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STUTTGART 2003 Diary - Corina, Switzerland

The decision to visit the Mercedes Cup 2003 for a couple of days was very spontaneous. Actually I had lots of work to do (big exams ahead of me) but then I found out three weeks before the start of the Stuttgart tournament that Mariano was on the entry list, wow!!! Surprising, as he played the Dutch Open last year which is played the same week as Mercedes Cup. So, of course I couldn't resist booking hotel room and organizing the trip to Germany - I haven't seen Mariano since Wimbledon 2001 and I absolutely wanted to see him again and besides, Stuttgart is only 2,5 train hours away from my hometown!!!!
Saturday, 12 July 2003
I arrived in Stuttgart on Saturday early in the afternoon. After checking in in the hotel I made my way via underground railway to the tennis tournament ground. I even didn't get lost, what a surprise, as my sense of direction is one of my big weaknesses!! The tennis club "Weissenhof" is located outside the town, totally in the green, surrounded by meadows and trees, it really is a beautiful spot. At the entrance I met up with Jelena who I have known via the "Scud Zone", a Mark Philippoussis fanpage. Our recognition sign was my Arg flag (what else???) that I was proudly wearing around my shoulders. Jelena and I got along perfectly from the beginning.
First thing Jelena and I did, was checking out the tournament site. And what we saw was excellent: centre court, grandstand, court 1 ( the three courts for the matches) and seven practice courts are all located close together. Maybe this is normal for most of the outdoor tournaments, however I have been to tournaments where the practice courts and the "match courts" were at the opposite ends of the city, so I really was happy that everything we needed was at the same place. This tournament really is very intimate, players are walking around without security guys - in other words, players access couldn't be better! Another advantage of this Stuttgart tournament are the not too expensive ticket prizes. We got 50% student discount on the tickets, plus entry was free on Saturday for everyone.
Okay, so it was Saturday and Mariano was playing the Swedish Open semifinal to Carlos Moya in Bastad today, so there was no need to look out for this certain guy from Argentina who was the main reason of my tennis tournament trip to Stuttgart!! But Jelena and I still had a fun day next to the practice courts!!! Jelena offered her New Testaments to different players in the appropriate language (it was very interesting to see how the players reacted to her present), while I was busy collecting autographs and taking my first photos. I saw lots of players I have never seen before live, like Guillermo Coria, Rafael Nadal, Magnus Norman, Feli "telephonitis" Lopez (he was on the phone everytime we crossed his way and also on the court!), Olivier Rochus, Youzney, etc.
Later I had a nice chat with Michel Kratochvil. I wished him good luck for the tournament in Swiss German. He looked suprised at me, hearing "his language", and asked me whether I was living here in Stuttgart or wheter I was just here for the tournament. I answered that I came here for the tournament and that I preferred this tournament to Swiss Open in Gstaad. He then wanted to know WHY and Jelena showed him my Arg flag and said "because of the Argentinos who are playing HERE in Stuttgart!!!" (sorry Egg, you know that I adore your Gaston and I also really like Chela but there is "someone else" for me who tops them both). Micha looked confused, obviously not expecting that kind of explanation, but what else can you expect, he is a guy!!
At 7 pm Jelena and I decided to head back to the hotel to check teletext and see who won the Bastad semifinals. Unfortunately we couldn't find any internet station on the tournament site to check scores and my mobile wasn't working outside Switzerland, just great!! (But thanks a lot Louise anyway for sending me the results, much appreciated, even if I didn't get your msgs). The supsense was almost unbearable when we switched on the televison. Then 10 seconds later "someone" was dancing around in the hotel room :-)!!!
Teletext said that Mariano BEAT Moya in 3 sets and would meet Nico Lapentti in tomorrows FINAL, YAY!!!! Mariano reached the second final this season, WOW!!! I really was very, very, very HAPPY, even if this result meant to Jelena and me that we had to spend another day at the tennis without seeing Mariano on Sunday. I remembered Louise's words from last days. She had said that if it's going to be a Mariano-Nico final, then it would be clear that Mariano would win, as he had an excellent head to head record against Nico and just simply was the better player of the two right now!! So I was quite confident we could celebrate a great tournament win tomorrow Sunday!!!
Sunday, 13 July 2003
Like yesterday the sun was burning down at us mercilessly. First thing Jelena and I did after breakfast was going to a drugstore and buy sun tan lotion and something against the sunburn we already have caught the day before. Yes, I know, it was a "great" idea of us to go to the tennis without carrying sun tan lotion with us, but I guess we were just too excited and totally forgot to take some with us!
Like the day before Jelena and I spent lots of time next to the practice courts. Some new players like Alex Corretja, Albert Costa or Younes El Aynaoui have arrived. Younes was there with his whole family: wife, two cute sons and the child who will be born in August ( info that Younes provided Jelena after she gave him an Arab Bible to his delight :-) ). The "older little Younes" played ballboy as daddy was practicing with Max Mirny, while the "younger little Younes" (just as big as a tennisracket) had a racket in his hand and tried to hit balls with mum next to the court (not really successful though, but he has got plenty of time to improve his tennis skills ;-).
