Serb player lands in wrong Carlsbad
AFP | Aug 2, 2011
SAN DIEGO {California}- Serbian teen tennis player Bojana Jovanovski had two days to forget after she went to Carlsbad, New Mexico instead of Carlsbad, California for the WTA San Diego Open.
 
The 19-year-old Serb, ranked 53rd in the world, almost missed her Monday first-round match after she was somehow presented with an erroneous ticket to a tiny desert town nearly 1,500 kilometers short of her intended destination.
 
The confused teenager, who played last week's tournament in Maryland, spent the night in the New Mexico town before taking an early flight to California, where she arrived a mere 30 minutes before the start of her delayed match.
 
Jovanovski explained that she flew from Washington to Dallas, then to Albuquerque and the first Carlsbad, not far from the tourist destination of Carlsbad Caverns.
 
Upon arrival she said she waited for 15 minutes in a nearly empty airport then got on the phone to tournament transport, which said it was looking for her at the California arrivals hall.
 
"They said they were at the airport and looking for me," she explained. "I said I was the only person here."
 
The person on the California end of the conversation suddenly got the picture: "Are you in Carlsbad in California or in New Mexico?"
 
Things didn't improve much for Jovanovski once she finally got to the correct Carlsbad. She lost her first-round match against ninth-seeded italian Roberta Vinci 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.