Vero Beach Champions

As it turned out, Kevin Anderson’s appearance at The Boulevard on Tuesday, May 3 ended up marking the end of his ATP Tour career. The former U.S. Open and Wimbledon finalist appeared at a special event in Vero Beach, where he spoke and hit with young players and played in an exhibition with Hall of Famer Mat Wilander, Boulevard member Mikael Pernfors and Boulevard tennis coach Dani Garza. The event occurred on the day where Anderson, at age 35, announced his retirement from competitive tennis.

Boulevard member and noted sports physical therapist and trainer Gary Kitchell conducted a pre-match question and answer session with Anderson and Wilander – in his “Behind The Actor’s Studio” Style – before Anderson and Wilander played an eight-game pro-set against Pernfors and Garza. Pernfors and Garza won the trick-shot littered match 8-7 (7-5 in the tiebreaker).

A transcript of Kitchell’s talk with Anderson and Wilander can be found below.

Gary Kitchell:
I think is one of the best tennis clubs in America. So give it up for The Boulevard. I have a little change of plans in my speech. I thought I did some correct preparation, but I’m going to change it because of something that happened today, I’m only going to ask you to get to your feet once tonight. I know at the end of the night, you’ll get to your feet because of the great evening that we’re going to have. But if all of you would stand for a minute and put your hands together and congratulate this young man who happened to announce his retirement today. I had a great pleasure of meeting Kevin a few years ago. We’ll talk about that a little bit later, but let’s get to the introductions.

Gary Kitchell:
Kevin, representing the great Republic of South Africa who turned pro in 2007, it was a multiple All-American at the University of Illinois. Unfortunately, his beautiful wife, Kelsey, is not here. And I have to tell you that in working with over 400 pro tennis players, if he had to give me the odds of are pro tennis players smart guys, or are they not. I have to tell you, I’m sitting next to one of the smartest guys, because he married his college sweetheart, who is not only beautiful, but she has a degree, two degrees, business administration and accounting. And he was smart enough to marry her and she became her agent… His agent. Sorry. So let’s give it up for Kelsey. That’s great. I’ve lost all the organization I had.

Gary Kitchell:
It’s all good. Kevin reached a high ranking of number five in the world. We have a connection that we’ve shared. He’s had three great coaches in his career, one long, two short. But we shared a lot of time with Jay Bosworth, who I knew through Lendl and was one of the most instrumental coaches in Kevin’s career. Also Brad Stine, who I traveled years ago with Jim Courier. He had a stent with Kevin as well and a little bit of fun with Diego Moyana, who was one of the greatest guys to teach the game. I traveled with him with the crazy Tommy Paul and Reilly Opelka. So we have a great connection there.

Gary Kitchell:
Kevin represented the South Africa as a Davis cupper as well as an Olympian. And we’ll get into it later, but he served as the vice president and currently the president of the ATP Players’ Council. We’re going to get into that because that’s a very influential position and it’s great that he took time out of his busy professional schedule to benefit the sport.

Gary Kitchell:
To my left, a warm welcome to Mats Wilander. Mats the former number one player in the world, seven time Grand Slam winner. He also represented Sweden for one of the greatest runs in the history of Davis Cup, seven straight years in the finals, all during in the eighties. He was a very intricate part of those six of those seven teams. Hall of famer in 2002. One of the great, great guys that I’ve ever had the opportunity to know as a friend or as a client, Mats Wilander.

Gary Kitchell:
Kevin, let’s start with you. I think all [inaudible 00:04:11] at least us here, you guys probably lay awake at night and dream of winning the 3.5 or 4.0 or the open division at the Boulevard. I’m sure Kevin, as a little child growing up in Joburg, Johannesburg, I believe your dad was your first coach.

Kevin Anderson:
Right. Yep.

Gary Kitchell:
So you… Kevin, did you have dreams of becoming a professional tennis player when you first worked with your dad?

Kevin Anderson:
I think from a very, very young age, my dream was to become a professional tennis player. I worked very, very hard as a very young kid. A lot of hours. And my dad always told me that, at least the philosophy that I grew up and what he instilled in me is there’s never going to be a guarantee of being a professional tennis player or being ranked 50 or 200 or 300.