There was also an exhibition doubles going on on the practice courts with Mats Wilander and Henri Leconte and some local celebrities, but we didn't really pay attention to that match. Our thoughts were very often in another country. I don't know how many times Jelena and I said to each other "Oh, I soooo wish I would be in Sweden right now instead!!". But we still had lots of fun that day!!!
At 6pm finally the main draw was out. Jelena and I headed to the big scoreboard and saw that Mariano has drawn David Ferrer from Spain. We both thought that it could have been worse. The thing that really bugged us was the way Mariano's last name was written on the draw table. His name was written with a "p" instead of a "b"!!! We really didn't like that "ZaPaleta", so the next time we saw an official staff guy we complained about this TERRIBLE spelling mistake!!! We told him that the way they wrote Mariano's name was HURTING our EYES and we asked him to change the "p" into a "b". Next morning we checked the draw table Mariano's name was spelt correctly, so mission accomplished ;-) !!!
By the time we were getting hungry and decided to leave the tennis and go back to the hotel to CHECK the Bastad RESULTS. Once again, unbearable suspence while searching for the page number of this weekends tennis results. Then moments later a loud SCREAM by a crazy Mariano fan was heard!!! Mariano WON THE BASTAD FINAL!!! WOW, WOW,WOW!!! I don't think my smile left my face for one second the whole evening!!! I was just soooo very HAPPY!!! Jelena and I decided to go out in an Italian restaurant to celebrate this AMAZING win!!! We had a nice evening, expect of this certain waiter who found out I was Swiss (my accent gave me away) and didn't want to stop talking about his Ex who was living in Switzerland now.
Monday, 14 July 2003
Finally the day has arrived Mariano was supposed to make his first appearance at the Weissenhof Tennis Club, or at least we assumed he would as he had to play his first round match on Tuesday. Before we headed to the tennis site, we went to the mall and bought a BIG congrats card for Mariano's second tournament win in his career. We tried to come up with some words and signed the card in the name of "all Mariano fans around the world that are very proud of him and will always be cheering for him". I hope the message turned out okay!!
We arrived at the tennis at about 10.30 am and bought the cheapest Centre Court tickets that were available, as we assumed that we wouldn't spend a lot of time watching the matches on CC anyway.
We had other things to do today, namely looking out for the Swedish Open Champ on the practice courts and handing him out some items!!!!
The question now was, WHEN would he arrive on the tennis site??? We figured out it would be rather late in the afternoon or early in the evening as Team Zabaleta certainly had a long night behind them :-)! But knowing Mariano and his dedication to this sport we still checked the courts every single half hour, we just didn't want to miss him!!! We didn't watch a second of the matches on the show courts. It was our luck that nobody we really like and who we wanted to support was playing on that day (thanks god!!!).
It was getting later and later, most people have already gone home and there was still no sign of both Bastad finalists.... But Jelena and I didn't give up hope. We said that we would stay at the tennis till the balls weren't visible anymore due to darkness!
And the waiting paid off! At 6.45 pm we spotted a topless guy hitting balls on one of the practice courts!!! The guy was Mariano (what a suprise!!) looking great as usual :-)!!! Finally after almost 3 days of waiting for him, we had him in front of us, YAY!!!! There were only a handful of people watching what was going on on the court, so we had a great view (here is hoping that the pics turned out well). Some minutes later Team Lapentti arrived and joined Mariano and coach working on the court. Mariano and Nico were in a really good mood, it looked like their celebration party continued on the Stuttgarter practice courts!! There was no sign of a disappointed Nico at all, both were having lots and lots of fun! Unfortunately Jelena and I didn't get a word that was said on the court ( I actually thought my Spanish skills could be worse, but apparantly I was mistakenL!!) but it was so obvious that both were joking around (probably about all the funny things they did last night, haha!!). At one point during a break Mariano was sitting on a chair in one corner of the court and Nico on a chair in the opposite corner of the court (it was still very hot and the players moved the chairs to where the shadow was). They screamed to each other through the whole court to be understood, really funny!! It really had to be something very, very important to be discussed that couldn't be shared minutes later in a normal volume when standing closer together :-)! I'm really curious what this was all about!!!
After about 40 minutes Mariano decided he had trained enough for the day, pulled on his shirt and packed his bag. This was the sign for Jelena and me to take action!! We approached him and waited till Mariano had finished signing. Then Jelena gave him her bible, Mariano took it with a big smile on his face.
Then it was my turn.
I handed him out our congrats card for his Swedish Open win and the famous blue envelope with Louise's pics in it!! We congratulated him on his amazing win in Bastad. Mariano was very, very nice to us, thanking us, offering us a huge smile and then giving us a "thank you gesture"!!
