JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Ten years ago this September, Gail, Aye, and I went to Singapore to watch the Heineken Open. That year the Open drew some big names: Marcelo Rios, Michael Chang, and Goran Ivanisevic. Gail was already ill, but she spent as much time as she could trawling tennis forums on the web to defend Marcelo Rios. Aye, we decided, was destined for Michael Chang. I was a Goran fan who believed despite everything that the Crazy Croat would win a major (I always root for the monstrously talented but unstable underachievers). Not content with getting tickets to the matches, we decided to bring gifts for our favorite players. Gail and I bought these anting-anting pendants, and when we got to Singapore we dropped them off at the concierge of the hotel where the players were billeted.

We never found out if Rios and Goran had gotten the stuff, although Gail thought she saw Rios wearing the anting-anting during the Masters championships later that year. If you watch tennis, you will notice that the players wear some interesting stuff around their necks. I’ve seen a few pukka shell necklaces. Marat used to wear The One Ring on a chain, which is another reason we love him, even if it probably didn’t help his game (It’s Evil).

I remembered this at dinner because my friend mentioned that she wrote a fan letter to Shintaro, The Samurai, and he (or his people) sent her an autographed picture. Then another friend recalled how he wrote a letter to Stan Lee and Stan Lee personally wrote him back (The letter is gone). I never heard from Goran Ivanisevic or his management, but three years later he finally won Wimbledon.