They are clapping for my father. For this one moment of time, it feels as if everyone in the arena misses Javier Soto as much as I do.
A tear leaves my eye. I wipe it away.
Poor Dvo?áková. She stands no chance. It’s over in fifty-one minutes.
Transcript
SportsRadio Nation with Grant Trumbull
Grant Trumbull: We are here with the editor of SportsSunday, Jimmy Wallace, to talk about what’s going on at the US Open. Jimmy, give us the lay of the land here. Start with the men’s game.
Jimmy Wallace: Well, there’s no story coming out of men’s tennis quite like that of Bowe Huntley.
Trumbull: He’s soaring.
Wallace: There was nobody—and I mean nobody—favoring Bowe Huntley as we came into this tournament.
Trumbull: This is his last, is it not?
Wallace: All of us were saying, “The guy’s retiring, he’s the oldest one on the court, his salad days are long behind him.”
Trumbull: And he had to pull out of Wimbledon with an injury.
Wallace: He tore the cartilage in his ribs back in May at the French. This was not a player anyone was betting on.
Trumbull: And yet.
Wallace: [laughs] And yet! Huntley comes out onto the court in the first round and just pummels Franco Gustavo. Takes him in straight sets. Still, we’re all thinking, “Okay, but it won’t happen again.”
Trumbull: And we were wrong.
Wallace: Dead wrong. He takes Ortega in the second round, again in straight sets. Then Bracher. Then Mailer.
Trumbull: And now he’s in the quarterfinals.
Wallace: He’s in the quarterfinals. At the age of forty! And let me tell you, the crowd is with him in these matches. I haven’t seen a crowd this energized in years. You know I’m a skeptic, Grant.
Trumbull: [laughs] You’re a believe-it-when-you-see-it kind of guy.
Wallace: But Huntley’s got me on the edge of my seat. He’s got me rooting for him. I don’t know how this ends, but I’ll tell you it’s a hell of a show.
Transcript
SportsHour USA
The Mark Hadley Show
Mark Hadley: I’m cleaning my glasses over here, disbelieving what I’m seeing. Bowe Huntley just beat Wimbledon champion Jadran Petrovich in the quarterfinals of the US Open?
Briggs Lakin: I wouldn’t just say he beat him. Huntley demolished him. It was embarrassing for Petrovich. He’s ranked two in the world, and Huntley took him down hard.
Gloria Jones: That last serve was simply stunning.
Hadley: Let’s get into Huntley’s serve—I want to talk about that. It wasn’t official, but there’s been talk over this past year that Bowe Huntley was being coached by the late Javier Soto. Have either of you heard anything about this?
Jones: I have, yes. We’ve been seeing Carrie Soto and Bowe Huntley together a lot these past few months. There’s an assumption that they are dating. Obviously, we don’t know.
Lakin: I mean, we know.
Jones: No one has confirmed anything.
Lakin: I don’t need anyone to confirm for me that two plus two equals four.
Jones: [laughs] There are many people who say Bowe Huntley and Javier Soto were working together before the French Open. So it stands to reason they may have still been working together when Javier Soto passed away just a few short weeks ago.
Hadley: So maybe Javier Soto is behind this turn in Bowe Huntley.
Jones: Maybe he was.
Hadley: He certainly did beautiful work with Carrie Soto, didn’t he?
Jones: That he did. And let’s take a moment, if we can. We all expect greatness from Carrie, but she’s just lost her father, she’s lost her coach. And now we are on the eve of the semifinals and she’s handily defeated every single opponent in front of her. That includes Odette Moretti, who she beat in the quarterfinals just a few hours ago today.
Lakin: She’s shown a lot of heart this tournament.
Jones: Javier Soto was a great coach, a coach for the ages. And I think we’re seeing that in this tournament. I think we are seeing, in Bowe Huntley and Carrie Soto, what Javier Soto was best at. The “beautiful fundamentals,” as he would say.
Lakin: Well said, Gloria. Absolutely.
HUNTLEY VS. MATSUDA
1995 US Open
Semifinals
Gwen and I are sitting in the players’ box. I am checking my watch because I need to leave soon for my own match. But I can’t quite tear myself away just yet.
It’s the fifth set, 3–5. Bowe is behind, but he can still get back in it if he holds this game and breaks Matsuda’s serve on the next one.
He looks at me and smiles.