U.S. Open in Coronavision: Did Not See This Coming

I should have known my lack of enthusiasm wouldn't last during the U.S. Open. There's always something coming down the pike that sucks you in. I'm not sure which storyline is the most intriguing, so please, help me decide.

It's Like, a Pandemic

Obviously, it was risky to continue on with the Open given the circumstances, and it was too risky for the likes of Rafa Nadal, Ash Barty, Simona Halep and Bianca Andreescu and a bunch of others. Maybe they saw something others didn't. Like this situation with Benoit Paire testing positive for coronavirus shortly before play was to begin. These tennis players had been together in a bubble already for two weeks, playing the Cincinnati tournament in New York just as a precaution. Of course, the new problem with someone suddenly testing positive is figuring out who they've been in contact with. 

So here's, in a nutshell, what happened: Kristina Mladenovic was determined to have close contact with Paire, and although she was allowed to play singles, she and her doubles partner Timea Babos -- the top-ranked team -- were pulled from the draw and Mladenovic was made to quarantine. It is worth noting that Babos left the country before anyone could tell her she had to quarantine in place. Adrian Mannarino, also shown to be exposed to Paire, was allowed to play his match the day before Mladenovic was taken out of the doubles draw. Daniil Medvedev is still in this tournament and was shown to have been exposed to Paire. So I don't get it. But this New York Times story lays it out pretty well. 

It would seem, then, that there is some inconsistence in how these decisions are made and when. Apparently, the USTA worked with NYC and state health officials before working with the county in which the players are staying. And then, the other day, I read that the French Open is wanting to have a similar player bubble AND spectators in the stands. So yeah. Should go GREAT.

Conspiracy Theory Tennis Twitter

Novak Djokovic had one job. And it was a pretty easy one, because (and I am not trying to be rude) there were zero Grand Slam winners in the top five seeds of this tournament. All he had to do was go out there and be Novak Djokovic against players who definitely are not him. And then he hit a lineswoman in the throat with an errant ball struck in frustration. 

I mean, that expression? That's most tennis fans about Novak Djokovic, who talks constantly of wanting to be liked, but then creates a super-spreader tour event and then tried to talk his way out of consequences by saying, "hey, she didn't go to the hospital ..."

He did apologize. This is true, and it was a full apology. He accepted his punishment and left. But then tennis' version of Q-Anon decided that this incident needed further examination. Some theorized that the lineswoman hit the deck intentionally and overreacted to get Djokovic in trouble. Have you ever been hit in the throat without having the opportunity to protect yourself from impact? Me neither, but it probably hurts. What can I say? Twitter is a cesspool.

Also disappointing were some commentators suggesting that the problem was the presence of linespeople in the first place, because they aren't on all courts. 

Had to be Brad Gilbert.

How to Talk About Racism

The shooting of Jacob Blake may have rendered our lawmakers into a malaise, but at least athletes had something to say about it. This is a crazy thing to be typing, by the way. It's not normal to understand, as we all do, that something is deeply wrong with policing in America and to do nothing about it, especially when you are among the people who can do something about it. 

When the Milwaukee Bucks said, "aw, hell naw, Karen" and refused to play until someone did something, it started an unbelievable cascade of players sitting in protest, from men's and women's basketball, to BASEball (emphasis mine, because, like, what?), to tennis. In the bubble, Naomi Osaka refused to play her semifinal, prompting the entire Cincinnati tournament to pause. 

Osaka showed up to the U.S. Open with the goal of highlighting the stories of black people who died at the hands of police, or people playing police, as was the case with Trayvon Martin. She did this by displaying their names on her mask. Where her mouth is. And of course, what she's doing is just powerful, but it's clear that some white people don't know how to talk about it. During her match against Shelby Rogers, Chris Evert noted that perhaps Osaka's renewed resolve in highlighting racial injustice was translating into her game. This made my head hurt for a moment, but then at least Cliff Drysdale immediately said, "I don't know about that," and the swelling went down. Then after Osaka won, she had a post-match interview with Rennae Stubbs, who is an astute observer of the game. After some talk about the game, she noted, in a rather light and casual tone, that she had incorrectly guessed which name would be highlighted on Osaka's mask on this night, like she had missed a question in JEOPARDY! during a bar's game's night, and I don't remember what happened next, because my head came off my body in an explosion. This isn't a game. These are dead black people who didn't have to die and my god, woman, ask about the person if you want to do this right! Gah!

