As many of you know, I've been pretty lucky in terms of the amount of tournaments I've seen in the past few years. Through the years, I've seen some players in airports, in grocery stores, etc.. It's just the type of thing that's bound to happen when you're staying in a hotel or any accomodation around a tournament or even just when travelling by air to or from a tournament. In almost all cases, I've simply observed for a couple of seconds and moved on. I had a funny encounter with Stephanie Dubois in Moscow which I might talk about here soon and since she comes from the same place as I do, and I know she's very down to earth, we had a good occasion to talk a bit. But anyway, all that to say that under normal circumstances I just respect the player's private life...
So imagine me... I'm heading out of Melbourne on the Wednesday afternoon, after having seen a lot of tennis, the most consecutive days of slam tennis for me so far (9!). I'm pretty exhausted and actually have a while to fly.. I'm going to Tokyo for a few days but I have a layover in Sydney, oh darn. I'm there, thinking about why I have to do this layover since there are obviously direct flight (my flight in actually was a direct Tokyo-Melbourne)... but anyway, what are you going to do right? I mean... It's not like I have enough money to pay double just to avoid the connection.. I'm no tennis player:) So I board the plane, have a quick flight, very enjoyable as all are flights on Qantas (best company so far for me...!). When I get off... I head towards my gate for the Tokyo flight and it's actually in another terminal so I wait for a bus... and then guess who turns out? Yeah, I'm sure you Sherlock Holmes figured it out by now... Vera Zvonareva. She's actually with two others who I do not know. Ok.. ok ... this is nice. Oh darn, I have my Aus Open cap on, so she probably thinks (and she's right) that I know who she is. Ahhh... So what is Vera doing in Sydney hey? Ahhhhh that's right, there's a tournament in Tokyo, could she be on my flight there too? Oh man, she's going to think I'm a stalker, but it's not like I have other options right? So we take the bus, and I then head to my gate as it's already started boarding... So do both of her friends (coach maybe, I don't know really).... but where is Vera? Ahhh she arrives a few minutes later with a few (and I do mean a few) no-customs bags, containing boots, stuffed animals, etc.. I mean seriously? She already had like 12 bags! And what is she going to do with all of that in Tokyo? I mean seriously? Just send it back home? Anyway... I'm no tennis player so I have no idea:)
So we head on the plane... and surprise surprise, she's two rows from me... this is becomming seriously worrying... am I going to have police after me here? As the plane is about to leave, she goes and ask the attendant if she can go in first class to sleep... no can do mam.... So she still manages to change her seat just a little to have more space to sleep.. and she slept for the whole flight, or almost, apart from a few movies, it's not like I was spying... ok, maybe a LITTLE! But barely!:)
We then get to Tokyo Narita airport, I'm a bit lost, arriving in Japan for the first time, having no idea where I'm heading exactly and not knowing the language... but anyway, what am I gonna do right? We go through customs, I'm trying to imagine her being asked what she is doing in Japan and how long she plans on staying... (hmm between 3 and 10 days depending on how well I control my temper...lol). Once through customs I start scrambling around going from one place to another asking about trains, etc.. I pass by 15 minutes later and she's still waiting around, I guess for someone from the tournament to pick them up...hopefully that person came with a big van or something or else no way all that luggage was going to fit... eventuallly, I did figure my stuff out and left the airport after nearly 16 hours of travelling with Vera... ok maybe not with her... well kind of no? so anyway, that was the story..!!
Labels: Australian Open, Vera Zvonareva
# posted by Pierre : 7:30 PM
