Nailbiter

Tennis doesn’t fill stadiums here the way that soccer and Thai boxing do. Just the same, net sports get lots of play—it seems like there’s a game of badminton or takraw in every side street—and some well-regarded pro tennis players have emerged from Thailand in the last decade.

A friend called to offer me a spare ticket to the qualifying rounds of the annual Thailand Open, sounding almost apologetic about the no-names who would be on the program. I didn’t care about seeing Nadal. A day out sounded fun, and it had been a long time since my last chance to see professional sports.

We settled in as Warut Korkiatthaworn took on Alex Bogomolov. It was easy to tell these two apart. One of them won nearly all the points. Isn’t that how things are supposed to turn out on the first day of a pro tournament?

Next up were Dmitry Tursonov, on our left, against Marinko Motosevic, on our right. Or was it the other way around? Who knew? Each of them won his serve. Every time. After an hour of remarkably even play, the first tiebreaker finished 10-8. I was exhausted.

Now I know this wasn’t Roger vs. Rafa at Wimbledon. In the grand scheme of things, these guys were competing for peanuts, in a match that next week will be long forgotten. Yet I wasn’t sure my poor old tired body could handle another set like the first one. It wasn’t just that an hour’s labor had come down to a single point. Nor that tennis etiquette discourages yelling among the spectators, even when yelling is clearly called for.

No, the true cause of my tension was the full-blast air conditioning. This match was taking place in a refrigerated arena, which at that moment housed only a sprinkling of people. If by some chance one of the players hit a ball out of the court and into the stands, most likely it would have landed in an empty seat.

Where were all the tennis fans? Outside, shopping for gear at the crowded exhibition hall. Snapping photos next to the life-size cutouts of Paradorn and his glamorous wife. Lunching on countless varieties of fast food.

Hardly anyone besides my friend and me knew about the battle of nerves going on inside the deep freeze.

The second set followed the same pattern as the first. By this time we had finally identified Tursonov as the one most anxious to move things along. Unlike Motosevic, he never argued a line call or dawdled during the breaks between games. Perhaps his confidence came from experience: we learned later that at the 2006 Thailand Open, he had won the whole tournament.

Whatever the reason, he prevailed in this match… barely. This time the tiebreaker ended 7-3. Out of 194 points played, Tursonov won only 12 more than Motosevic did. As they walked off the court after two hours, both players looked relieved that it was over. Yet their emancipation was nothing compared to the joy I felt as I walked out into the thawing mid-afternoon sun. I would gladly watch a rematch some day. As long as it is played at room temperature.