Sitting in the lobby of a Midtown Manhattan hotel, Peter Polansky was struggling with the attention generated by his record-setting year at the Grand Slam events.
“I had to turn notifications off for Twitter,” he said. “It was kind of annoying, actually. I can see now how the celebs have it.”
Polansky was joking, of course; even he knows he is still more of a curiosity than a celebrity, despite his year of remarkable resilience. Four times this year Polansky lost in the final round of qualifying for a Grand Slam event, and four times he was able to enter anyway, drawn to a replace a late-withdrawing player.