I stayed with the match long enough for another interview with Osaka, who was presented with a video of Martin's mother and Ahmaud Arbery's dad thanking her for using her platform to highlight their children, and just like that, I was bawling. It was a beautiful moment and opened the door for a conversation about why she was doing what she was doing.

That's when I had a mini-revelation (well, after I roasted Stubbs and Evert on Twitter). This is literally new for a lot of white people. They are only now coming to understand what it's like to be black in America. Sure, you can ask why this is new to people and that's a different and longer conversation, but there are many who really don't know how to have this conversation. They want to help, and learn, and grow, and they have empathy for others. But when it comes to talking about race and racism, it can get awkward, I think. And sometimes, they'll say the wrong thing because they don't know how to say something substantial, or what's acceptable or they're nervous about saying the wrong thing. And then they imply that taking a stand against racism is good for a tennis game, or they maybe don't want to ignore the mask on your face but aren't sure how to address it. I'm just saying that we've (I've) gotta show some grace here, I think. There's going to be a lot of stumbling and fumbling around white people talking about racism and yeah, it's past time they did it. They're obviously not going to get it right. 

But at least they're not ignoring the issue. Which is better than our own government.

U.S. Open in Coronavision: I Got Nothing Right Now

This is supposed to be my last-minute U.S. Open preview post. But true-confession time: It's been hard to watch tennis and I sure as hell have not seen the draws yet. This disinterest isn't just for the obvious reasons, I'm starting to realize.
Chadwick Boseman died the other day, on top of this dumpster fire that is 2020. It's hard to watch this country tear itself from the inside because that's a better option for some than properly valuing the lives of black people. It's also hard to look away. And it makes sense to look at something else, and I thought that thing would be tennis for me. But I've not been able to watch more than five minutes of this rebooted season. Not even Venus v. Serena XXXXXVIII or whichever one this was. As I watch athletes do the work that our government won't in demanding justice and fairness, I realized why sports isn't doing it for me right now.
It's because we're asking athletes to put their safety on the line for our amusement/distraction when we know it isn't necessarily safe. It's not just that -- it's that other countries are well underway living their best post-pandemic-wave-1 lives, while so many Americans were willing to ignore facts and get mad about masks, yet many of those same people demand that these athletes come to New York and entertain them. Or suit up in Alabama for college football. No one should be in this position, and most importantly, I should be in New York enjoying my rainy day make-up ticket from last year.
That was a joke. I used to have a ton of them.
The fact is that they're there now, ready to play and I have almost no interest in tuning in. I want to try, though. This is mainly because I've finished binging Schitt's Creek. Also, theoe players are there, doing their jobs, for better or for worse, and if they're OK with it, then I guess I'll get OK with it, too.
I don't think, however, I'll be OK with this Novak Djokovic-led union for men only. Sounds ... er, promising. Just about as promising as anything involving John Isner would. (I'm including that whack-ass Wimbledon match.)

If You Win A Slam With a Gutted Draw In an Empty Stadium, Does it Make a Sound?

When Nick Kyrgios is the adult in the room, you know we have really lost the plot.
While Novak Djokovic was hosting the Corona Open and Alexander Zverev, Borna Coric and Grigor Dimitrov then got infected with the virus, there was one person saying that playing tennis tournaments was a bad idea at the moment. We got Danielle Collins leaving the World Team Tennis bubble to go into West Virginia of all places and getting kicked out of the tournament. The baseball season started like 10 minutes ago and half a team has coronavirus already. And it wasn't even unexpected. Playing any big-scale event in a country where folks are actually debating whether masks are a violation of their rights (spoiler: um, no) is not going to work. No one really wanted to say it -- to say that professional tennis right now is a bad idea. No one except Nick Kyrgios. He announced his plan to skip the U.S. Open in what felt like a hostage video, but it was actually a sensible message.
I think we have to give him a pass now for his next tantrum. Sorry, new rule.
No one wants to be cooped up all day in their homes, even those of us who thought it might be kind of nice before. It's not nice. I want to play tennis and it's possible to play tennis safely while practicing social distancing, but that's like playing with a friend, not going to a major. It's so crazy right now to see people just pretending this virus is over. It's stupid to play a Grand Slam right now, even though I need to see a Grand Slam right now. Let's bypass the logistics of keeping everyone safe for now (which includes electronic line-calling and at some point, I'm going to need to know why this wasn't the standard if it's a thing that works), and consider the value of winning the 2020 U.S. Open* held in the country that's the most overrun by this virus. Most countries won't let Americans in because it's clearly out of control here. We're asking Simona Halep, Bianca Andreescu, Garbine Muguruza to come here for a tennis tournament? Ash Barty, who already said heck no? Do you really want a player who lives and trains in Florida coming to New York right now? I live here, and you don't. We still have cities thinking about mask ordinances.
OK, let's assume the answer is no. What if you're Serena Williams and you win this gutted tournament? What does it mean? Serena's a bad example because she has nothing left to prove. I only use her because as far as I know, she is the first big-name player to commit. Whoever "wins" this tournament will have that asterisk next to it, which will suck if the person is a first-time winner.

