High life
Veteran of Palermo
Taki
Athens hathat a pleasant surprise Beaulieu turned out to be. Especially the tennis. I cannot remember how long it's been since I played a match without once hearing the word f— uttered, or since I saw two play- ers going to the net and shaking hands as if they meant it. Better yet, there was no cheating, stalling, gamesmanship and all the rest of the tricks money has made endemic in what was once a gentleman's game.
The reason, of course, is that as it was a veterans tournament everyone was playing for glory, not the root of all envy — or for the love of the game, rather. I lost in the singles to a very nice black man from Guadeloupe, who after a three-hour 20- minute marathon (6-7, 7-6, 7-6) burst into tears as he passed me with a forehand down the line. I was too tired and blistered to cry, but could not have been happier for him. He told me it was his greatest win, and I felt very sorry for him. The next day he got into another long one, so we dubbed him Phidippides, and once again he got through after saving a few match points. When his run finally ended he got a stand- ing ovation from the rest of the veterans, and he announced that he would try and
come back, money being a problem.
During the third set tie-break, I had a match point and went to the net trying to pressure him. He lobbed me perfectly, one foot inside the line, and I called it out as a joke. He ran to the net to congratulate me with a big smile, and when I told him it was good started to laugh and laugh. That's one man I wouldn't mind sponsoring for the rest of his life, which judging by the shape he's in will be a long one.
My partner Nicky Kalogeropoulos won the 45-and-over, and he and I lost the 45s doubles in the final. Then we made one of the biggest mistakes of our lives. We went to Palermo, a hellhole that makes the Big Olive seem like Gstaad, certainly not the armpit of the world but its crotch. The International Tennis Federation called it the world veterans championship, but world suckers championship would be more to the point.
Mind you, I suspect the fix was on. Paler- mo probably got a lot of money from Rome to stage the event, and somehow it seems to have disappeared. The organisers must have promised the ITF that they would provide transport, some kind of hos- pitality, even courts, and the jerks in Lon- don believed them. In reality they charged £50 per player, there were more than 300 suckers, and all we got for taking the trou- ble to travel to the ghastliest of towns were eight cowpatches with broken nets, to get to which one had to take taxis which were driven by blackmailing mafiosi at best and more often by homicidal apes. If this was an ITF world championship tournament, I'm the last empress of China.
Needless to say, Nicky and I left without playing, and we did manage to take a few of our fellow suckers with us. Now we're in the Big Olive, after Palermo suddenly a pleasant city, full of honest folk with impeccable manners. The Greek veterans tournament is on and I'm seeded numero uno in the 50-and-over. This is the good news. The bad is that I'm going to miss my English cousin's party, Harry Worcester's bash in the Ministry of Sound, which sounds Orwellian to me, although it promises to be a night of ecstasy. What I fear most is that I'll probably lose at tennis and miss the party, but after Palermo even that would seem a godsend.
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