After an afternoon of playing tennis in the cool crisp autumn air, my friend Helene and I sit down to take a well deserved break and chat. Of course every year at this time, the last few weeks before snow will start to fall, we fondly look back on the warm sunny days we spent outside on the courts. The summer seems to be all about playing tennis, watching the Slams on TV and going to the Canadian Open. There are always so many fun memories, we can't help but reminisce. Today, we happen to recall our short trip to Toronto. In the hopes of seeing Pat Rafter, Guga Kuerten and Tim Henman, we left Montreal on Saturday August 1st and returned two days later. It was the first time for the both of us to visit the duMaurier tournament in Toronto.

Dez: First things first, do you remember the view we had from our room at York University?

Hel: Yeah, we were hoping to see the site from our window. When we got to the room, we looked out and it was RIGHT IN FRONT! With binoculars we actually saw the center court scoreboard. It was so cool!

D: We tried to spot people going in and out, but it's only later we found out that the players entrance was on the opposite side from where we were...

The first impression you get entering the grounds of the stadium in Toronto is a very nice intimate feeling. Center court is reminiscent of the one in Montreal before the building of Jarry Park stadium a few years ago. Surprisingly, in Toronto there are only a small number of outer courts and located very close to each other except for court 1, which seems to be apart from everything. The very cosy environment let's you expect to see the players more closely. The advantage of having the outer courts sort of clumped together is the possibility of following what's happening on two courts at the same time. Or, maybe four courts if you're two people!

D: The first thing when we got there was go straight to the practice courts. The first player we saw was Max Mirnyi and then Cecil Mammit who was practicing with an Agassi look-alike.

H: But with more hair. He had such an I-am-so-great attitude, we didn't stick around too long and we went to explore the grounds.

TORONTO vs MONTREAL

After scrutinizing the map and wandering round and around, we realized that there are three practice courts behind gates which we cannot see. Even climbing up on the gate, we could only get glimpses of part of one court. To add to this frustration, there are about 4-6 courts off-site located on the York University Campus which players can practice on. So if you really think about it, the site is all mistakingly intimate. Firstly, the players can "hide" and avoid mobs by choosing to practice on those evil-for-fan courts. Secondly from further analysis, we noticed that there was a free-from-hassle passage way to get to the restaurant from the players lounge/locker room. This is all unseemingly annoying.

In comparison, the grounds of Jarry Park in Montreal is much bigger. Personally, I think players are more accessible there than when they play in Toronto. Unless they decide to practice indoors, you will see _all_ the players practice. With 11 outer courts, there are mostly people practicing on 7 or 8 of them any time of day. Having the attention of fans dispersed on so many courts, you usually have a good chance of getting autographs and pictures of the player you want.

From observation, there is no hide-away passage leading the players from the courts to the locker rooms/players lounge (in the Pavillon Bell building). When players go eat, they take an overpass which connects the stadium with the Pavillon. So if you happen to look up at the overpass or look down from the upper-level of the stadium, you just might happen to see players! (It might be a little difficult to understand unless you've actually been there. But all you need to know is that it's very cool!) One entrance of the Pavillon is nicely designed with glass windows, where you can see people go up and down. The overpass and the media room is on the second floor, so once again if you happen to be roaming around the entrance, look closely and you just might happen to see players! Yeah, it's just incredible who you'll be able to see in Montreal, especially early in the week when everyone is there.

JONAS BJORKMAN - His girlfriend sitting on a chair and looking bored incident

D: We were watching Jonas practice with a bare-chested Thomas Enqvist on court 12. We noticed there was a girl sitting on the court.

H: I think it was his girlfriend, but we're not too sure.

D: Jonas and Thomas were playing a practice match and I found it distracting how extremely bored she looked.

H: The next day, we saw Jonas again and we saw her sitting there again! She still looked bored.

D: Anyway, we found out Enqvist withdrew suddenly (foot tendinitis) from the tournament. So it was lucky we got to see him. He and Jonas seem to get along great. Unfortunately, we didn't understand a word they said in Swedish, so for all we know they might've been insulting each other and we still would've thought they got along great...

NEVILLE GODWIN - The Swearing incident.

H: Walking by court 10 (Sekulov vs Godwin) we saw the changeover and David Arquette look-alike threw his racquet violently in our direction towards his chair.

D: I remember being traumatized because he said the F-word five times or so in the _same_ sentence. I will spare you the actual quote.

H: Later on, on our way back, we passed by again and that time he spat with frustration on the court. He didn't calm down, not even a tiny bit.

D: Needless to say we didn't hang around to see the rest of the match. I'm still dumbfounded about how Godwin went on to win the match. He won it in three sets.

BOBBY KOKAVEC - The Rafter false alarm incident.

D: I was watching a match on court 12. All of a sudden a group of people started screaming "That was Patrick Rafter! Over there!" Everyone headed toward court 11, I eagerly followed. Of course.

H: But, you found out that is was only a guy with the same samurai hair style.

D: Everyone went "ohh!" with disappointment and slowly scattered away.

