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My first Citi Open was a memorable one. It was 2007 and it was the first time I ever saw John Isner, or the first time I ever heard of the name John Isner.He was on a practice court on day one, looking like an NBA center but equipped with mesmerizing tennis talent. Of course, Isner was born as an ATP star that week, winning five matches all by third set tiebreakers vs Henman, B Becker, Odesnik, Haas, Monfils in the SF before finally losing in the final 46 67 to Andy Roddick.
There have been a lot of special memories covering the Citi Open six different years and this will be number seven. I saw Safin play at the Fitzgerald Tennis Center in one of this last years. In 2007, wearing yellow adidas shorts, he beat Haase and Hernych in three sets before losing to Monfils.
I saw Kiki Mladenovic lose early two years in a row and then sit and cry and moan about her result, sitting in two different spots, once by the media center tent entrance and once on the far side of the practice courts near the trees.
The first time I saw Juan Martin Del Potro live was at the Legg Mason, he had the long hair look working then.
Another year, which was probably about three years ago, Mardy Fish was working with a then-struggling Ryan Harrison on a practice court, specifically trying to sharpen his forehand.
Two bizarre matches at Citi Open come to mind. Karlovic was playing Paire in a night match and Paire was acting like he should wipe up the court with Ivo, talking a lot to his box in French. Well, it turned out Paire was mocking Ivo’s game in French but the surprise was Ivo understood French and heard what Paire was saying about him. But he didn’t make an issue of it till the handshake at the net. Karlovic won a third set breaker and then the tensions escalated. The two had to be separated on court and then again outside the court as they both came together again on the walk back to the locker room. Ivo discussed the matter to a couple of press people as he rode an exercise back minutes after the win.
Another weird match was two years ago, Tomic vs Johnson. Tomic was acting like a clown and joking with the chair umpire about how long his service game was, extended by about ten deuces. Johnson was playing with full intensity and seriousness while Tomic was clearly giving a substantially less then a hundred percent effort. Tomic even questioned the chair ump at one point if he could look up to see what the record number of deuces was for a game so he could try for the record. Johnson ended up winning.
The Citi Open is definitely a special tournament with a long history going back to the 70s, when John McEnroe once went into the crowd to pester an old lady who was having trouble with her umbrella. A player told me this anecdote for my Facing McEnroe book.
The tennis memories never end at the Citi Open and I look forward to sharing with you some more this week, where such players as Caspar Ruud, Kei Nishikori, top seed Dominic Thiem, Milos Raonic, Gael Monfils, Jack Sock, Alex Zverev, Tennys Sandgren, Jelena Jankovic, Nick Kyrgios, Grigor Dimitrov, Lucas Pouille, JM Del Potro, Donald Young, Gilles Muller, Dmitry Tursunov, Hyeon Chung Steve Johnson and qualifier and ATP 557 Alexios Halebian will be featured.
