In my piece today about the Washington Kastles, I wrote that the team wisely avoided having Justin Gimelstob and Anna Kournikova face each other in any matches last night,” given the offensive comments Gimelstob made about Kournikova a few weeks ago.
It turns out they did face each other in the mixed doubles event, only it happened long after I had already filed my story, waited out a rain delay, got soaked walking to my car and went home.
SEE RELATED:
Here’s what happened: the Kastles were up 9-8 heading into the third event, men’s doubles, when a wicked wave of thunderstorms came through downtown Washington. This forced the action over to the indoor facility at East Potomac Park. It was getting late, so I went ahead and filed my story, confirming with two league officials that Kournikova and Gimseltob were not scheduled to face one another.
Apparently, a couple hours later down at East Potomac (after i was already home, drying off and getting ready to go to sleep) the two teams decided to pull a little stunt in the mixed doubles event, putting in Gimelstob to replace Scott Oudsema after one game.
I asked a team spokesman why they made the move. (I didn’t even know league rules allowed those kinds of mid-set substitutions.)
“For drama,” he said.
I heard from one reader who said that Anna was not exactly sportsmanlike during the mixed doubles event, which she lost 5-2 with partner Travis Rettenmaier.
“We were seated just a few feet from her — she used the expression ‘f word’ and ‘horse’s rear’ a number of times, served to him underhand, and didn’t even try to play the match - a shame for her partner who probably would have liked the win in his column.”
A reader who was at the match has sent over this video of the affair:
Of course, the truth about Justin and Anna can be easily explained by one Cosmo Kramer, at the 8:10 mark of the following video:
- Tim Lemke