Tennis With Notions
The dress is going well, although I've not cut the pattern yet. I made the bodice template and am on to the skirt. Then I merge and cut and poof? I don't know. Despite my earlier ranting, I'm playing a league match this week but we have a uniform of sorts, which means I'll have time to debut the dress. I might finish the skirt template today. I'll post if I do. Otherwise, here's the front and back bodice pieces:

Pretty right? Well, it will be is what I'm saying.

About a month ago, it all got to be too much.
It was the fears over the coronavirus. It was the pressures from my full-time job. It was my husband getting on my nerves. My kids asking all the questions. And then George Floyd was killed.
About four years ago, I published a post about sports fans getting their jockey straps in a bunch over Colin Kaepernick and Serena Williams talking about police violence. I remember when I tweeted out the post and one of my favorite followers replied, in essence, "Yeah, but you should keep sports and politics separate."
But here is the thing. If you are black in America, it is not so easy to focus on your job. Because your skin color informs the way you are treated everywhere. Even at work. If you spend your entire life watching police do terrible things to black people, then explain it away with shady-ass police reports, it's hard to stay focused on your job. But you have to, right? It's like every black parent has said to their child: You have to be twice as good to get anywhere. That's also true. So there is this additional burden that you always carry. And Floyd's death really brought that into sharp relief. At least for me.
Kaepernick hasn't been able to get a job in football in those four years because he silently protested racism every week on the field. And I've been thinking a lot about what would have happened if people had listened. Because it wasn't just Kaepernick eloquently stating his cause -- there was case evidence happening around him and around us the whole time. What if the NFL had chosen to get behind Kaepernick when he first started talking about police brutality and racism? That was in 2016, before George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, before Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Elijah McClain, the list, this tragic list goes on. Now, when even the NFL is trying to make amends, everyone is catching up to this ongoing problem of police brutality. You want to be grateful that people are finally starting to understand what it means when you say "Black Lives Matter." At the same time, it took an awful lot of terrible things to happen before people realized that racism was a thing. And there's progress happening in important places, like newsrooms. But the president is retweeting people who are shouting "white power" in golf carts.
I don't really have a point. I guess I'm saying these weeks have been a lot for me. And it's been hard to think about tennis. Our league coordinator says it's safe to start league play again. Sure. Florida's down to over 5,000 cases a day from 8,000-9,000 a day. I don't know. I'm still working on my dress and I'll have plenty of time before I get to debut it at this point. And I did play for the first time since March a couple weeks ago. I was actually much worse than I thought I'd be. What do you call it when you don't have rust to knock off your game, but your racquet is a complete block of rust?
OK, one more thing. We are really having the U.S. Open this summer? And are we really inviting Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev? So Zverev tested positive for virus that has caused a global pandemic after playing in an ill-advised tournament that Djokovic put on, no masks, everyone all up in each other's faces. Then Zverev goes out partying and breathing on everyone? This is why we'll all be housebound until 2025. And he seriously shouldn't be invited to play in New York. We don't know anything really about the coronavirus -- it's too new. We don't know why it doesn't bother some people too much and why it lands others on ventilators. And it sounds like the plan is to ... allow infected players to come to a tournament with at least 127 other people, especially ones who are refusing to self-isolate?
That's it for now. Stop breathing all over each other, OKAY!

TWA and Notions: How to Make a Pattern

Cocktail optional, but I think we all could use a drink.

Our tennis courts are open again in my corner of Florida, which is great. But I don't really feel ready to test the facility yet. Honestly, there are too many people walking around without masks and trying to crowd me in grocery stores, and I don't want to test public waters yet. League play allegedly resumes next month. Let's say that's true. That gives me about four weeks to finish my Martina knockoff dress. How's that going? Glad you asked.

