As some of you know, my kid sister lives in Tokyo. As you can probably imagine, despite the fact that I've had a blast here at Indian Wells, my mind has been elsewhere, stressed and worried about her well-being given all the insanity that we keep seeing in the news. She's fine, knock on wood, but personally I've been quite moved by the outpouring of support from the tennis community. Novak's wearing special tape, the Japanese players are obviously doing their part, players are tweeting about it, Kim has mentioned that there is talk of doing a fund-raising event, and today, Caro and Vika came out with a Japanese flag to observe a moment of silence for the victims. Caro made her agent drive two hours each way to get the flag.
"We just wanted to show that we're thinking about them over there. It's tough for us to do something, but at least we thought this was the least we could do."
The cynics will say different things but I appreciated the gesture and I spoke to Japanese reporters on site who did as well. The fact of the matter is that Caro is the #1 player in the world and, given the fact that she has a Japanese racquet sponsor, quite popular in Japan. These pictures will be beamed all over the world and I have to tip my cap to a 20 year-old kid taking the time to express her concern. Trust me, I've spoken to enough tennis players to know that they're generally not all that keen on world events, nor do they care.
Gah! Sometimes it is so hard to hate you, Blondie.
(Pic: Getty)
