My Adventure @ 2006 China OpenSep.11, 2006 [Day 1]the main draw matches started on Monday. My friends had to work so I went to the site alone. I saw several players practising...Hmm...Is it a day of lefties?
Two lefties were hitting: Michael Berrer and Denis Gremelmayer, both from Germany.
Michael Berrer
Denis Gremelmayer
At that time I didn't pay much attention to Gremelmayer...
And the 3rd lefty I saw: Kenneth Carlson [DEN]. He played Heineken (Shanghai) Open 2004 too.
I was not interested in those centre court matches, so I spent most of the day around out courts and practising field. I saw Hyung-Taik Lee hitting with a Japanese player. And then I watched the training of those Russian juniors. Then I saw Nathan Healey came to practise...
At noon a black Mercedes-Benz arrived...It's Marcos Baghdatis. He came with his coach Guillaume Payre.
Marcos went to practice. Ljubo was practising at the same time, but I prefer to stay beside Marcos' court, this guy is fun to watch.
In the afternoon, Marcos signed autographs for fans in a session held by the tournament. I got one from him too. Then he went to practice again.
Paradon Srichaphan was practicing too.
My friend Stoney came and told me she just met Ashley Fisher [AUS]. We've already known Ashley Fisher and Tripp Phillips [USA] since 2004 CO. They came to 2004 Shanghai Open and 2005 CO too. Of course, we had never ever thought that they would become USO semifinalists one day. This time Tripp's not coming, only Fisher here. Stoney said hi to Fisher and got his autograph. He was pretty happy about their run at USO, and seemed to be relaxing here.
Fisher went to watch the match on Court 2.
I got a message from my friend Shanshan, who just arrived, saying that F. Lopez "The Beauty" was practising.
During the break time he spent quite some time to deal with his hair...
I took quite some pics of Feli, but not so successful, because the sunlight was not good for photos.
In the night session, Stoney, Shanshan, Rincy and I decided to watch a doubles match between Ancic/Bupathi and Hyung-Taik Lee/Yeu-Tzuoo Wang.
Mahesh was great. Mario's reaction was not as quick as his partner's, but his serve was fairly good.
In this picture it looks as if Mahesh was angry about Mario's performance...Actually he wasn't. They came along pretty well.
They won the match 6-3 6-3.
I didn't go to the centre court to watch the match between Rainer and Srichaphan. Later I saw the taped match on TV. I felt very sad for Rainer. It seems he's always making the wrong choice. He tried drop shots several times but almost every time Srichaphan got to the ball and hit a winner easily. Rainer lost the match 3-6, 3-6.
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About the Russian boys.
We checked the itf tennis site and found out their names and profiles. They're about 15~17 years old. They've got much to improve in their games but they're quite photogenic.
Stanislav Vovk
Sergey Strelkov
Ivan Aleksandrov
Nikita Zotov
Evgeny Donskoy
We had some of their photos printed and handed them to Sergey & Stanislav, when they were having some KFC chickens. They were excited to see the pics. And then they asked me: "How much?" I said no, no, just for you, as a gift. They were so happy to hear that. Their coach smiled to us too. Later we saw them showing the pics to the other boys, Ivan, Nikita and Evgeny.
TBC...
BTW...am I posting too many pics? lol
p.s. Lee: yes of course you can. Sorry I don't have many pics of Rainer this time...It's quite
to watch him in these days...
Hmm...I'd say I miss Jarkko very much! Maybe that's why I noticed Mikhail Ledovskikh...
Well, to the girls, this must be the most good-looking match. 
We all know the 5th GS blahblahblah is a joke. But it's not bad to have a look at those boys and girls. 
Ivo's shorts with 6'10" on it.
to watch him in these days...