Kevin Anderson:
The only thing you can really control is just the amount of work, the amount of dedication you put towards the journey of becoming the best you can be. And I think that’s what I’ve really embraced the most. And I think part of that was to be a professional tennis player because I would be challenging the best players in the world. And I definitely wanted to challenge myself in that arena. So from a very young age, I definitely had that dream of one day being a professional tennis player.

Gary Kitchell:
Thank you, Kevin, that’s a beautiful story. As you know, you come and represent a great country and a lot of great tennis players over the years. I have a pleasure of working with Robby Koenig way back when Ellis Ferreira, Cliff Drysdale, Johan Kriek, Kevin Curren and of course, quite a bit near the end of Wayne Ferreira.

Gary Kitchell:
So I think South Africa, RSA had a wonderful record and reputation of strong play, hard work ethic and coming from a country that seems so far for us and willing to travel all around the world, you need to be commended on your achievements here.

Kevin Anderson:
Yeah. Thank you. I mean, it was definitely… I felt a challenge in South Africa in the sense that even… We had a lot of great players who you just mentioned. None of them were really training and living out South Africa. So I definitely felt quite, I think, isolated and removed from the International Tennis scene. At the same time though, upon reflection, I realized that I think that unknown of what other people were doing may be working harder at home. So it took me some time to find my confidence and belief on the court against anybody I felt was a little bit intimidated going to international events and all these players seem to know each other, they have all these coaches and I wasn’t really in that position. But I think where going to the University of Illinois was a great stepping stone for me because it just exposed me to these players that I’d seen growing up. First, the American players, then more of an international scene.

Kevin Anderson:
So I think that was the tougher part from South Africa, just that sort of being isolated, but obviously there was some big benefits as well.

Gary Kitchell:
You made that transition beautifully. Mats, you had a pretty astonishing junior career. You want to talk a little bit about your junior tennis before turning pro?

Mats Wilander:
Yes, sure. There was a guy named Stefan Edberg that is from the same state as me. Yeah. Yeah. I know. People love him. Two years younger than me. So we would always qualify in the 10 and under. He was 10, I was 12 and under, and I would always put him on the worst bunk bed. So I was in charge, is in charge. He was the first player that I lost to that was younger than me as well. And that was when I was 20 years old. So I mean, growing up in Sweden, just like Kevin, I mean we Bjorn Borg. And with Bjorn Borg, you are looking at someone who is very easy to imitate in terms of what he’s trying to do in a tennis court, which is behave good, make no mistakes if you can help it, and train as hard as you possibly can, run for everything. I just didn’t have the hair. But so… And we had some unbelievable tennis players in Sweden, but there’s no chance we would have any of us without Bjorn Borg. And he’s never thanked enough, but he’s the greatest athlete in Swedish history. Maybe the most famous person to come from Sweden. Apart from maybe Alfred Nobel, who invented something and maybe we hope he shouldn’t have.

Yeah, but it’s my 40th anniversary this year of winning my first French Open. I’m just putting it out there because I’m a lot older this year. So Kevin, take it easy. But you’re on my team, so we’re all good.

Gary Kitchell:
Yeah, yeah.

Mats Wilander:
But my best record, and this is not saying it, but just so that you understand that I didn’t grow up with understanding what consequences meant. I won four majors before my 21st birthday. Okay. And that was not because I was good.

And that’s not that easy to keep your motivation when you then realize that you start losing at some point. And so to have guys like you, Kevin, to play into your mid thirties and be that committed, for us, I was committed to 25 years old. And then [inaudible 00:09:32]. Bjorn Borg, same thing, done. John McEnroe, same thing done. Even though they kept playing, the only one is Jimmy Connors who obviously has a bit of a competitive side to him.

Gary Kitchell:
39, 39.

Mats Wilander:
The 39. So I’m not really proud of the longevity, but it just wasn’t what we did in our day.

Mats Wilander:
So for us to watch you guys, Kevin and Rafa and Roger, I mean, it’s just incredible how the physical part is pretty easy, but the mental part of going out there and, just like tonight, where you’re staring your opponent in the eye, you’re not worrying about tomorrow or yesterday, I’m going to kick your butt. That part of me left at 25.

Gary Kitchell:
Okay. Fair enough. Listen, I’m glad we… Obviously, you look at your game, you obviously modeled your game after Bjorn’s, correct?

Mats Wilander:
Just like rock and roll after Beatles.

Gary Kitchell:
There you go. I think it’s important to share, this is quite an achievement. You only ever lost to Bjorn once. Is that true?

