Friday January 27, 2006 – Everyone’s Now a Fan of Tennis

Marcos Baghdatis
I’m guessing that most of you haven’t been watching the Australian Open, but in Cyprus it is a HUGE deal. Marcos Baghdatis is a Cypriot professional tennis player ranked 50th in the world, who just made it into the finals. The local sensationalist English newspaper “The Cyprus Weekly’s” (…we buy it each Friday for because it has the TV guide so we can map out the English movies for the week) front page headline and opening sentences today were:

“Never-say-die Marcos: The Dream Continues” – “Cypriot hero Marcos Baghdatis achieved another giant killing act yesterday by reaching the Australian Open final after dumping fourth seed David Nalbandian out of the tournament.”

All work in the office stopped as most everyone shuffled down to a standing room only cafeteria to watch the end of the semi-final match. After winning the semi-finals, people were driving around Limassol honking horns, waving flags out of windows, cheering… Apparently, a street is going to be named after him in Limassol (his home town). Today I saw a shop that just began selling screen printed t-shirts with Marcos’ face on them. It was really kind of endearing how the whole island rallied around him for a semi-final match and will more than likely plan their Sunday around the finals.