I said in my previous post that I had attempted to recreate this dress before. I dug out my sewing box with the fabric I had left and a book I'd bought about the basics of sewing. I'd forgotten that I had also gotten a pattern-making book from the library and made copies of all the relevant chapters so I could return the book. When I looked all of this over, I realized why I had stopped. 

First, these books might as well have been written in Sanskrit. They couldn't have made the text bigger, or included some white space? This is like reading an economics textbook. 

Oh, and the thing that probably sent me screaming from the machine the first time were all these numbers. It's just like Tom Hanks said, "There's no math in sewing!"

Unlike the 1970s, when I'm sure these books were written, there is now YouTube, where I felt sure I could learn how to make a pattern without math-ing. 

But it turns out I was wrong. There is no way around calculations to make your pattern, just as there is no way to go without measuring your dimensions. There's been a lot of stress-eating of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around here and also popcorn and cookie thins. So wrapping a measuring tape around my waist is, yeah, fraught.

Anyway, I went to YouTube University and found two fine instructors who gave me some tips before I busted out the scissors. The first one is from The Last Stitch, where I learned that you can digitize your patterns? One great idea she offered was using your best-fitting clothes when drafting patterns in addition to your dimensions. That is probably going to be very important here because while I love the look of Martina's dress, I do not think that playing in a dress that narrow and short will be very comfortable for me. My thighs are a little bigger than hers (and not all muscle), so some length adjustments will be needed there.  

Unfortunately, Johanna also recommended using a textbook to learn more about the basics. Which might be a good idea because one of Johanna's other tips was that "Ease matters," and I had no idea what she meant. Cart before the horse much? 

Still, I really wanted to get started, just to get something down on paper -- the lovely pattern paper I purchased online. So I cut out a piece and got started with the next video.
And I learned yet another lesson right off the top: supplies needed include a "set square" and "pattern master?!??" What are those? Looks like another online visit to Joann Fabrics is in order.
More math here, unfortunately, but Kim's video helps explain the whys behind the pattern calculations although I'm not going to pretend I'd be able to explain it to anyone else at this time.
I also learned the importance of ease, which is basically making sure that when you put on your dress, you can move around in it. Helpful thing to know. Even without those supplies, I was able to get something down on paper, although it wasn't much.

Like I said, not much. This is far from complete, but I needed a break from all those numerals. But I have officially gone much further than ever in this process, which makes me think I might actually swing this! (Pun discovered in editing process, and it stays.) I also have the material I'm going to use for my first pass at this project, too! No, it's not the original material. Not only have I been unable to find it, but I'm pretty convinced I'm going to need a second pass at this dress and would hate to do it on hard-to-find material. I like what I did pick out, which you'll hopefully see in my next post.
It might even be cut.
It might even be cut correctly.

