Yevgeny Kafelnikov ignores the first rule of Hall of Fame enshrinement.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov was so excited to get a letter from the International Hall of Fame, he clearly neglected to read the fine print.
The 40-year-old Russian, who is a former No. 1-ranked player and won two Grand Slam titles, the 1996 French Open and the 1999 Australian Open, will be among the nominees on the ballot for the 2015 class.
For the record, so will Amélie Mauresmo (currently the coach of Andy Murray), Mary Pierce and Sergi Bruguera. Also on the ballot is David Hall in the wheelchair category.
A Hall of Fame nomination is exciting news, the kind of thing you want to call up your wife and family and buddies and share.
Kafelnikov went far beyond that: he posted it on Twitter. Kafelnikov has over 3,000 followers, and this thing will be re-Tweeted by tennis fans until some other newsworthy Tweet comes along.
There's one little problem: Kafelnikov may not have read on past the first sentence in his excitement. Because if he'd gotten to the end of it, he would have seen this part:
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is a pretty old-school, button-down organization, as these organizations tend to be – the type that still would prefer tennis be played with white tennis balls and wooden rackets. They will not look kindly upon this egregious breach of nomination protocol.
He didn't just out himself; he outed the entire list. Oopsie.
Let's just say the suspense is all gone from their annual press conference at the U.S. Open this year. Sorry to spoil the suspense, folks.
Hopefully the 150 media members and recent inductees (150 media members who know enough about tennis to vote for the Hall of Fame? Who are these people?) won't hold it against him.
