The Life Member

"The day he left for the States," recalled Jorge Harten, president of the Peruvian Tennis Federation, "two other friends and myself were the only ones who came to see him off. The Lima Lawn Tennis Club had not even let him train on its courts; he was not good enough for them." Last week Alejandro ("Alex" in the U.S.) Olmedo, 23, went home to Peru for the first time since he won the Davis Cup for the U.S. almost single-handed in Brisbane last December. This time what looked like all of Lima tumbled out to wave Peruvian flags printed with his picture and to chant themselves hoarse. The Lima Lawn Tennis Club made him an honorary life member.

The chant--"Olmedo! Olmedo! Ol-me-do!"--crashed across the apron as the champion, tall in his crisp blue suit, threw his arms around Sponsor Harten in an abrazo. With tears running down his face, he hugged his mother and father, his seven-year-old sister and his five brothers. That afternoon at Lima's National Stadium, President Manuel Prado decorated him with the Sporting Laurel of Peru (First Degree). Olmedo posed with the Davis Cup. then played a fast exhibition match against a fellow Davis Cup team member, St. Louis' Earl Buchholz. Appropriately, Olmedo won.

Home in Arequipa in the southern Peruvian Andes, Olmedo was riotously paraded, speeched and kissed. He got time for only one much interrupted lunch at the little apartment on the International Club grounds where his father is combination caretaker and tennis professional and where "Alejo"--as he is called at home--grew up. Over his favorite dish, roast guinea hen, his mother sighed, "We have not seen much of you, and now you are leaving again. But I will be brave and will not cry." That afternoon, as she stood waiting for the plane that carried Alejo back to the University of Southern California and U.S. tennis, she reached up, hugged him hard, and cried. Next big event in Olmedo's life: Wimbledon, in June.

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