H: We stuck around because we knew who Bobby was (an up and coming Canadian player). Guga Kuerten's doubles partner the year before in Montreal.

SEATS

The first few days of the tournament, if you make it your intention to hang around the outer courts and watch practices, it is wise to buy the cheap seat tickets. We were there on Sunday and Monday, we realized that we hardly spent any quality time in the good seats we had on center court. We were too preoccupied with all the action going on elsewhere!

DAVID NAINKIN - The Locked gate incident.

H: We spent so much time by "the gate". It's a covered fence that allows us to see through the lower part, hence feet when people walk by. It cut off people from the passage way players can take to go to the Marquee Village (fancy name for food court) from the locker room.

D: Yeah, we had to climb up on it to catch a glimpse of the off-limit practice courts. Since we already saw Guga earlier that day, we were on the lookout for Pat and Tim. It was a little tiring to stay on the look-out all the time, I'm only saying this because we didn't see them.

H: But, we saw Goran for a split second, when he walked by on the other side of the fence. Yup, it helped to pay attention to the shoes because players wore expensive new sneakers while others wore old sneakers. It was pretty smart of me, hehe.

D: We were also there when David Nainkin finished his practice. He looked at us and because we were a group of people who looked like we were waiting for someone, he thought players could actually go through that way. He came to the gate door and tugged at it but obviously as we were all well aware, it was locked. He tugged at it again. Then turned around and walked away. Hmm... That was very funny at the time, but not so much come to think of it.

H: Not funny at all.

DRAPER, STOLTENBERG, TEBBUTT - Aussie accents incident

H: Of all the practices we clearly remember the Aussies. Jason was hitting with Scott and they were always joking around on the court. They looked like they were having too much fun. After the practice even if they were very sweaty, they talked and joked with fans for a long time.

D: Yeah, Aussies Rule! We didn't see Pat but it brought some consolation to see his fellow mates. There's a picture of us with Michael. His down under accent is really cool.

H: Michael is in the middle. In the far left, Vince Spadea is practicing. I'm on his left.

D: I'm on his right.

H: We would've liked to share other pictures that we have but they are not any good. Apparently the people we asked never took pictures before.

D: Or, maybe they just never held a Kodak Fun Saver Camera before.

GUGA - The Larry Passos incident.

D: As usual, Larry was making Guga work hard on the practice court. We were watching them hitting and at one point, he was telling Guga to hit his shots close to the baseline. The first couple of balls that came back to Larry weren't very deep. But, sure enough Guga hit an amazing forehand that made Larry just stand there frozen for a couple of moments looking at the line, it was extemely close!

H: He looked funny like that. We were standing not too far away from Larry, he had a wide grin on his face. He saw us laughing with him.

D: Yeah, Larry is not always about hard work, now we know he also has a sense of humour.

H: Guga was so popular there. Crowds always followed him, it was difficult to get a good picture of him. We were lucky the one we got turned out to be very good.

D: After his practice, we gave up the attempt to get a personal picture with Guga, there was just too many people. So we thought it would be just as fun to ask Larry for a picture. We tried but somehow Larry disappeared among the crowd and we never saw where he went. Maybe next year then.

NICOLAS ESCUDE - The Being mute incident

D: It was the first time we ever saw Nicolas. He seems like a talented but strange fellow from what we've read in French Magazines, so we were curious to see him up close.

H: His coach was talking with him as they were hitting balls. He never responded to anything that was said and so we're not sure whether he just didn't have anything to say or whether he was giving his coach the silent treatment.

D: He certainly looked like he had other things on his mind and he didn't seem to like practicing. The impression we get is that he's a careless guy. But au contraire, when you actually talk to him he is more gentlemanly-like than you'd think.

THINGS WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY

• Bring a better camera: Having a zoom lens would have improve our pictures 500%.
• Bring more film: It's safer to take more pictures, it automatically increases the chance of getting an excellent shot.
• Buy cheapest tickets: Good seats on center court are just not worth it when we hung out as much as we did by the practice courts.
• Go a day or two later: We went very early in the tournament in the hopes to see more players, but as it happened some players didn't arrive until Monday and maybe even Tuesday.
• Predict who'll be in the Final: No need to say how happy we would've been seeing Pat in the Finals.
• Bring water: Buying water on the site can get expensive. We must point out that there is only one water-foutain there and you can't actually refill your bottle without waiting in line.
• Avoid staring at spectators: We tell ourselves binoculars should be used properly.
• Bring food: The prices are unreasonably high, but everyone knows that.

THINGS WE'D DO THE SAME

• Bring binoculars: They proved to be indispensable. For example, sitting in the bleachers on center court, we were still able to see who was practicing.
• Hang around outer courts: We were good at that.
• Buy tickets in advance: It saves a lot of time.
• Ask players for pictures: It's sometimes intimidating, but they are usually nicer about it than you think.
• Use binoculars: Doesn't matter how close you are to center court, binoculars will let you see everything better.
• Look for freebies: There's always interesting samples given at kiosques set up around the site.
• Get there early: Never too early for some players to practice.
• Enjoy ourselves.