Hardcore! Miami Crisis Center

Mornin' , TWibe. the Sony Ericsson Open begins today, so this is your first Miami CC post. Feel free to discuss the early-round action on Key Biscayne here. I'll be back later in the day with some mop-up work  pertaining to Indian Wells. Meanwhile, those who follow qualifying like hawks (Ed McGrogan?) know how tough it can be to track scores and results in the all-too-critical qualifying rounds.

Recently, Ptenisnet helped Ellly, a lurker and occasional comment poster, find live scoring (LS) for a Challenger event. For reasons of her own, she wanted to see how Robin Haase fared in the event.  Check out how it all played out, as per this note:

This kind of hardcore dedication needs to be acknowledged and celebrated, so I'm thinking about creating a "hardcore fan-of the-month" award, based on what someone/anyone went through to see live tennis, capture scores, hook up with a fellow fan, meet a player. . . whatever.

The candidates just have to tell how they jumped through significant hoops or made a serious investment or sacrifice to satisfy their tennis craving (E.G.: last year, Rosangel blew off an international flight, just because Rafael Nadal hadn't finished a Roland Garros match in sufficient time for her to make it. Her companion, meanwhile, bailed and caught the plane).

I'm going to ask Elly to email me any personal details she is comfortable divulging here on a voluntary basis - proper name, nationality, gender and age, occupation, player or just fan, favorite pro player, pet peeve, favorite tournament, favorite quote and whatever comment she wishes to add. I'll make a more formal announcement about this later, if we decide to go forward with it. I also plan to see if we can get some kind of official TennisWorld gear that I can give away to award or contest winners, or make available to readers who are proud to be associated with the folks at this site. Something simple and inexpensive, like a hat (not an official Lleyton Hewitt or Andy Roddick trucker cap, i promise!) embroidered with the letters KAD, TW, something like that. It's something I've been meaning to do for some time.

Enjoy the tennis, everyone!