1). Full Name: Karla Sandino
City, Country: Belmont, California. USA

Message: Hi Dmitry, I would like to say that I was not familiar with you before until this year that I saw you playing more than once, and have learned about you.. I also want to say that I think you are very cute… Usually I feel attracted to Latin-Hispanic guys, but you are hot. Very cute! Hope you really read this e-mail, most likely you get millions of them, and won't even have time to read this… I wish you continue playing good as you have. I live in the Bay Area of San Francisco, in Belmont.

Answer: Hi Karla,
I agree that I’m much better looking than Latin-Hispanic guys. That is one of the reasons I became a resident blogger. I wanted the world to know that you don’t have to hop around the stage like a mountain goat, the way Ricky Martin does, to be hot. Together you and I can do that. Keep the flattery coming! I don’t mind reading millions of emails like this at all. It’s the ones, “Why doesn’t anyone use sawdust like Lendl anymore?” that I find mind-numbing and tedious. In fact, I print these emails and read them before I go to bed to remind myself how cute I really am.

P.S. Where in Belmont do you live?! A phone number would be nice as well ;-)

2). Full Name: Lena Slacenge
City, Country: Hull, England

Message: Hey Dmitry, your blog is wonderful and makes me always smile =). So yes I missed you and would like you to post blogs :). Tell us something about the table manners of your colleagues. All the best!!!

Answer: Tim Henman always has afternoon tea. Even during his match he’ll have tea and strawberries with cream. In fact, he is one of the very few players who is given two “injury” time-outs plus a “tea” time-out in case the match time interferes with his “tea time”.

When he eats in a restaurant he needs to have a cloth napkin, a waiter and a full set of silverware. God forbid if the utensils are plastic! He especially gets annoyed when Andy Murray shows up with a bag pipe and a kilt from the “Fred Perry” Rainy-Summer Collection and tries to recruit him for Davis Cup in the middle of a ravishing meal.

Then there is P-Diddy (Paradorn Srichaphan)! It doesn’t matter at which tournament you run into him, if you ask where he is going to have dinner he will answer, “Oh, I’ll probably eat Thai!” To be honest I’ve never seen him eat anything else, so I assume that that is all he eats. He also LOVES “Tabasco” sauce! He will sell his soul to the devil for a bottle of that stuff! He actually travels with it and takes it to every restaurant along with his buddy Yim-Yim, whom he packs into check-in luggage along with the bottle. They could be sitting at a restaurant chowing down on a marinated dog with coconut, both of them sweating from the sauce with the biggest smiles on their faces. Yim-Yim is actually a very mellow dude but when he sees “Tabasco” he transforms into a monster that will tear your arms off to get to it. Kinda disturbing, if you ask me!

3). Full Name: RaY FiBeR
City, Country: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Message: Dmitry!
You're nuts!! I have a blog myself and is pretty much your style!! I posted on your webpage a few months ago inviting you to buenos aires argentina (i hope we see you on the Davis Cup final man down here!! oops.. nope! its gonna be in russia if we both win).. mm.. im supposed to suggest a topic.. let me see... What was your biggest Tennis OOPS? like.. you smashed a lob and hit a passer by and knocked him off -i guess roddick has that problem everytime-.. or you hit a drop shot and your pants tore off and you realized you had no underwear.. something like that! give us something juicy! =) I guess if my question goes.. its gonna be edited.. Dimma! you re the man!!! =) Gluck! -RaY!-

Answer: Ray, I had to contact the CEO of the ATP, Etienne de Villiers, to push for a petition to not edit your question. Although I decided to answer this question despite your form of writing being pretty erratic and flawed, with punctuation that is more hectic than my exclamation point decisions, I urge everyone else to give it their best shot and write in a more conventional style because it is very difficult to contact the CEO on these matters.

When I was about ten years old I was practicing in Russia at a pretty big club where Yuri Luzhkov used to play tennis. To those of you who don’t know who this man is, he is a mayor of Moscow. So imagine me practicing and then there is a mayor of Moscow on the court next to me. Bodyguards with rubber tubes coming out of their ears are running around talking into their sleeves. Some other politicians are scattered around the court as well. I serve wide and the ball hits the mayor of Moscow square on the butt! I was sooooo pumped!!! Not sure if he remembers it or not, but this year after he congratulated me on our Davis Cup win, I was almost tempted to ask him how his butt is.

4). Full Name: Gulzhan Altynbaeva
City, Country: Almaty, Kazakhstan
Message: For your info! You should not get offended and appreciate a joke. Your last name sounds real Kazak! "Tursyn" in Kazak means "let him live". The Kazaks did not have last names and because of that they tried to give their children unique names, in fact having the same name was sort of object for mocking. That is why we used to have story-telling names (sort of like Indians). "Tursyn" means (likely!) that many children before died and parents were desperate for this one to survive. Sort of request to the God. I doubt it's Mongolian or Tatar, it's really a Kazak name! I love it! "Let you live in ATP a long, successful and happy life!"

Answer: Hmm… Well there u go folks! For some reason Roger doesn’t seem so humane and compassionate when he hears my name and decides to bagel the poor feeble Kazak.

5). Full Name: George
City, Country: Monata Tarila, Florida
Message: A couple of months ago, I found a link to some of your music mix someone posted on a tennis forum (I think it was named US Open mix or something like that). It was pretty good! Was it really from you? Have you made any new mix since?

Answer: Hi! Yes, there was a mix with that name and since then there has been another one. You can find all the links to music on my official website www.dmitrytursunov.com in the “Latest News” section. Keep in mind that they are not professionally made so it won’t compete with Tiesto or Oakenfold. I do that for fun and it’s just a compilation of tunes that I currently listen to so the mixes were done for my own personal use. Since people wanted to know what music I listen to and I got tired of answering the same question over and over, I posted the mixes online.

Check back Tuesday for Part 2 of Dmitry's Mailbag

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