My Wimbledon.....
As most of you know, I played Wimby last year but lost in the first round of qualifying with Chris Drake. This year, playing with Jamie Murray, was quite a different experience.
We arrived to the All England Club the Sunday before the start of tourney after picking up our 3rd title of the year in Nottingham the day before. Obviously we were full of confidence and had some pretty high expectations placed upon us from the British Public.
On Sunday I tried to take care of all the business on site, getting rackets strung, setting up practice and go find myself a locker. I went to the main locker room and asked where my locker was and got a response that my name wasn't on the list. Now, my first instinct was to grab my player pass and shove it in the locker room attendant's face and go, "Ha! I am a player, thank you very much, where is my locker?" But, before I can even get that phrase out, the man behind him replied, "Mr Butorac, you are downstairs in the Champion's Locker Room." Ohhh. Ok. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'll be on my way now.
So, I slide into the "Champions" locker room, say hello to Rafa, Roger and start searching for my locker. Ah ok. Ljubicic, Henman, Butorac, Ivansisavic. Yep, that sounds about right. What is going on here you may ask? Well appearantly this locker room is for all past champions, top 16 singles seeds and davis cup team members....and most importantly, Davis Cup team members' doubles partners! A nice way to start your Wimbledon huh? Would really hate to be upstairs with all the riff-raff right?
To go from a year ago playing with Drake where about 9 people watched our match to a pretty full house on court 2 was quite a different experience. Of course you get chills walking out onto the grass for the first time. Luckily we had played on center court once at Queens and 3 times up at Nottingham, so it wasn't to big of a shock.
We cruised in our first round taking out two clay courters in straight sets. Signed more autographs after the match than I probably had in my previous 25 years, but it was great!
Obviously Britain is looking for any kind of success, so in our post match press conference, I think the 2nd question we got was.....well....can you guys win it? "Win it? C'mon, we just be two dirt ballers who arrived two days ago in the first round and you guys want us to say we're going to win it?" The press over here is like nothing I've ever seen before.
Our 2nd round came the next day against Erlich-Ram, the #7 seeds. We started slow and dropped the first, but then rolled on to a 4 set victory. We played real sharp and finished the match with some of our best tennis of the tournament. I don't think we even faced a break point after the first set.
A couple days later I made my mixed doubles debut with another American, Cornia Morariu. I'd never played mixed at this level, but I have played a lot of Father/Son tennis before. (I'm sure my dad loves me comparing mixed doubles to Father/Son doubles, but in a way it's quite similar.) As a the male in mixed (or the Son in F/S) you are expected serve first, into the wind and sun and normally cover about 70 percent of the court. I actually started the match unbelievable with a couple return winners and a huge poach to secure the break. After 4 big first serves, we were up 2-0 and all I could think was, this mixed stuff is quite easy. Of course, 12 minutes later, we're sitting on the changeover having just lost the first set 6-2. How'd it happen? I have no idea. They started firing balls up my line, Stubbs (the woman) was serving what felt like 125 and I didn't know what to do. Then the skies opened up and I thought, ok, we can regroup and take these guys in 3. Corina thought, hey , we're down 6-2, my wrist hurts, might as well pull out and go home before I get stuck here for another week. In all honesty, I'm sure she was quite hurt, and felt bad for pulling out.
About 5 rain soaked days later we actually played our 3rd round match. Dlouhy-Vizner (the 9 seeds) took us out in 4 sets. It was quite an ugly match as the wind was really swirling that morning and it made it tough to play good tennis. After losing the first set by them hitting a net cord return at 5-6 in the breaker, they broke me in the 2nd on a complete mis-hit that was headed for the 6th row before it got caught in a gale and knuckled down in the corner. I felt the need to let everyone know how I felt about that one by sending a ball over the top of the Southfields tube station. I'm sorry Wilk, it was my first code violation of the year. It won't happen again.
I flew out Saturday to head to Newport for the Hall of Fame Championships. Actually ran into Roddick in the airport and chatted to him for a while. I've never been a huge fan of his, but have gotten to know him a bit better lately. One thing I do really like about him is that he leaves it all on the court. He was up two sets to love on Gasquet yesterday before going down 7-6, 7-6, 8-6. I could tell today that it absolutely killed him. I like that. When I lose a match, it hurts, and I love seeing the top guys in world that aren't afraid to show that it means something to them.
That was my Wimby 2007.
- Eric
