by Rey Tolentino
In 1995, two of the most tenacious tennis players of all time played the Salem Open Tennis Championship. The venue – Victoria Park Hongkong, the event – semifinal match between 1989 French Open Champion Michael Chang and 1991-92 French Open Champion and 1992-93 Australian Open Champion Jim Courier, the witness – me and the crowd. I was in Hongkong that time doing a color grading for some project for Basic Advertising and in my downtime, I managed to squeeze in some leisure moment.
Being a Class A tennis player, I was so thrilled to watch these two players banging balls from extreme corner of the court each retrieving endlessly as if there was no tomorrow. Eventually, Michael Chang emerged as the winner and went on to win the finals vs Jonas Bjorkman. After the match, I saw both players heading towards me as I was about to go to a toilet to answer the call of nature. I was caught flat footed and suddenly forgot to take a pee and headed towards them in the practice court. I was in cloud 9 during that moment, totally in oblivion. The next thing happened I was approaching the two star players to play with me on a tie break match. I literally challenged the two of them to play with me, as if I was like a co-players : ) I was turned down obviously because I was a stranger to them, nevertheless, it was a nice move I must say because after that encounter I was able to hit with another professional tennis player in the person of South African Wayne Ferreira that same day. It turned out this guy was the only one who had a winningest record against ALL TIME GREAT Pete Sampras. Never been so lucky after that.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
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1 comment:
I liked what you did. You wanted something to happen and you did it.
I say we non-celebs should not be intimidated by the fame and status these people these celebrities poses, after all they still are just ...... people, same as you and me.
We always hear celebrities wanting a normal life. Well, you just did them a favor and everyone wins don't you think so?.... I know you do. Which by the way takes me to one of my favorite quotes at the moment. " Worst thing that could happen to you if you didn't try is you'll end up where you are now." by Anonymous. Don't know if this quote makes my comment irrelevant but I just felt like saying it. Really makes a lot of sense to me.
"Fans love celebs, celebs love fans, fans hate fans , celebs hate other celebs".
Don't get hard on me on this but this is just an observation, an opinion. Most people think that if one of their peers succeed , something is taken away from them. Opportunities, money, attention, love whatever.
I say its its full of B.S.
Be happy for what they achieved and take inspiration and motivation on it. Don't be such a pussy and drag people around you down.
I'm stating the obvious here ladies and gentlemen. If you want something "get it" , you wanna do something "move your ass"
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