On Pause

At the beginning of 2020, I set a list of goals. Ten of them. Some were around my writing, some around fitness, and of course around tennis. My goal for tennis was to get better at it. How to determine if I was getting better? My league matches. I set out to win 60 percent of my league matches for the year. I'd use my club's ball machine to work on my strokes.
My last match before everything stopped was on March 12 and it was on the road. One-hour-away- on-the-road. And for my goals, it was somewhat important. I'd had a spotty start to the season to say the least, but my match the previous week was a great win for me. I'd started out the first set with a 3-0 lead, squandered it, came back to win the first set, then gone down 0-3 in the second set, came back to tie it and win that set, too. I felt like my head was finally becoming an asset. I came in at 2-4, and if I could just get a win, it'd show some progress, would show that I could build towards being consistent.
In this last match, I won a tight first set against an opponent I sensed was a lot like me -- aggressive, but error-prone. Her husband sat on the outside of the fence of our court and every time she played on that side, she told him how terrible she was. When I played on that side, he was quiet, but he was also coughing and not covering his mouth. They'd just detected coronavirus for the first time in this county days ago, and when I wasn't trying to figure out how to get some comfortable distance (literally and figuratively, which is the first time I've accurately used this term) between me and my opponent, I was wondering if people just ... didn't watch the news.
Anyway, after the first set, my opponent asked for a court change, and in fact, half the lights were out on the court. We moved, and I get out to a 1-0 lead, a 2-0 lead. 3-0. Then her aggressiveness started paying off and I miscalculated. See, the first set had taken probably an hour and I saw her misfire, but also hit great shots. She made way more errors than great shots. I figured, later in this second set, that she would fall back into missing her shots if I could just keep the points going, so I worked on defense and on shots where I had clear opportunities, I took the foot off the gas. Like I said, I miscalculated. She won the second set in a tiebreak. The match tiebreak was more of the same, except I'd finally shamed myself ("Hit the ball, you f#*^*&# p$*#*!") into going for my shots, but I was missing now. As for my opponent, she finished off the match with two forehands up the line that she had not even previously attempted. 11-9. After the match, she was very complimentary and I had to admit it was one of the better singles matches I'd played in a long time. We'd been at it for at least 2.5 hours and physically, I felt good. I felt terrible inside and if you play league tennis, you know those drives home can be exhilarating or they can be very long. Mine was very long and now our season was over, but another one was about to start -- both in my county and the neighboring county. There'd be plenty of time to work on my match record.
Remember when you thought there'd be plenty of time? It turns out that you were right. I was right. Except that it turns out that there's plenty of time for us to work on the things that matter, and it turns out that that list is pretty short when life hits pause. Leaving the house is a calculation. Do I really need to? What if I have it? What if someone at the grocery has it? Last weekend, a friend of mine sent out a desperate group text asking if anyone wanted to play tennis -- a text I had sent out myself two weeks earlier and she had been the taker. I looked at my phone, saw that text, and went through about fourteen phases of emotion:
It's a pandemic, (name here). Are you crazy? 
You can social distance on a tennis court ... 
What if everyone says yes? That's four of us. Too many maybe ...
I really do want to play some tennis. Did I ever pick up my racquet from the pro who was supposed to string it before all this started? No?
Can you play in a mask? 
We're supposed to stay home! 
After all that, I just put the phone back down without responding and went back to stress-eating chocolate chip cookie thins.
Here's where I've landed. I have to take care of myself, my family and my community. I can't change anything outside of that. All I can do is try to keep us safe and healthy and disinfect the hell out of every doorknob and light switch in this house. And part of that means tennis is also on pause for a while.
Fortunately for me, there are about one million tennis matches to watch on YouTube. One of them reminded me of something I had wanted to do for a while.



First of all, this is a great match. Chris Evert v. Martina Navratilova. Wimbledon. 1978. The rally that starts at 9:58 is just perfect, especially the look on Chrissie's face when it's over.
Another noteworthy point was this one, when Chrissie beans Martina at the net. Just look at this exchange.

I want to point out that Serena could hit Venus like that and wouldn't bat an eye -- and they're sisters.
No judgment here. I am just saying.
The first time I saw this match was probably about four years ago and I was taken by Martina's dress.

I'm thinking it's the collar that makes it pop, but I am not a fashionista so I don't know any technical terms for why I wanted that dress, but I did. I couldn't find it on eBay, Etsy, Amazon, nowhere. I decided then that I could make the dress myself! This might be out of left field to you, but I do have a sewing history. I learned how to sew so I could make my own wedding dress. It was my first completed project. And pretty much my last. I had dabbled in making some tennis clothes with mixed results. Including this top, which was a good idea perhaps, but which ended up looking more like a Denise Huxtable Gordon Gartrelle-knockoff creation:

Then I had kids and I stopped sewing.
Until.
I'd been working on a bookshelf/bench project for my kids' room, which required me to make a covering for the bench, which led me to Joann Fabrics, where they convinced me to download the app for 60 percent off my purchase, at which point I received daily e-mails and notifications about discounted fabric, which is about the time things went sideways and I was spending copious amounts of time at home.
Call it the perfect storm. Because due to my lack of tennis playing, I was falling asleep watching matches and woke up to the Navratilova/Evert classic, and I noticed the dress again. Hmm, I thought. I do have a discount from Joann and if I pay online, they'll bring it to my car. Hmm. Is this the time to say yes to Martina's dress?
I didn't realize how far I'd gotten with this dress idea several years ago until I finally unpacked my sewing patterns, books and fabric to get ready for this undertaking. (One thing I'd found was that I'd cut a pattern for a Strawberry Shortcake onesie for my daughter and never sewed it. She's, uh, no longer able to wear it.) Apparently, I'd realized that I would need a pattern and began looking into how to make my own. I found the instructions in a library book, copied the pages, stuck it in one of my sewing book and basically put it in a box and moved on. So I need pattern paper. And then I need to learn how make a pattern. And the governor just called a 30-day shutdown (about three weeks too late). So I guess I have time.
What else can I say? Watch this space? I'll share photos, videos and posts about my progress. It'll be fun?