If you think this picture is good, you should see him in street clothes!
We were in Beijing just to go through customs on our way to Japan when we were reboarding our plane and I saw this very good looking man with a bag of tennis rackets over his shoulder. I remember that the China Open was being played this past week and I thought for sure he was a famous tennis player. I told Jonny, but I was too chicken to ask because I honestly didn't know who it was for sure. Thankfully he asked for me and he told me his name was Gonzalez from Chile. I still wasn't familiar with his name, but I do follow tennis and would recognize Nadal, Federer, Andy Roddick, and James Blake. He was definitely none of those guys. He was on his way to Japan for another tennis tournament. I asked him for his autograph and looked forward to looking up his stats (and first name!) on the internet.
To my surprise he is the 11th ranked player in the world and his name is Fernando! I feel bad because I didn't recognize him, but it is probably pretty nice not to be recognized when you are a gorgeous tennis player!
1 comment:
Hey Kim! Thanks for stopping by my blog and sharing this story with me - and what fun! And don't worry, I would have to say you would have to be a SERIOUS tennis fan to have known Fernando. While he is pretty highly ranked, I would say there are really only a handful of players who I think reach that status of international star-dom.
On our way back from Beijing, I spotted Dmitry Tursonov (ranked #32) on our plane - and I guess I was the *ONLY* one. Funny since the flight attendant before the flight was telling us all about having Davenport, the Williams sisters, and James Blake on the flight over... and she didn't know who Dmitry was (but again, just one of those crazed tennis fans).
Anyhow thanks again for sharing - those Spanish and South American players are certainly something! :-)
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