xavier Malisse, and how crazy he was.

The campus at Yale where the tourney is played (then known as the Volvo International, now the Pilot Penn) is like an oasis in the middle of east Los Angeles.  This is where Sidney Wood, the 1931 Wimbledon champion would hone his game.  You might still be able to catch him cruising the grounds.

One year I played with Adam Malik, the All-American out of Kentucky who was from Malaysia. We played Marius Barnard and Brent Haygarth from South Africa. Marius liked to bounce the ball a lot before he served. Adam would blink constantly when talking to you. Brent was a stellar player out of Texas A&M, who dates former tour player Tara Snyder.  We played a tight match and came up short 7-6, 4-6, 4-6.

In 1998, I played with T.J. Middleton, a team member of the NCAA champion Georgia Bulldog’s in 1987. We would always have a good time, and hung out together that week at Toad’s Place. Unfortunately, we went down to the tough German doubles team of Marc-Kevin Goellner and David Prinosil.  They would get to the finals of the French Open together, losing to the wild Jensen brothers. Marc patented wearing a baseball cap turned backwards, inspiring the craze you see now in tennis.  The summer tennis season was coming to a close, and the last big dance was upon us.