Everyone who knows us, knows that Charles and I have a healthy and fiercely competitive rivalry on 
the tennis court. We’ve been playing each other for almost ten years now and we’re incredibly fortunate that the main recreational activity we continue to enjoy each week is a few hours on the tennis court. We’re also lucky that our tennis skill levels are similar. Our rivalry, however pales in comparison to the rivalry between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. These two old timers along with six other retired players came to Chengdu for a tournament in November 2009. When we heard about the tournament we couldn’t believe that professional tennis, albeit the old folks, was coming to Chengdu!
The tournament was held in a brand new tennis facility located in the far southern suburbs of the city. With the recent success of Chinese women on the world tour, perhaps Chengdu is planning for a boom in tennis popularity over the next few years. This place had a really nice set-up with a main center court that had seating for several thousand and then 20 or so courts surrounding it.
The tournament had plenty of big names. – the first match we watched was Australian Pat Cash against Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, both former Wimbledon winners. Although Cash has had a few beers since the prime of his career, we were still impressed with his smooth serve and volley game, which is now extremely rare with current tennis professionals. Their match was followed by Thomas Enqvist (Sweden, Australian Open finalist) and Sergui Bruguera (Spain, French Open champion in the mid 1990s). They played an impressive match, which ended in a tiebreaker won by Enqvist who eventually ended up winning the tournament the following day.
However, the next match was the main reason we had come 
to watch tennis that day. I would never have thought that I’d have the chance to see Borg and McEnroe play. As a kid, I remember watching their matches, especially the classic Wimbledon final of 1980. Their matches along with the battles between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were one of the reasons I fell in love with tennis. And here I was, almost thirty years later, watching these two legends take the court to play each other. While McEnroe looked to be in better shape (although he was always kind of scrawny), Borg seemed to be on the top of his game, especially for someone who retired in 1983. Their rallies, serves and winners 
provided some exciting tennis to watch. Borg won in straight sets, but later I read that this was Borg’s first win over McEnroe in the 10 times that the two have played since 2000.
It was yet another moment during our time in China when I look back and think, “Did that really happen?,” as it seems surreal that we were able to watch a Borg.-McEnroe match live…live in Chengdu! In contrast, what will be a very real and related memory for me is how in the ‘challenge’ Tollhouse Cup series that Charles and I play against each other on the tennis court, I won three out of four while living in Chengdu. He owes me dinner for the last victory and I’m saving it for a nice place in Washington! Next stop on the Tollhouse Tour – Manila, Philippines. I just hope we can keep playing tennis well into our golden years like Borg and McEnroe since it is good exercise and a lot of fun for both of us.
Comments