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Post by Lee on Oct 9, 2008 19:02:18 GMT -5
 So aphex figured out how to use his camera!!!!! |
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Post by TennisHack on Oct 10, 2008 1:13:17 GMT -5
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 10, 2008 14:49:16 GMT -5
Thx for the help Hackie!  |
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Post by TennisHack on Oct 10, 2008 16:10:39 GMT -5
Yer welcome!  |
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 10, 2008 17:23:05 GMT -5
Wednesday report part 1After a boring ass seminar on laws and regulations on healthcare and such it was time to head for the tennis. Since it's not so far from the Royal Technical College campus where the Red Cross Uni is to the Royal Tennis stadium only 1-1,5 km. I decided to walk. Which ended up being a seriously bad idea. The road I intended to take was closed off for construction, so I had to take a detour through industrial estates, over railroad tracks, through the bushes, underneath the underground and then over the underground before I got to the stadium. It probably ended up being at least twice the distance and time. When I got there Jarkko was about to break in the deciding set against Bellucci and serve for the win. I brought him good luck! It must be since my mum is from the Finnish minority close to the border up north. ;D I saw only one point of Bastl vs. Nielsen on court 1, but I was nervous about my seat reservation so I sat down to watch the centercourt action between Clement and Swedish Challenger tour veteran Rehnqvist. Clement was a totally different class than the Swede. He was always at least one step ahead in thinking, moving and everything. Not so surprising maybe. Clement is also a very interesting character to watch in his behaviour on court to say the least.  I became pretty bored with Clement-Rehnqvist at the start of the second set, so I wandered off to get something to drink and check out court 1. Drinks and food were ridiculously priced for pretty crap fare btw, but that's apparently how it is in the world of tennis. On court 1 Schuettler met Nicolas Lapentti in a pretty awesome match, clearly the best I saw that day. What made it so exciting was they were so evenly matched so they had to pull out all their tactical stunts to win the points. The first set Schuettler won in a tiebreak 8-6. The second set was still very competitive, but somehow Schuettler managed to wear Lapentti down more mentally than physically I think. And this match was on very small and makeshift court 1, which was pretty packed with afficionados!  While I changed to better seats on court 1 I saw some of old guys Björkman-Ullyett vs. some unknown young Americans( called Scott Lipsky and David Martin says the draw), but I only took some pics, thought doubles Dr Snuggles, and went back to the real action in singles. After that I caught the end of the doubles and saw Björkman receiving a ceremony for playing his 1000th doubles match. I sat through all of the Toad's match against Becker the Minor actually. Söderling looked mysteriously subdued and I thought Becker was going to win at least the first set. The German had a couple of breakpoints which he failed to convert. Then he hesitated, was just a little bit nervous, when he was serving to go 6-6 I think, and the Toad snapped him like fly taking a wrong turn in the swamp  . Second set Söderling got an early break and was just to solid for B.Becker the Second. Robin S. is impressive like a machine indoors. Apparently he has been working with Magnus Norman since the US Open on a trial basis. I don't know what that says about ToJo's future in tennis.
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 10, 2008 18:31:35 GMT -5
Wednesday report part 2So after the indoor swamp thing on centrecourt I rushed to court 1 to get good seats for the in my indoctrinated mind (by a Norwegian guy most of you also know ) most hyped up match of the day: Oscar The King(!?) Hernandez against José Chucho The Stoner Acasuso! I was aiming to get the seats in line with the net opposite the umpire's chair, there were some guys in training clothes sitting there, but there were some empty seats there. I recognized one of them when I looked at them though. Calleri! At least I think it was him. I also recognized a grey haired guy from tv as Chucho's coach. They were definitely connected as they were encouraging him all the time. I got shy so I didn't sit next to them. I sat some seats away. At the beginning of the match Acasuso seemed to have some problem with his calf and even received some treatment I think at a change of ends. Hernandez on the other hand was having problems with everything. He was arguing with himself, the umpire, the linesmen and hitting balls at the walls, the ceiling and the net surrounding the court, even throwing his rackets in back wall at one time. He always made sure he didn't hit anyone though so he was being temperamental and calculating at the same time in some weird fashion. The King missed a lot in the first set and Chucho was more solid, so first set to the Stoner 6-2. I understand why GWH calls him the Stoner now btw. He looks like he has just rolled out of bed, but his eyes are always alert. At the break between sets I was looking at a hot tournament hostess passing by when I caught a familiar face: DAVID NALBANDIAN! Sitting a couple of rows behind and next to me. With him sat Mancini. Had the Argentinian DC team set up camp in Stockholm this week? I saw that Nalbandian saw I recognized him so I didn't dare to look in that direction for a while. I was in a sort of starstruck mode there for a while so I don't know how it happened: suddenly Hernandez looked extremely calm and focused and had won the second set! I had to move around a little to get back on track. I also wanted to see some of Tojo's match so I positioned myself on a kind of aisle or walkway inbetween centre and court 1. I tried to take a picture of Nalby and Mancini, but the latter saw me, pointed at me and looked a bit pissed so I gave up on that. For a while . On court 1 the tables were totally turned Chucho the one looking frustrated, kicking balls and stuff, while the King raced to a 4-0 lead in the deciding set. I managed to get a sucky picture of David and Mancini while I was pretending to photo the pics of former chaps at the SO above them. ;D It was really a dilemma which match to choose. I was changing court attention every other game. I really wanted to see both matches at the same time. I ended up mostly watching Chucho vs. the King, but from what I saw of Tojo he had some problems keeping his game together for long enough stretches to win. When he played well he won most of the points. He fought back from a break down to win the second set. Acasuso had started a sort of come-back on court 1. The King Oscar Hernandez was arguing with himself and the world again. Chucho got a break back and was close to level the match, but in the end he had given the King to large a margin. The Stoner fought the King and the King won! Curiously matchpoints were only a minute apart so I almost missed when Tojo lost.  Hopefully he plays for another year. He is last legend of Swedish tennis.  Sorry the report was edited and a little long.
