Practice at the Tennis Courts and the Olympic Torch.

48 hours before the Opening Ceremonies, I'm at the Olympic Green Tennis Center watching many of the world's top ten ranked tennis players practice.  

In the morning I watched Russia's Svetlvana (women's singles No. 3) practice against teammate Elena.  The interview after didn't go quite as well as hoped.  Chinese volunteers crowded the exit and snapped pictures and asked for autographs as I tried to get her attention to ask a few questions.  She was friendly and humble, failing to mention her rank.  And because I didn't have her biography, I didn't know her high status until back at the ONS office when my boss told me.  Luckily it's only practice and the quotes we gather are not high priority yet.  

After my assignment of the day was over I walked around observing over practices.  In court one I found Roger Federer.  I tried to bask in the moment.  After lunch, we found the Williams Sisters on the practice courts.  Later we tried to interview them, but they said later.  They were more intimidating in person than they are on t.v.  After Roger left for his press conference at the M.P.C., Rafael Nadal replaced him at Court one. 

On court 7, Sam Querry and James Blake, doubles partners from U.S.A. practiced.  I talked to Sam, but he said he would talk later.  Nick and I took a seat at court 3 and watched Lindsay Davenport, the 1996 gold medalist, practice.  We took it upon ourselves to get the flash quotes.  She was very friendly and talked more honest than most of the athletes shared.  Five hours of tennis later we were done.

We caught a cab, but instead of saying Dong Bei Mer (to go back to Tsinghua Da Xue), we went to Ditan Park.  We had heard the rumor the day before that the torch was going to be passing through.  We got there two hours early and already chaos was forming.  There were waving Chinese flags, headbands, I heart China t-shirts, stickers, being sold every few feet.  Traffic was at a standstill as bikes jockeyed for position.  Every time a car with an Olympic sticker drove by, the crowd would scream in excitement.  Only it wouldn't be the warning of the torch and another hour passed before the real warning sign came.  Two helicopters circled the gray haze in the air.  The people surrounding me raised their cell phones to capture video to show their friends.  A few minutes later a line of military police marched past and the military men guarding the streets lost their smiles and straightened their backs.  The military trucks drove through and blocked off all traffic.  Finally an Olympic van drove through and a indistinguishable man held the torch out the open door.  The crowd was united in a lion like roar.  I felt like I was in a wave pool being pushed and pulled ways that was beyond my control.  The cluster surrounding me oozed off the sidewalk and the military men guarding shoved the individuals onto the sidewalk.  I tried my best to stand my ground, but instead I just ended up with bleary pictures.  It seemed odd that when the torch finally arrived to Beijing, only 26 hours before 8-8-08, that the flame was being escorted inside a van.