Tennis seems to draw the Type A Master of the Universe Type.
My first tournament in the 45s was a local non-Sectional tournament. The lowest of the low on the points scale. But it meshed well with my work schedule, and most importantly was at Randalls Island, which didn’t seem to draw the top players. So the potential for easy points was there, and nothing draws me to a tournament more than the prospects of easy points.
I checked the names of the players. No monsters entered as of a day before the deadline.
But I checked the names anyway. Most had no record of playing any USTA tournaments. So I ran them through Google. There was limited information for all — except one.
Jeff Zucker was the name.
There was a Jeff Zucker who was in charge of NBC Universal. He couldn’t be playing in a nothing 45 and over tournament. So I did some more research. Turns out the NBC Zucker played No. 1 singles for his high school in Miami and still had spirited tennis matches out in the Hamptons. My God, I was going to be playing a tennis match with one of the most powerful men in media.
It was not lost on this soon to be unemployed editor that there might be a professional opportunity in this first round match.
But hold on. It is not like he is going to recognize the guy grunting on the other side of the court is the most brilliant media mind (next to him, of course).
But I sure wanted him to know what I could do on a tennis court.
So I put on my Saddlebrook t-shirt with its “Work Hard, Play Harder” message on the back (subtle I know).
I arrived two hours early, which is typical of me, especially when I am not familiar with a facility.
Randalls Island had just opened a new tennis facility and it was quite a complex. Ten clay courts. Ten hard courts. And an upstairs viewing area.
As I walked in it felt like I was at the wrong tournament. They were running a boys 12 and under on the clay and a girls 12 and under on the hard. Kids were running around everywhere. The tournament sign-in area was in a converted classroom with two ping pong tables and dozens of kids.
I heard the tournament director call out for a Zucker in the 12 and under boys tournament. His son?
Well, since I saw a picture of Zucker and didn’t see him around the young Zucker taking the court, maybe there was no relation. I had known another Zucker in my life. Harvey Zucker was the sports editor when I was with the Jersey Journal, so I tried to put it out of my mind.
My match was set for 9 p.m. I killed time watching the junior matches, reading, and looking for any sign of Jeff Zucker.
Just as 9 o’clock rolled around I saw him. Already in shorts he marched into the ping-pong room. He marched out again. He looked upset. He disappeared and then reappeared. Then he marched out of the room again. Was he stressed out because he was five minutes late? There are tournament directors who will default you for that so it wasn’t outlandish. But this tournament director seemed pretty cool and was so busy dealing with the junior brigade to worry about one of the 45 year old guys showing up a couple minutes late.
Soon the tournament director emerged.
He said my opponent was defaulting!
He explained that Zucker left his rackets there and they weren’t strung so he decided not to play. Huh? He didn’t have a racket? One of the Masters of Media didn’t have a racket? And he couldn’t just get one in the pro shop? Wow.
The tournament director explained that there was a mixup in the pro shop and apparently the rackets never got strung.
I looked around for Zucker. I was going to let him use one of my rackets. Now I really wanted to play him!
Sure he would be at a disadvantage, but hey, when would I get this chance again. But I couldn’t find him and the tournament director approached me to offer a practice match against one the guys in the 35 and over draw who also got a default.
I was shocked. And I figured, what would I do if I were in Zucker’s shoes? I would raise hell at my rackets not being strung. But then I would decide to borrow one and play anyway.
Hey, then I had an excuse if I lost, right?
Well, I was right. Just as I was about to start hitting with the other guy, the tournament director came running up to me. Zucker had changed his mind. The match was on again.
I met him, shook his hand and we headed out to Court 20. But not before taking a detour. He looked through the door of another bubble to see if a different court was available. Hmmm. What could that be about?
I said I was following him because this was my first time there. He said he was a member. I told him I had just moved to the Upper West Side and wasn’t familiar with the club. He asked me where I had lived. I told him New Jersey, the Bronx and since I just got married and my wife wanted to be in Manhattan I had just moved to the Upper West Side,
He said “congratulations” on just getting married.
I told him I appreciated him playing because I had heard about his racket problems and I was glad I was getting a chance to play and not getting a default. He sort of smiled and said “I’m glad.”
The warm up wasn’t that intense. It looked like he was trying not to move around too much. Was he carrying an injury? I had read in one of his profiles that he had one knee surgery and needed to get another one. I had also read that he had won a battle with cancer so I had a lot of respect for him being out there. But what was I getting here?
He had the sweetest forehand you would ever see. Perfect form. Looked effortless. Had much more power than the effort he seemed to put in. But he just sort of poked/sliced his backhand so maybe that was the weakness. Then we took volleys. Almost all of his volleys went long. He looked at his racket and mumbled his way back to baseline.