After Mariano left we continued watching Nico and Gonzo practicing for some minutes. But it wasn't really fun anymore, as the main character has left our sight!
We got back to the hotel late and were too lazy to look out for a good restaurant, so we decided just to grab a hamburger at Mc Donalds which was just opposite our hotel (very practical) to complete a wonderful tennis- and Mariano-day :-).
Tuesday, 15 July 2001
Today was a very hot day. I didn't believe it could be even hotter than on Monday, but it was!!! I remember seeing lots of rain and matches being postponed while watching Mercedes Cup on tv last year. This year the weather was definitely the other way round. But I don't complain, I certainly prefer the sun to the rain!!!!
We arrived early enough at the tennis site to catch some minutes of Mariano's warming up on court 1, the court he was scheduled to play later as the second match. Mariano seemed to still be in an excellent mood, which was lovely to see. Then I said to Jelena that I'd love to take a pic with him. But the thing was, that I wasn't feeling very comfortable about the thought of stopping Mariano after the warming up. I really didn't want to disturb him in his match preparations. But then we still decided to try to ask him for a pic as I really don't know when I will have the chance to see him again, so I didn't want to miss that opportunity.
So we stopped him as he left the court and asked him for a pic. He was again really nice to us and said, yes sure, no problem!! I'm really glad now that we took these pics, as they did turn out not too bad, didn't they Jelena :-)?
We then finally did was "normal tennis tournament visitors" are doing: watching tennis matches :-)!!!!! And this was on our fourth and last day at the tournament! Call us insane!!!
We first watched a bit of Kratochvil's match (against Rochus) as it was the match before Mariano's on court 1. Michel was playing well, winning the first set and it was very obvious he noticed we were cheering for him, he looked a lot in our direction. The disturbing thing however was his official fan cheering group! They shouted "Let's go Michi", it almost drove me crazy (Jelena thought that was really funny....)!! Michel's nickname is NOT "Michi", it is "Micha", big difference in the pronounciation!!! I couldn't listen to Michel's fanclub anymore, so we left the court and went to look how Mariano's Stuttgart doubles partner Senor Lapentti was doing on the grandstand. Nico didn't seem to have any troubles with Koubek, so we went to the restaurant for a drink. By the time Micha has lost sets two and three clearly we should have never left his match, bad fans, we!!! Poor Michel, I really felt sorry for him)!!
But there was no time for sadness, Mariano was next on court!!! We installed our ARG flag behind us so it would be visible to a certain player. Court 1 is a very tiny court with only 3 rows at one side and 1 row at the opposite side of the court. There were lots of people who wanted to watch the match but weren't able to as there were simply no more places left!! Jelena and I however had great seats just opposite the players chairs and I think our goal to catch "our players" attention worked well from almost the moment he entered the court :-)!!!
The match started really bad for Mariano as he was broken by Ferrer in his opening serving game. There were no more breaks until Ferrer was serving for the set, as Mariano managed to break back to equal the score to 5 games all. In the tiebreak Ferrer played really well and unfortunately won it 7-3. Mariano kept on fighting and tried everything to turn this match around, but I guess it just was not his day today. He probably also was a little tired from last weeks great and long matches! Mariano lost his serve at the end of the second set and lost the second set 4-6. Anyway, we weren't too disappointed and were glad that at least Mariano had some days off now before Kitz!!!
Jelena and I then said good-bye to each other as she had to catch her train home. My train left some hours later, so I was able to watch the first set of Guille Coria's match against Mathieu on Centre Court with my ARG flag in action for the last time!! Mathieu played well, but at the end Coria just was one class too good for him, and as we all know now, the poor French guy wasn't the only player who was totally dominated by "El Mago" this week.
Unfortunately I soon had to leave the tournament, I fell in love with the last few days, too, to catch my train home :-(!
Jelena and I really had a GREAT time together at the tournament and I really do hope we will be able to go to Mercedes Cup next year again!!! Plus, I think Mariano definitely has won one more heart, right Jelena?? :-)
And to end this diary, some words to the following people:
To Jelena:
It was lovely to finally meet you in person after all our marathon emails we have been writing to each other!!! Thank you very much for helping me going through my "phases" and for supporting me. ( Du weisst schon was ich damit meine!!!). Hope to see you again soon!!!

To Louise:
Many thanks for all the "lessons" and your endless patience!!! You are the best!! Also muchas gracias for the delivery job, it helped me a lot!!!! Many thanks also for all your time and effort you put into this wonderful Mariano fanpage!! I couldn't live without this page anymore, so don't ever think of taking this site down, promise?? :-)

[LELP - Promise :-) ]

Thanks to all the people working at the tournament. Everyone was very friendly and helpful, Mercedes Cup really is a special tournament!
And last but not least,
a BIG thank you to Mariano
on having been so nice and sweet to us and for having made our trip unforgettable!!! Best of luck for the following tournaments!! We are all behind you!!!

Corina, Switzerland

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