Michigan's top singles player Evan King is spending this week as one of three college players serving as practice players for the US Davis Cup Team in Austin, TX. The team (Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Bob and MIke Bryan, and Captain Jim Courier) are preparing for their quarterfinal match versus Rafael Nadal and Spain July 8-10 in Austin.
King is writing a blog chronicling his experiences. The first two entries are chock full of insights into what goes into elite level tennis training. In addition, there's a good anecdote about the impromptu hot dog eating contest that Roddick arranged for "The Rookies" to participate in at his house. I guess that's a small price to pay to get to hang out in the backyard of Roddick and Brooklyn Decker.
Having a Davis Cup in Andy Roddick’s home town definitely has its benefits. On the Fourth of July he invited the whole team, (including us rookies), and a bunch of his friends over to his house for a barbeque.
Even though Andy’s house was the biggest house that I have ever seen not to be on MTV Cribs, it was not all great. After our morning practice, the whole group was watching Sportscenter. On the bottom line were the results of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Joey Chestnut won by eating 62 dogs and buns in 10 minutes. That struck up a conversation about how many hot dogs we all could eat.
Then Andy had a light bulb moment and said, "Why don’t we make the hitting partners have an eating contest?" Everyone seemed to love the idea except for us three. Andy decided that the contest was going to happen so after the second practice he went and bought all of the necessary supplies.
As we were going to Andy’s house, I was feeling decent about my chances. It was a tough day of practice so I was pretty hungry, and I like hot dogs. It seemed like a win-win situation. About 30 minutes into the barbeque Andy yelled over everyone, "Will the participants of the hot dog eating contest please report to the hot dog eating station!"
Andy had set up tables in his back yard with about 40 dogs and buns. Literally everyone at the barbeque including Andy’s wife, Brooklyn Decker, came to the back to watch us eat. Five people were entered (most were forced into entry) and the competition was a race to see who could eat five dogs and buns in the least amount of time.