Mats Wilander:
That’s right. Yes.

Gary Kitchell:
That’s a pretty incredible accomplishment.

Mats Wilander:
I lost to him in the first round of the last tournament in Geneva. That was the last tournament he won. He just lost the Wimbledon final to John McEnroe. And he lost the US Open final to John McEnroe. And I get to the airport in Geneva and the IMG guy comes up to me and he says, “I got good news and bad news. What do you want first?” I said, “I’ll take the good news.” He said, “You got to walk hard.” I’m like, “Oh, oh my God.” “Bad news, I mean, could there be? You play Bjorn.” I’m like, “Okay, so Bjorn, if you know Bjorn, we know Bjorn, he takes the first [inaudible 00:11:09]. He lets me break him and in the middle of the second game, I’m like, “This guy’s not that good, man. I think, [inaudible 00:11:17] but he doesn’t even try and pass me. 6-1, 4-love. 6-1, 4-love, and then Bjorn is very good at making this opponent look good. So suddenly I hit an ace. I haven’t hit an ace my whole life. Because Bjorn moves to the one side. I’m like, “What’s he doing going there? I serve over here.” And he let me ace him a couple times and let me hold serve, and 6-1 [inaudible 00:11:41] on Bjorn Borg. So I’m very excited about [inaudible 00:11:44]. He’s a nice guy. He would never bag on me. That is true. Yeah. Such a great moment.

Gary Kitchell:
But you did tell everybody you only played him once.

Mats Wilander:
I only played the once on tour.

Gary Kitchell:
Correct.

Mats Wilander:
Yes. And after that match, he refused to beat me.

Gary Kitchell:
Kevin, we met in, I think we said 2016, you were in a pretty lull period or part of your career, contemplating retirement with a knee injury, little shoulder, little ankle. We talked about the pros and cons of surgery, and obviously the tale of the tape is in the fact that 2017, 2018, you have a major resurgence, become five in the world, you make these finals. Tell us what it was like to move from that period of quite a bit of self-doubt to where, how did you manage then to make such a resurgence and become a dominating force on the tour?

Kevin Anderson:
It was definitely very up and down work for me during those few years. I went back little bit [inaudible 00:00:51], I broke in the top 10 for the first time, I think I might have been the second oldest to do that, behind Jürgen Melzer by a month or so. I was really pretty well into my career and I made quarterfinals in a grand slam for the first time at US Open. Finishing that year, there’s a lot of positives, and you go into the off season really motivated. I remember at the beginning of 2016, I was just plagued by injuries from the very first actually exhibition event that I did, and pretty much throughout the year.

It went from my knee to my shoulder, I remember, and it was just tough from being at my career high then to being at the lowest ranking I’d been in maybe four or five years. I’d say looking back at it, even though there might have been times where I feel like it was difficult, there was still that passion, that fire was burning in me to give it my best to try and come back. It wasn’t easy, I remember in 2017, some pretty tough results early on, I missed the Australian Open that year. I actually remember being on the courts with, who you mentioned earlier, with my coach and good friend Jay Bosworth, and I really had to make some pretty big changes in my mentality.

I was always very critical, as I was saying earlier, I really worked hard, but I had to try and find the switch of just believing in my game a little bit more and finding ways to be more positive. I really embraced that challenge as much as I could, I became very vocal on the court, which I think was a pretty big change for a lot of people watching me playing, but it was something that I needed to do. It wasn’t because I was trying to get in my opponents’ face, it was just because I needed to get that way just to allow myself to play my best tennis. Then from about midway through 2017 to the end of 2018, it was a very special 18 months for me, a couple grand slam finals, my highest ranking.

Then unfortunately, something very similar happened to me in 2019, just the same injuries. I think that’s part of the reason I decided to stop this last month, it’s what Matt said, that fire just to get it done just wasn’t the same. It’s a sport with such small margins, it’s point here and point there wins or loses matches, and I just felt it was time to move on. I think, back to your point, it’s just I’ve had a great support system, my parents have always believed in me, my wife’s been amazing. I have a lot of belief in myself, that’s why it was difficult to retire, because I kept wanting to go and go and go, but that definitely got me through the ups and downs of my career.

Gary Kitchell:
Great, thanks, Kevin. Mats, growing up, did you ever hear of a guy named Mikael Pernfors? Were you aware of him in the world of tennis in Sweden? What can you tell us about Mikael?

