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October Tennis under the George Washington Bridge
10 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
My friend Ryan Arguelles is going to USTA Nationals in Tucson later this month and wants to play some sets to help sharpen his game. He’s from Crown Heights Brooklyn and I’m in NJ so we decide to meet at the tennis courts at the Hudson River under the George Washington Bridge, which I have viewed many times from up above, but never actually played on or inspected from close range. I bike the six or seven miles and get there at 2. It was supposed to rain but it’s a perfect sunny afternoon, about 69 degrees, no wind. Perfect.
Once you cross the bridge you have to traverse various paths, steps and foot bridges down and around, through a forest of trees, fallen leaves, squirrels hunting for nuts, and other curious sights and scents of nature, eventually after about a 15-minute trek you will find the courts which are situated between the Hudson River and Amtrak train tracks. Then you look up and there’s the grand, towering, silver structure of the George Washington Bridge looking down at you.
The courts have a sign that warns you about needing a permit but there is no person here to do that job. There’s ten courts here, and just one is being used at the moment, by a young female and male who are having some good baseline rallies.
Ryan Arguelles is a USTA Eastern legend. He is so in-demand, especially as a doubles player, that he has competed for ten different USTA teams this year. The “Zen Master” – as he is called – has amassed an overall record of 41-6 this year, playing for teams from Manhattan, Queens, Westchester and Northern Connecticut.
I first played Arguelles three years ago in a USTA money tournament at Cunningham Park and won the SF of a 35s event 75 64 to win the $125 finalist check (I got smoked in the final by the three-time year-end #1 Adrian Chrici). We became friends. I like his game which reminds me of a right-handed Marcelo Rios. I played for his Vaders team earlier this year as a 4.0 and helped win a key playoff match before getting DQed before Sectionals and Nationals. Guess I should have thrown some more games in matches during the season. But all four of my singles matches were tough battles and I don’t play like that. No problem, that’s USTA League Tennis. There are several players better than me, and even more out in Tucson. (I played 4.0 Nationals four years ago and went 1-2 in singles out there, getting crushed twice. I didn’t lose a match all year that year in Eastern.)
So we start playing and I come out firing. Aces. Serve and volleys. Running forehands. Backhand passes. This is about as good as I can play. The court is quick and a little slippery but everything is working today. The Zen Master is about 15-20 pounds overweight and in singles the extra mass hurts his first step quickness and movement to far balls and drop shots. I make a lot of picturesque winners which I wish could have been videotaped, to take the set 6-0.
But the Zen Master is a crafty player with a lot of experience. He changes tactics and plays more patiently. He directs almost every serve to your backhand, deep in the box corner with a weird, knuckleballing spin that slides the ball away from you. Once the point is under way, his backhand is his better wing, he can take the ball on the rise and control it to where he needs to put it. I let off the gas pedal a tad and push my returns back a little too passively. This allows him to take command on the points and move me wide to my one-handed backhand which opens the court for him. He takes advantage of these options and patterns and in a flash, suddenly I’m down 0-3 in the second. Then I go down 15-30 on my serve. But I am able to dig deep and win that game and the next two.
The set becomes a battle. We get to 4-4, and I break him. Then I try to serve it out and we battle through about six deuces with some full speed tennis and excellent shotmaking from all over the court. I finally win it but we are both playing very good tennis.
It’s a really cool place to play here. Just a couple miles from Yankee Stadium, Harlem, The Apollo, midtown, Central Park, The John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall’s Island and Bergen County, NJ. Some quality players are next to us, and two more on the next courts north. One guy has an afro bigger than Oscar Gamble and he’s got some game too. All the while, there are joggers and cyclists passing by on the bike path, and few sailboats too. We play one more no-ad set before some Dominican food at the restaurant on 181st and Broadway.
Rice, beans, chicken and yucca with a Coke is as good as it gets after a tennis match. This isn’t tennis-related but I have to mention the tall blond, curly-haired Dominican young lady wearing tight blue jeans and a white shirt, who was working as the bartender at the small bar in the back. She is one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen in my life. Not surprising is that there’s five guys sitting at the bar, apparently enamored with this beauty. They all look bored though and no one is talking much, they all seem helplessly magnetized and frozen by her striking attractiveness. As this article is written, I regret not taking her picture and asking her favorite tennis player just for the hell of it.
