NEW YORK - When she played for Duke, Vanessa Webb played for absolute immortality.
Four times an All-American, twice a national player of the year and national champ in 1998, she rung up wins like a pinball machine. When she came to a hurdle, she never jumped it, she obliterated it.
When she plays now, Vanessa Webb steps on the court Saturday for the right to be forgotten by Tuesday.
Fourteen months after she last wore a Duke uniform, shoulders slumped and head downcast after a semifinal loss to Florida that she was still days and mabye weeks away from believing had happened, Vanessa Webb stood on a sparsely crowded match court at the National Tennis Center and served herself into U.S. Open.
1,100 cheered in Gainesville, Fla., when she lost.
Half a dozen clapped when she joined the main draw for the second time in her career.
Welcome to the life of a qualifier.
And no, Richard Williams doesn't live here. Neither does Paula Molitor. And John McEnroe won't be stopping by the booth till Monday.
Check the drama at the door, drop your bags at the gate and get on with the game, because when you're fighting through the qualies, the game is all you've got.
Then again, that doesn't mean that the life of a qualifier still isn't the stuff of dreams.
"I don't live out of the trunk of my car, I don't have just one racquet, I don't live on 100 dollars a week," letting an exhausted laugh into an empty New York sky. "Sure, it's
Sitting in the plaza beneath Arthur Ashe Stadium, an ice pack on her shoulder lazily melting in the afternoon sun, forming dark rivulets on a sky-blue adidas shirt, it's hard to believe Vanessa Webb ever left Duke.
But she's got the stories to prove it.
She carries her world around like an old steamer trunk, tattoed with five-minute stamps from around the globe-tournaments in Asia, Europe, Australia, stories from back home in Toronto, a quick quip about the Leafs, a story about an old friend still at Duke.
There's stories of China, where she made her first tournament final and got unforgettably sick as a reward. There are stories of England, a moment on the Wimbledon grass before even Sir Pete set foot there.
And there are stories of France, where the climate's a little bit better but the fans are not and where the lead villain is none other than Anna Kournikova, tennis' postergirl for postergirls.
That's where you ask for details.
"It was like my third pro match on clay," Webb confesses, and it was on a sold out Centre Court and on the other side of the net may as well have been Charles De Gaulle himself because no matter what she did, she wasn't going to get the French crowd behind her.
"She's got the crowd behind her always," Webb says of the world's 14th- ranked player, "and you know that whatever you do, you're going to be the bad guy. It makes it tougher."
But that's what happens when you're a qualifier. You might as well be the opening act for The Beatles. As long as you don't screw up and win, everybody will clap politely and forget about you when Monday's headlines become Tuesday's garbage.
But the life of a qualifier won't be Webb's life for long. A solid serve-volley artist, a rarity in the women's game, she's not far from remembering what a lazy Saturday afternoon feels like.
"It's breaking the top 100," she says, "getting that automatic qualification. That's what you play for."
Yet after all the stories from Boston to Beijing and from Kournikova to Kremer, Webb is still a Blue Devil at heart, checking out how her old Duke teammates are doing just as much as her WTA opponents.
"It really is surprising to see life goes on without you," says Duke's winningest player ever. "After four years, it's weird to check the results and not be a part of it. Those were four great years and it's hard to believe they're over."
In the middle of a blazing hot Friday afternoon, 300 miles away from her old stomping grounds at Duke Tennis Stadium, the only thing clearer than the late August sky is only one thing has really changed about Vanessa Webb-her rank.
Sure, she graduated from college immortality to professional obscurity, but as she'll remind you with an easy smile that a triple-major, quadruple pressure college life often denied, who needs immortality when you always have your dreams?
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