Mats Wilander:
What I can tell you about Mikael is that I thought he only played doubles, first of all, because he never seemed to go very far in singles. We knew from a very early age that he was one of the most talented and skillful players in our age group, he’s a year older than me, and I think his shot selection is compared to mine, I’ve got one shot, he’s got six. That means six thoughts in your brain, and it’s very difficult, people always think you’ve got the Roger Federer slice, the top spin, blah blah blah, so you have all the choices. That makes it harder, because you’ve got to make some quick decisions in tennis, and I think Mikael had too many.

He quit playing tennis, in our eyes, and then he starts winning NCAA two years in a row. I’m like, “What the hell? Mikael, he quit playing tennis, I thought,” because he was only playing doubles. I knew Mikael since, I don’t know, eight, nine years old, and I knew he was talented.

Gary Kitchell:
I think that’s where the problem is, like because (wife) Kristina has confided in me that at home, Mikael is not a thinker. If you’ve got six forehands, which one do you use? I mean, that can’t-

Mats Wilander:
At home?

Gary Kitchell:
Yeah.

Mats Wilander:
The quiet one. (laughter)

Gary Kitchell:
The quiet one. Hear that, Kristina? Am I getting the ax already? I don’t know, I’m not getting paid. There’s so much interesting facts, I’m going to jump back to Kevin for a minute, we’re going to talk about Wimbledon 2018. Do you remember who you played in each round? Come on, I do, but come on.

Kevin Anderson:
All right, first round was Norbert Gombos.

Gary Kitchell:
Gombos, right, good.

Kevin Anderson:
Second round was Seppi or Kohlschreiber.

Gary Kitchell:
Seppi in the second.

Kevin Anderson:
Seppi, then Kohlschreiber-

Gary Kitchell:
Kohlschreiber, yep.

Kevin Anderson:
… And then Gaël Monfils, Federer, Isner, and then unfortunately I lost to Djokovic.

Gary Kitchell:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can’t skip over Federer, let’s go. The quarterfinals, you meet eight-time champion Fed, I believe Fed jumps out two sets to nil, and has two match points?

Kevin Anderson:
One match point.

Gary Kitchell:
One match point, I made an error, first time tonight, sorry.

Kevin Anderson:
I didn’t want to exaggerate. It was such an interesting tournament for me, I actually lost first round the week before at Queens, and it’s always a little bit tricky making that first transition onto the grass, but I got through that. Then both on Andreas Seppi and Philipp Kohlschreiber, even though it was second or third round, I was seeded, and those are really two experienced guys on grass, they both had very good grass results, so I think I took some confidence from that. My match with Monfils was a very long and close match, it was four sets, I think three tiebreakers. It was the first time I’d beaten him, first time through to the second week quarterfinals at Wimbledon.

Kevin Anderson:
That was like the first step, and then obviously playing Federer in the quarters, one thing I think, what I mentioned earlier, just coming from South Africa, just because I wasn’t exposed, I always had difficulties playing some of the bigger guys in the biggest stadiums. I was always like, “I wish I could play Roger right here just with a couple coaches, a couple people watching.” I remember getting ready for the match, and I don’t know if I got the time wrong, but it was like 20 minutes to go and I was not ready to go, I still had to put on my ankle braces. You can’t really keep Wimbledon waiting, so it was like I was a little bit already flustered going onto the court.

Kevin Anderson:
I played him a few times, and I was always disappointed because I’d never felt like I actually put out my best game. Sure enough in the first set, it was six-two, it was in 20 minutes, I was just like, “Here we go again, another just poor showing, not showing anybody what I’m actually capable of, what I believe I’m capable of doing.” I remember in the second set, I actually broke him to go up, and I ended up losing that set in a tiebreaker, but throughout the end of the second set and third set, I kept on thinking like, “You know what? For the first time, I’m just playing tennis, I’m just enjoying the competition. It’s not like I’m playing Federer.”

Kevin Anderson:
Even if I lost that set, I was going to go off the court and be like, “You know what? I actually took some really good strides, I made some positive changes in my outlook.” This was at the time when I was very vocal, very focused, one point at a time, I very much had that like Nadal sort of attitude in my mind. I was serving five-four down in the third set, match point down, hit a serve, I think he hit a chip backhand, I hit a pretty good approach, and he ended up missing the backhand pass, and held serve, and 10, 15 minutes later I’d won that set. From then, it was a great contest-

Gary Kitchell:
Great match.

