Visiting Israeli tennis pro keeps eye on homeland

NEW CITY, NY, 2006 — Normally, Noam Okun's foremost concern would have been losing a tennis match, as he did in the quarterfinals of the Kennedy Funding Invitational yesterday at Dellwood Country Club.

But this week, at least, a negative result was not the most upsetting event in his life.

Okun is from Haifa, Israel, which was hit by rockets fired from Lebanon on Thursday.

"It's not nice to hear things like that, and the situation now is very bad," Okun said. "I think it's only going to get worse, so we hope it won't be really bad and we hope for the best for our country."

Okun's parents live in Haifa, which is 30 miles south of the border. He spoke to them yesterday morning, but said they didn't have much to report — a sign of how common enemy fire is in his homeland.

"It's tough, but you get used to it. It's part of Israeli survival," said Okun, who remembers missiles from Iraq hitting Haifa in 1991 during the Gulf War.

Okun, 28, was a top 100 player in the world rankings in 2002 before dropping to his current position at No. 234. He won his first-round match in straight sets Thursday before losing to Ricardo Mello of Brazil, 6-2, 6-4. The first-year tournament brought 16 international touring pros to compete for more than $60,000.

Okun, who served in the Israeli army for three years, said he couldn't think about the conflict during the match.

"This morning, a little bit, but when you go to the court, you don't think about anything but tennis — not on politics and not on war. So I'm trying to not think about it too much. You cannot do anything about it.

"It's tough traveling a lot of the time, not being home, but this is part of being a professional tennis player," said Okun, who will stay on the U.S. circuit this summer.