DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — It was twilight when I arrived at Saturday night’s Delray Beach Open semifinal between Frances Tiafoe and Denis Shapovalov. A security guard outside the tournament’s media center greeted me with a friendly smile and motioned for me to open my bag.
We exchanged pleasantries as he unzipped the largest pocket of my backpack. He delicately moved my laptop and rifled through some notebooks, peering into the depths of my bag, and then unzipped the next pocket. I apologized for my backpack’s myriad compartments. He shrugged.
“We’ve just gotta be careful,” he said. “You know, after what happened with those kids.