Kevin Anderson:
11-nine in the fifth, almost five hours, definitely obviously will go down as one of my more memorable moments on that court.

Gary Kitchell:
Four hours and nine minutes later.

Kevin Anderson:
13-11, yeah.

Gary Kitchell:
I didn’t want to correct Kevin, but it was 13-11 in the fifth.

Kevin Anderson:
Yeah.

Gary Kitchell:
Then you played the big guy.

Kevin Anderson:
I did, yeah.

Gary Kitchell:
John Isner.

Kevin Anderson:
Yeah. Myself and John, we go back all the way to college, we’ve had a lot of really close games. He’s been somebody that I’ve sort of pegged my game at as a result, and sometimes it’s been challenging. He’s had a very good career, and so playing him at this stage, semifinals of Wimbledon, he was playing great tennis, I knew it was going to be a very tough match. I could spend probably an hour and a half telling you about the match… And still miss most of the things that happened, but it went up and down, and then starting in the first set, I was serving second, and the one thing I do remember from that match is I really found a good groove of being so focused in every single present moment. Even though I couldn’t break through, I never let that frustrate me, I just kept patient. I wasn’t facing any break points of my serve, and I felt like I was making inroads on his serve at 15-30s, and I just couldn’t close it out, but I was able to keep holding mine. Then I think at 24 all, it was love-15 or 15-30, one of my favorite points, he hit a body serve on the edge side, I hit a backhand, my legs gave out, I fell to the floor, and he hit the ball back.

I don’t know if I thought about it or not, but I had elbow surgery as a kid, and I played with my left hand for probably seven or eight months. I just picked up the racket and I hit this lefthanded shot running towards the baseline that kept me in the point, and I ended up winning the point somehow. This was at like 24 all in the first set after six and a bit hours, and ended up breaking in that game and winning the next game. It was a pretty crazy way to finish the match.

Gary Kitchell:
It was an incredible match. I think six hours and 32 minutes later, Kevin won 26-24 in the fifth, that was before they had the tiebreaks at Wimbledon

Kevin Anderson:
Correct.

Gary Kitchell:
Talking about long matches, I’m going to take a guess, ’82, St. Louis, Missouri?

Mats Wilander:
Yep.

Gary Kitchell:
Davis Cup quarters? Semis?

Mats Wilander:
Yes, quarters.

Gary Kitchell:
Tell us a little bit about the match, who you played. At that time, was it the longest match in Davis Cup history?

Mats Wilander:
It was, yes. I played a lefthanded crazy guy from America who was angry, and the reason he was angry is because he had just lost to an angrier man who’s lefthanded from America in the Wimbledon finals. Who was going to pay for that? Me. Sweden, we were two all after the first four matches, I played John McEnroe, he’s up six-one, six-four, four-three break, something like that, and it’s over and I’m kind of excited actually, because I won a couple of games. I won the third 17-15 after three hours, no tiebreakers in those days.

Mats Wilander:
To this day, I do not know how they didn’t throw him out, but I’m assuming because he’s American and we were in America-

Gary Kitchell:
It was in St. Louis, yeah.

Mats Wilander:
… St. Louis, I’m not sure. I’m dying to ask Kevin, but I guess we have to start playing, It’s amazing how much respect you get for another human being, even if they behave slightly against the rules, how much respect you get because of the respect they give you on the tennis court, by showing that [inaudible 00:12:10] they care, by trying to get to your weakness and so on. We became great friends, and I think it’s because he won, obviously.

Gary Kitchell:
Yeah, probably.

Mats Wilander:
Otherwise, it would’ve been different.

Gary Kitchell:
We did spend 13 years together on the senior tour.

Mats Wilander:
It would’ve been different. That was good, best thing that happened that day though was, after the match, I was sitting in the bar with the Swedish team because we thought you could have a beer at 18, but in America, you can’t, but I think they gave us an exception. The bartender looks at me, he says, “Mr. Wilander here,” I said, “Don’t call me mister, but yes, I’m here.” “There’s a Brooke Shields on the phone,” “Is she married? That’s right, she married Agassi, yes, that’s right.”

