TENNIS : From Hard Knocks to the Hard Rock, She’s Pretty Special

I came to the U.S. Open to see greatness and write about it, to be dazzled by Sampras’ serve and Agassi’s return and Seles’ steely determination. I came to be knocked on my back by athletic greatness, determination, artistic flair.

And before it even started, I got swept away by Amberlee.

She is 7 or 8. Didn’t say. Doesn’t matter.

She has these huge eyes and four ponytails and when the music played, she bounced and rocked nonstop.

She doesn’t play tennis and probably doesn’t know a grand slam from a slam dunk. Didn’t say. Doesn’t matter.

She is my new U.S. Open hero, just because it is here now and so is she. That does matter. That’s very important. She is here. Now.

*

It is a Friday night in the hardest city in the world. You have to wake up with a snarl here just to survive.

So when you see the shell melt, the tough exterior crumble, you really see something special.

That’s what the table of 15 was at the Hard Rock Cafe, near 57th and Broadway. They were special.

The jam-packed restaurant rocked softly with the Backstreet Boys and Santana. At the special table in the middle, Amberlee swayed to the sounds and picked at her food. The cheeseburger that she couldn’t wait for had gotten the best of her after about three bites.

Outside, it was still 80 degrees and muggy. Inside, Amberlee was getting cold and needed a jacket.

The den mother at the special table was a former tennis player named Andrea Jaeger. You’ve read a lot about her, especially in this newspaper. The quick summary is that, when injuries ended a career that had taken her, as a teenager, to No. 3 in the world, she took all her money and all her energy and put it into running a program for children who may be terminally ill, most of them cancer patients. She now has a ranch in Aspen, Colo., where she brings her groups from all over the country, and she also takes occasional trips like this one, timed to coincide with the U.S. Open, where her tennis contacts help her put on a special time for a group of local children. Those at the special table were mostly from Brooklyn.

There was no plan, no desire, to go to the Hard Rock for yet another story about

Andrea Jaeger. Readers have probably had enough. Too much of a good thing is still too much. It was only dinner, meet the kids, help out when some of the boys needed to go to the restroom, because Jaeger’s staff tends to be mostly women.

But suddenly, there was the special table with a little girl who had hair in sparse, wispy strands and sunken eyes and a pale face and a tall boy with his cap turned backward, who ordered a T-bone steak sandwich and was too ill to eat it and had to be taken back to the hotel by Jaeger. He will need to have both legs amputated in two weeks in an attempt to stop the cancer. And then there was Amberlee and a 10-year old boy named Groovy, who will turn 11 on Sept. 15.

And there was a story that suddenly cried out to be told, a story with no local angle and no winning shots, no boxscore and no Super Bowl ending.

Lord knows, no Super Bowl ending.

*

The word was out on Groovy’s birthday. Suddenly, there was a waiter up on a chair in the middle of the restaurant, calling everybody to order. Ever see that before in New York? Waiters have ended up in garbage bags here for less than that.

In seconds, the place got quiet. The entire restaurant. Everybody was told to stand, hold hands high with the people next to them. And they all did. Even everybody in the balcony.

Pretty soon, 25 waiters and waitresses were up on chairs, and so was Groovy, right in the middle of the restaurant, right near the special table. The juke box played Groovy’s favorite song, “YMCA,” and the whole place sang along. Ever see 300 New Yorkers stop their meals, stand up as one and do the YMCA hand moves while singing the song at the top of their lungs?

Nobody sat through it, not in the deepest corners of the restaurant, not in the farthest reaches. Nobody. They probably hadn’t even noticed the special table as they came in or as they ate. But never accuse New Yorkers of being a slow study. They got it, got it quickly, and sang from their hearts.

“YMCA” was followed by “Happy Birthday” and by a standing ovation.

“When he is 55, he’ll still remember this birthday the most,” Jaeger said.

When he is 55 . . .

*

Soon it was time to go, time for another adventure in a weekend that Jaeger has filled with them.

First, a night in a fancy downtown hotel.

“I want my own bed, but I guess it’s all right to share,” Amberlee said.

Saturday was to be a day at the U.S. Tennis Center, where each of the children from the special table would get official credentials with their pictures on them and get to meet some tennis stars.

And Sunday, it was to get even better. This afternoon they will attend a Broadway performance of “The Lion King,” then go to the famous toy store, FAO Schwartz, which will close down at 8 p.m. and open up to them only. They will get the place all to themselves, and shop for any special toy they want in the store.

Before they left Hard Rock, the waiters brought them each a bag with a Hard Rock hat, the floppy style that is a restaurant trademark.

“My mom will think I stole this,” Amberlee said.

And then she was out the door, along with the rest from the special table, bouncing down the street toward the fancy hotel, her energy there now only because they have temporarily stopped the cancer therapy on a body filled with tumors.

When Amberlee was out of sight, it hit me that I wasn’t sure how to spell her name. Didn’t say. Doesn’t matter.

I know how to spell U.S. Open hero, and she is it.