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 10, 2008 20:13:30 GMT -5
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Post by Lee on Oct 10, 2008 21:51:59 GMT -5
Thanks for the report and the pics! Can't really tell whether the guy is Calleri from the pic but not surprising that he would be there.
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 13, 2008 13:33:25 GMT -5
Thursday reportThis time I took the subway instead of walking "shortcuts". Saved me 45 minutes.  Once again I managed to catch the decisive break in a 7-5 third set. 18 year-old Japanese Kei Nishikori beat Dominik Hrbaty in a WTA scoring showdown. Nishokori is crazy fast sometimes when retrieving in the corners. He also had his own posse of bowing, handshaking and smiling Japanese girls and even a couple of boys. Contrast these nice young people to Jarkko's and Pim-pim's rowdy drunken fans. Ancic vs. Darcis, Ancic was playing very offensively. Coming in to the net as fast as he could. I thought that was his usual tactic and it was great, but according to his Swedish coach Rosengren's blog, Mario had been feverish and needed to keep the points short.  Next up was Arnaud Clement against Jarkko Nieminen. The beered up Finnish fans got excited of course. To be perfectly honest I think I zoned out for a while because I don't seem to remember much of this match which Nieminen won in three sets. I was more focusing on the man that is Arnaud Clement. What's up with him and the towel and the ballkids? How many different coloured shirts does he have? How many different bandanas? Does he really wear sunglasses indoors, or are they regular glasses? Does his game need so much concentration he needs to shush the crowd? Fascinating stuff. After this match it was time for the main match of the evening: Nalbandian against Pim-pim. And lo and behold the half empty stadium was suddenly packed full. (Except the honoraries boxes which were half-empty still). And where did all the business men/ women come from? Where they waiting in their own area or aomething. Disturbing. I sat in the middle of a bunch of those, plus I had some loud and stupid hockey-fans from Pim-pim's hometown in front of me. Luckily Nalbandian shut them up soon enough. Nalbandian shut everyone up, because he kicked some monster server behind. ;D Once he got Pim-pim's serve figured out he was so ridiculously superiour even the partisan crowd gave him a big cheer after the match. He was toying with the big guy in the end. Awesome, I got what I paid many SEK for. I didn't watch much of Monaco vs. the Toad. Maybe I should have because from what I saw of Monaco's game was nice. He has nice technique. The Toad machine was obviously grinding him down though so I went home instead of watching the unevitable happen. Before I did that I stalked Mancini once more and took another photo. I had actually targeted him during the Nalby Pim-pim match but I needed to wait for the right opportunity.
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Oct 13, 2008 14:24:32 GMT -5
Friday reportAter practising cpr on a hot chick at school and doing to detour to hand in employment papers at my job (which is now run by the Red Cross instead of the municipality. Stalkers!) I returned to the stadium for quarterfinals. For some reason Jarkko was first up against Oscar The King Hernandez. Strange because Jarkko seems to be pretty big at the Stockholm Open. Maybe it had something to do with the boats to Finland which departs pretty close to the venue. Once again I got caucht up in watching a player, not the play. Hernandez must have the worst poker-face ever. He reacts all the time in an according manner as to the score of the match. If he's doing good, he's calm and focused. If he's up against it, he mutters and swears to himself, thehrows his racket, hits balls all over the place. Entertaining. Jarkko won in straight sets. Mario vs. Nishikori was cancelled due to Ancic being sick, so there was a long break before Björkman/ Ullyett. Nishikori hit with some ball-kids. Sweden's two highest ranked juniors played a set. The youngest one, 15 years to 17 I think, won 6-1 and actually was this superiour. Then the doubles came on. This was a pretty entertaining match. I had forget about the no-ad scoring so for a while I was wondering why stuff happened so fast.   Breaks and leads came and went pretty quickly. For a while in the second set Moodie/Coetzee had gained such a momentum I was thinking I was going to watch Björkman's last match on Swedish soil. But him and Ullyett turned it around again and won in a second set tie-break. You could see these two doubles-team are among the best. There were some really good rallies going on and Coetzee had a period when he nailed lob after lob just inside the baseline. The question though is still why two great singles players always beat two great doubles players, in doubles. The crowd this day was mostly tennis people I think. And fins. Lot's of them. Everywhere and of all ages. Maybe also there were some businessmen going casual but at least they weren't in uniform like on Thursday. Edberg came on court to present his scolarship or award or whatever to promising tennis youngsters. Hugging the young girls and shaking the guys' hands. 42 years old. Then it was once again time for David Nalbandian's school of indoor tennis. The pupil this time was Albert Montanes who impolitely kicked Tojo out of the tournament. First set was pretty close, 6-4 to the Cordoba man. Then it was the Nalle show with drop-volleys, sharp angled cross-court winners, return winners, corner to corner stuff, down-the-line winners. The crowd in Stockhol I think really warmed to Nalbandian's skills. And they are right. He was in a class of his own in this tournament. I rejected the Toad again. Maybe I should have stayed for Shuettler's sake. That guy is a fighter. But I had enough Toad for the week.
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. Second set Söderling got an early break and was just to solid for B.Becker the Second. Robin S. is impressive like a machine indoors. Apparently he has been working with Magnus Norman since the US Open on a trial basis. I don't know what that says about ToJo's future in tennis.
Hopefully he plays for another year. He is last legend of Swedish tennis. 