She was looking. Personally, I have learned so much more from losses, like not even close. I lost to him there, I lost to Yannick Noah in the 1983 French Open final. I was so not excited about losing, but after the match, and I was the favorite, and I won, like I said, in ’82, after the match, I go into the locker room and I go over to the corner where he is, and I ask one of his friends, “Where are you guys going tonight?” because I wanted to go and see what Yannick Noah would look like, feel like, how he was dancing, blah blah blah, on and on and on. I actually ended up going to this nightclub in Paris, and this is about maybe 2:00 in the morning, he’s not anywhere to be found, and eventually he walks in.

I just was like, “Oh my God, he’s here with his friends and he’s celebrating,” not saying this is good or positive, but it made me realize that a tennis game is much deeper than just hitting balls. You become friends with these people, these players, and you learn about yourself, you obviously learn about them, but there’s something that’s so amazing about playing another guy who’s a nice guy, who tries really hard. I don’t mind losing to him, so those are my best memories of my professional career-

Gary Kitchell:
Great story.

Mats Wilander:
… Maybe except beating Lendl in the US Open final, that was great.

Gary Kitchell:
We have so much more to talk about, but I realize we can’t. However, this is important that we talk about both of these guys. I didn’t get a chance to tell everyone that, for all the wonderful things that Kevin’s achieved, he was also awarded the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian award, which is an incredible award throughout the world for sports. Kevin, would you take a few moments, tell us about your charities that are near and dear to your heart?

Kevin Anderson:
Yeah, thank you. I’ve always felt it’s really important to try and give back, and as I’ve had more success, I’ve had a platform just to be able to maybe try and create a few more initiatives. I’m really excited right now, I’m actually on the board, and in my retirement, I’m looking at what else I can do. It’s for the First Serve Foundation, really helping kids in underprivileged neighborhoods and communities with after school caring, so my wife and I, we’re really getting involved in that. The other one which is also pretty important for me, which I still think we’ve got some ways to go, is just dealing with the mental health crisis throughout the country.

Unfortunately, you’ve got a very big stigma attached to it still, so it’s something I’m going to be involved with. Right now, those are two of my biggest passions, but one thing that’s great with tennis players, it’s amazing to see how many people do give back, and there’s a great-

Gary Kitchell:
It’s wonderful for that reason.

Kevin Anderson:
… Community where people give each other their time for pro ams and exhibitions and stuff like that.

Gary Kitchell:
Thank you, Kevin. We’re going to close with Mats. Mats has a lovely … Actually, South African.

Mats Wilander:
Yes.

Gary Kitchell:
Sonya.

Mats Wilander:
That’s why we’re playing together.

Gary Kitchell:
Did you ever know her in South Africa?

Mats Wilander:
Yeah.

Gary Kitchell:
No? I know it’s a big country, but no, you didn’t know Sonya?

Mats Wilander:
Yeah.

Gary Kitchell:
Mats did tell me she was a one-in-50 million type girl.

Mats Wilander:
Yes, that is true.

Gary Kitchell:
Four great kids. Tell me a little bit about your charity, and then we’re going to see your talents.

Mats Wilander:
We have four kids, we’ve been married for 37 years.

Gary Kitchell:
Wow.

Mats Wilander:
We met in the US Open because she slipped her modeling card under my door at my hotel, she had a couple of cocktails, and I took it around to my friends. I think Mikael was one of them, maybe, and I said, “What do you think I should do?” “Call, call her now,” so I called her and we got married later. She doesn’t really like the story. We have four kids, and we have one kid, Eric, who has a genetic disease called epidermal bulluyosa which affects his skin very badly, and the genetic disease is that he doesn’t produce the protein that you need for your skin, so he gets horrific blisters. I have a foundation called the MW Foundation, I ran a charity event outside of New York City for 15 years with tennis and golf.

Mats Wilander:
Johnny McEnroe was there every year, in fact sometimes I didn’t want him to come, and he would still come, like, “Do you not want me?” I’m like, “Last time you were throwing rackets in my charity.”

Gary Kitchell:
I get that, he comes to my house all the time, seriously.

Mats Wilander:
Exactly. But my son’s doing well, it’s life challenging, which is why we live in Idaho, and 6,000 feet helps him a lot. More than anything, he’s my hero because he’s waking up every day with pain, and I realize that that’s something that I couldn’t deal with. Thank you for asking, and [inaudible 00:17:57] thank you for … Gary, thank you-

Gary Kitchell:
Folks, give it up to these two guys!