His serve was sweet effortlessness as well. But it wasn’t breaking any highway laws (well under the speed limit). Maybe he would crank it up in the match.
He didn’t. That was all there was. A beautiful swing but no MPH. His second serve was so bad it was good. It had to be about 20 mph.
And he barely showed up for the first set. He didn’t run for balls he might have chased down. He looked distracted. He spent time looking over at the next court. He mumbled about his racket. But he did hit the occasional forehand winner or set-up shot that got him a couple of games. But I won 6-2.
His serve was driving me crazy. It was like I was dozing off waiting for a bus.
In the second set my own lack of footwork would catch up to me. We exchanged hold service games and he was up 3-2 when I got the yips on my own serve. 15-40.
I was going to have to do this the hard way. Just get every ball back. Make him work. Make him hit more than one winner on every point. I battled back to deuce but he had four more break points. He overplayed his forehand and made errors. I ran down another bunch of potential winners and he would overplay his forehand for an error again.
His forehand service return was an automatic winner. But I was having so many problems with my serve that just getting it in the box was a challenge.
Finally I ran down one of his forehands and chipped a lob over his head to get the advantage.
He could have called it out and I would have no evidence to argue, but he was honest. Throughout the match that was the case. I know it sounds strange to compliment someone on not cheating, but anybody who has played tournament tennis knows how common cheating (called hooking) is.
Finally I got the hold.
But I could do nothing against his serve. My nerves were flying. He is using a strange racket! And I can’t lose to this non-tournament playing media exec. Hey, he may be the president of NBC and I may be a soon to be unemployed editor, but this is something I work at!
We would exchange holds. 5-5.
Finally I was able to get him wide on the backhand to open up his forehand side. I was able to hit some winners. I was able to get him to fly a few more forehands long. 6-5. But I would have to hold. But he wanted out. I don’t know if it was physical or mental. But he was toast. He flew some balls wide and long, and I took the second set and the match.
I went back into work/life mode. He went into formal tennis player who loses mode.
I have learned in the past that the traditional “nice match” said by the winning player at the handshake is a dangerous thing to say. Many a time I heard the comeback “I didn’t play nice. I sucked!” and then have to listen to all the reasons they lost, which always seemed a bit insulting.
So I created my own tradition saying after a win, “Nice battling with you.”
He responded with something they tell juniors to say.
“Good luck in the next round.”
He grabbed the offending rackets and started to walk off the court.
I didn’t want him to leave like that.
“You know, we could do each other’s game good to practice together,” I said.
He said, “I am never going to play here again.”
I jumped back “We could play anywhere.”
He turned back, sort of shrugged and shook his head no. I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed about losing, angry at losing or angry at me for asking. He was polite. I couldn’t call him a jerk if I wanted to. But he wasn’t exactly friendly either.
I gathered my stuff and headed to the locker room. Maybe he would be in there and calm down enough to realize I was giving him an opportunity at a rematch. Where he would have his rackets and be able to pick the situation that would be most advantageous to him.
But as I went to the locker room I could see him exiting the building. He was still wearing the same wet, sweaty clothes. Shorts. It was 20 degrees outside. But that didn’t stop him.
A car was running and waiting for him in the no parking zone. He got in, and was off.
Oh well. At least I beat a Master of Media.
I went to the ping pong room to report my score. The kids were all gone. As I approached I overheard the tournament director telling someone “We still have Zucker out there.”
I gave him the score.
He apologized to me for the default/non default weirdness and said that Zucker had “problems” with the club. He then said he was the president of NBC. “I know,” I said.
He then explained that after Zucker un-defaulted he was hit by another challenge. He was playing his tournament match next to his son’s tournament match.
“It was my only open court,” the tournament director said.
But Zucker’s son had won.
Our match was the same weekend as the Conan O’Brien quitting NBC controversy was happening.
Zucker had kept looking at his phone at the changeover and I knew why. The media world was wondering what would happen in the saga of Leno, Conan and Zucker. And I was on a court with the star of that controversy.
A couple of days later I was at my desk editing a column from Maureen Dowd. It was about Zucker and how he had ruined NBC.
I called up the primary editor, who was a friend of mine and a fellow tennis follower.
Do you know what Zucker was doing when all this was going down last Friday night? He was playing in a tournament with me.
“Let me tell Maureen,” he said. She ended up adding it to her column, about as he was losing his network’s star he was playing in a local tennis tournament. Her kicker: He lost in the first round.
A year later, Zucker was the one looking for work.