There are no symbols of tennis at this sports-oriented restaurant bar, it’s all baseball and football on the TV screens. Unfortunately, they are not showing what’s going on at the Masters Series event in Shanghai on The Tennis Channel. I am curious to see if Dolgopolov can make it to the third round by beating Chardy. But the food is excellent here. Three sets of quality tennis with a good friend, tasty morsels in a nice restaurant – that’s good enough. And, hey, that’s right, I had three aces today, no double faults…
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Dan Markowitz · October 13, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Scoop, you’re amazing, and the photo of the GW Bridge is extraordinary. Sounds like your playing tip-top tennis. Way to go. And the writing is first-rate, although would like to know how you went from being down love-3 in second set to squaring it at 4-all. Doesn’t sound like your friend has many weapons, but a tough competitor.
Scoop Malinowski · October 13, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Thanks Dan glad you liked it. Just winged it, brought the camera and got lucky with that sunset shot. A few minutes earlier or later and there’s no shot. Can’t beat playing at those courts. My game is just a little better, the quickness is the key. Down 0-3 I let up – it’s hard to keep that killer instinct on a friend – and his pride lifted his game. If I had to lug 20 extra pounds, he would have crushed me. He might be the better player but the weight is the difference. Where are you now?You have to be close to the destination. Weather is still nice here for doubles next week.
tom michael · October 13, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Great read, Scoop! Dolgopolov did not make the third round. I was hoping he would, too. I hope we can all get together for doubles soon.
Dan Markowitz · October 14, 2010 at 12:44 am
Actually, got to admit, I pooped out. It wasn’t so much the riding, although that was tough. But it was being on the road so dang much, staying in motels at the end of long cycling days without the Tennis Channel, and the Groundhog Day quality of it all got too much for me so I rented car in Albuquerque and drove to Grand Canyon, hiked there and then drove to LA where I am now, hanging with a friend and his family. So I’ll be back in NY next week and up for some tennis if my Achilles tendinitis is better. Otherwise, got to shelve myself for a couple of weeks, keep a boot on and let this puppy fully heel. It’s gotten better since I haven’t played tennis for a few weeks, but I still can’t push off into a run without it kicking me.
Yes, your fitness, drive and lightness on your feet help your game tremendously. But since the first we played at Columbia U about five years ago, you’ve also improved serve, backhand topspin and slice and your hands at the net, which used to be rudimentary. That and you play a lot of competitive tennis and that always helps someone’s game.
Dobey · October 14, 2010 at 5:05 am
The tennis is interesting but the Dominican beauty even better. We have a stunning Dominican woman who works one building away from me and she reminds me of a comibination of Gabby Sabatini and Anna Ivanovic. But when she goes into my building to see some friendsof hers who work here, I always feel like Ralph Kramden and can’t think of anything else to say except “humina humina” the way Ralph would when he got nervous.
Scoop Malinowski · October 14, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Yeah, I’m taking the photo next time : ) Dobey just say Hummina hummina to her, that’s better than nuthin ) The Honeymooners is one of the best shows ever. There was even a tennis reference in one episode, where Ed Norton said something about going to see the Davis Cup. I have it on tape somewhere. That show was TV at it’s best. Me and a friend even went to a Honeymooners Convention at CW Post in about 1985, during college. Dan, that is a brutal ride. Even drving that’s far when you know you are so far away. TO have to bike that distance …whew. How many miles did you actually do? Boulder to Albuquerque is incredible.
Dan Markowitz · October 14, 2010 at 5:12 pm
It’s about 400-450 miles. I got a couple of rides. ONce at night looking for a hotel when I was in the middle of nowhere in Co. And then once at the New Mexico border where I was biking again in the middle of nowhere and the wind was so severe I literally felt like I was going up the biggest hill in the world. So I put my thumb out and got a ride to Tres Piedras, NM where I biked another 30 miles into Taos, a beautiful but stark ride out to the mountains. It was very challenging. But I look forward to riding through and around Rock Creek Park in D.C. maybe next year where at least you know that you won’t be riding for an hour straight up a mountain.
Scoop Malinowski · October 14, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Wow, just wow to read about these adventures. One thing for sure – I will never try a cross country bike ride. 40-50 miles in a day is tops. Hey at least you are alive still, those roads out there are dangerous without bike lanes.
RIP · October 15, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Well done Scoop!
Really enjoyed the description of the court and the match and of course lunch at the bar afterward. Beautiful photo too. Always love looking at the GW and Brooklyn Bridge at different times of the day/night and different seasons. I briefly worked in Washington Heights back in the 1990s and there was a large Dominican population there then (may still be) and you are right: some of the most beautiful and exotic women. My friend once became so enamored of a woman there he bought her a phone telling her “now you can call me anytime…” Not sure if it worked but a nice idea.
Mandy · November 3, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Ryan was my partner and carried me many times to victory!!!! Play again and see what happens.