Tennis Atlantic

Day 2 is a wrap. We learned a lot today. More about that in a minute.

The late winners included Capra, Muhammed, Mueller and Brengle. Of particular note were the performances of Muhammed and Capra upon the inaugural matches on Stadium Court. Tennis Maryland had their collective hearts ripped out when Skylar Morton went down, but Beatrice Capra was there to make it all better.  The venue came to life today with drama and performance. It was the best day to date in the very brief life of Maryland Professional Tennis tournament history.  The tournament director, Sam Duvall, is running a great tournament, and the Greatest Tournament Director in Tennis History was in full first-mate mode today, subtly signifying that this event was even better than Stanford’s. The Daily Forehand even noted the presence of the Greatest Chair Umpire in Women’s Tennis, Eva Asderaki, and tweeted “Take that Stanford!”.  The little Bank of The West had nothing on behemoth Citibank today.

Earlier today, TM inquired with fellow reporters about the rules of engagement with players. We completely misunderstood. We even asked Alison Riske for a quick interview, and she explained that she would love to, but was practicing and working out until 4 pm. So, we asked her “So, around 4?”.  She replied, “Is it OK if I’m a little late?”. To this cub reporter, it was a quick  “Of course, whenever you’d like!”.

The Skylar Morton/Asia Muhammed match ended around 3:40 p.m. and time was needed to prepare for the interview. Scurrying back to the laptop, a very knowledgeable woman was sitting next to our seat in the media center. We chatted for a few minutes and then Someone came in early at 3:50 and struck up a conversation with her. It was Alison Riske. When she found out that Alison was there to be interviewed by us, we learned the Rules of Engagement. For that, we are seriously grateful. Let’s call this person the Mrs. Garrett of Women’s Tennis. Graceful and polite, yet firm.

Now we know. In order to protect the players from bombardment, all interview requests should be made to the Player Representative on the morning on which the player is in a match. Interviews will only be held post-match and you must specify whether you want the interview whether they win, or win or lose, because some reporters only want the winner’s quotation. Tennis Maryland believes that these are completely reasonable guidelines that were explained in a way that left us feeling very comfortable and a little wiser. A big-time Thank You to Mrs. G and the WTA.

The interview with Alison Riske was fantastic. For a first interview on TennisMaryland.com, a greater interviewee could not have been chosen.  She will be the subject of the next post.