This Sunday marks the end of an unusual, blessed-to-tennis-players
month-long winter dry period. There was thick fog out this morning at the
Golden Gate Park courts ("Tennis since 1894!") and I could hardly see across
the net, much less the players two courts away.

Still, I kept looking because two gentlemen of a certain age were playing
a robust singles game (instead of the leisurely doubles befitting the age
range) and one of players - with an ancient face and a teenage body - looked
very familiar.

Then as the fog lifted and the mystery man waved hello, I made the
connection:  Seiji Ozawa - in town to conduct his Saito Kinen orchestra
tonight in Davies Hall, in Mahler's Ninth - was playing tennis, returning
to the Golden Gate the first time in the quarter century since he left as
music director of the SF Symphony.  To play this well and to look this
presentable when not camouflaged in formal attire must be an inspiration
to his age group anywhere (he is 66).

One strange thing though: as anyone who ever sat close to the podium at an
Ozawa concert knows all too well, he has one of the loudest snorts of all
conductors, audible even at a fortissimo. And yet, on the new-age tennis
court (the age of teenage shrieks every time the ball is hit), Ozawa is
decorously quiet. This means something, but I have no idea what.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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