I’ve been house/dog-sitting again since last Friday, so I haven’t seen Carmen, my roommate, since before then. We finally made plans to hang out last night, but I wasn’t sure what we were going to do until I texted her around 4:30 p.m. to ask. She responded, “I have two free tickets to the tennis match, want to go?” The tennis match she spoke of was part of the men’s clay court championship, which is held at a club which is conveniently located right behind our apartments. We didn’t know who was playing, but it sounded like fun.

We strolled on over, slightly late, enjoying the weather. If we had driven there, we would have had to pay ten bucks and probably would have had to walk farther than we live. We found our seats near the top of the stadium (it was still a great view), and took a look at the program. At the moment, Tommy Haas of Germany was playing Nicolas Devilder of France. Carmen spotted one of her high school students who informed us that Tommy Haas is ranked in the top ten in the world, but Devilder is a no-name. Haas was dominating. But Devilder was French, and so Carmen liked him right away.

“I could date a tennis player,” she said.

“Would you date Devilder?” I asked.

“Well, he looks kind of short.”

“I don’t think he’s short, I think he’s average height.”

“I don’t know. He is French, I like that.”

“But Carmen, you don’t want to date a loser, you want to date a winner.”

“That’s true.”

After the singles match finished (which Haas won), the doubles teams came out. Mike and Bob Bryan of the USA were playing James Auckland of Great Britain and Stephen Huss of Australia. Apparently the Bryan twins are the #1 doubles team in the world right now, with quite a few tournament victories under their belts.

“Ooh, Carmen, you could date a Bryan brother.”

“Yeah!”

“Which one would you go for? I suggest Mike.”

“Yeah, I like Mike.”

“Which one is he?”

“He’s the one serving.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because someone just yelled ‘Let’s go Mike!’”

“No, they yelled, ‘Let’s go Mike, let’s go Bob!’”

“And then someone ELSE yelled, ‘Let’s go Mike.’”

“I didn’t hear that. Anyway, I’m not sure about the name ‘Bob.’”

“’Bobby’ is cute, though.”

“Yeah, ‘Bobby’ is cute.”

“And besides, it’s probably short for ‘Robert’ and then I’d call him ‘Rob’ or ‘Robby’ or ‘Robby Bobby Coconuts.’”

“Be careful, Mike is getting jealous.”

The Bryan twins won the match easily, did a chest bump to celebrate, and then they charmed Carmen a little more by giving short little speeches about the match and how they love playing in Houston. And then they played a short game against two of the ball kids, winners of a contest, who were probably about 10 years old. The brothers had to hold hands as a handicap, just like in an elementary school P.E. class. I have to admit, it was quite endearing.

We rushed with many of the other fans to catch the brothers on their way out. We unabashedly (well, maybe a little abashedly) held our ticket stubs out for them to sign. I couldn’t get to Mike, but I sure did get Robby Bobby Coconuts’ autograph.