"I'm a soccer man," I told myself all throughout last week, as the Davis Cup encounter between Israel and Russia approached. I tried hard to ignore the event, even though I've been flirting with the White Sport for a long time. I always watch the big matches and found it gives me the kind of satisfaction soccer rarely does.
On Thursday night my friends, with whom I play soccer every Friday afternoon, saw I was thinking about deserting the weekly match in favor of watching the Davis Cup encounter. "Come, it'll be fun, we need more players, don't be a loser," they told me, trying to persuade me to come. I told them I would sleep on it.
When I woke up at 6:30 A.M., I knew what to do: I rode my bike across town to Haaretz's offices and picked up tickets for the match. When I got back home I knew I would be too tired to play soccer anyway.
I first encountered tennis when Gilad Bloom took on Switzerland's Jakob Hlasek in a crucial Davis Cup meet. I went there with a few of my soccer-enthusiast friends, who had also never been to a tennis match before. I remember the referee begging us to remain quiet, but we ignored him, playing the darbuka drum louder than we ever did before. Bloom upset the favorite Hlasek and won the match. When I shouted "loser" at Hlasek - as I was accustomed to from soccer matches - I remember everyone stared at me. Now I know it wasn't with admiration but contempt. I had no idea about the conventions at a tennis match.
As a journalist I ask myself how the hell this happened. How has a country that neglects its tennis players managed to qualify to the Davis Cup semifinals? But when I stood in the stands I was swept away by the new national obsession. Suddenly Dudi Sela is the king and Harel Levy a prince. It felt like I was in a three-way with Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich. The encounter was such an orgiastic event, I didn't even notice top model Bar Refaeli was also in the stands.
"I'm a soccer man," I told myself, laughing, as I walked out of the Nokia Auditorium last night.
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