Thanks, choupi. Between the frustrating day and my keyboard, which is making the typing very slow, I didn't have the heart to continue. But now that I'm rested, I can look back and say that yesterday wasn't so bad. I was merely cold (I don't know how the players could stand it, but I guess their lounge was heated
) and mad when I found out about the practice court situation. Sigh.
But to continue...and I did write full match reports, and will continue to do so, but typing is torturous right now. If anyone is interested, I will type them up in full when I get back to a keyboard that works properly.
I was, of course, ecstatic to see Wesley Moodie was playing, since he's a big fave. And, I got up close and personal to him when we returned from our tour about town (we left when there were no matches of interest) as he, too, was wondering how long it was going to take Carly Gullickson to stop gagging and finish her match. They were like 3 matches behind because the womens' qualifying was so slow-going. Anyway, he poked his head on court for a bit while we were waiting to go up in the stands, and I almost said something to him, but it was so quiet that I felt uncomfortable.
Finally, tho, the time I'd been waiting for finally arrived.
(Q1) Wesley Moodie vs Phillip King was the first men's match of the evening. Phillip is Vania King's older brother, if that means anything to you. Here he is:
He's short, and plays that speedy, counterpunching game you'd expect. He tried to serve with Wes, but was missing a lot into the bottom of the net. Most of his in serves were only about 91, 95 mph.
Wes -- well, live by the serve, die by the serve is his motto. I haven't heard much from him lately, and he did look a little thin to me. He was also tiring very easily after long points. So, I wondered if he was recovering from some injury or illness.
The interesting thing about him was that he was using two racquets -- one to serve and one to return. I thought at first that he was merely testing out racquets (it was very cold in the stadium, at least if you were sitting down), but he kept taking two out on court with him after every changeover. The whole crowd realized this, too, because he did it during the changeovers in the first set TB, and the chair umpire had to remind the ballkids to give him the racquet along with his towel as they switched sides.
He also had an interesting combination of drinks under his changeover chair, which amused my mother to no end for some reason. He kept mixing water and what looked like an energy drink slurry. They only gave the players little bottles of water, and he went through like 12 in his match. What can I say, he's a growing boy
Unfortunately, whatever he was trying to do with the racquet scheme didn't work; he lost in straight sets. King made some awesome returns, drew Wes into long points (which, even if he didn't win, he earned free points afterwards because the big man was tired), and cracked some excellent passing shots. I was disappointed that Wes lost (I want to ask him about the racquet thing), but he is in the doubles draw so I'll get to see him at least one more time. I wonder if he'll do that during his doubs match...
After Wes's match came
(Q1) Evgeny Korolev vs Hugo Armando. I was curious to see Korolev in action because of the hype. He looked kinda like a young Safin to me:
and played like it, too. Armando seems to know only one gear: hard, and harder. He served big and hit big. Shocking to me, coming from a guy who seems to do best on clay.
Anyway, Korolev got sucked into playing Armando's game. He tried to out-hit Armando, and it got him in trouble early on. He was down 2-5 in the first before he broke back. It went to a TB, which Korolev won with some luck and control -- his shots were finally going in.
I was surprised at how Korolev plays: long, loopy forehand motion and a very high grip on his backhand. His top hand covers the top of the handle, like he added it when a one-handed backhand didn't work.
The second set went much like the first. Korolev went into net a few times, and he's quite competent there, but both he and Armando seemed content to slug it out from behind the baseline. Their games were so similar that I felt I didn't get to see much of what makes Korolev so promising. Maybe today, if he plays someone with a different style...
Armando:
Armando has a one-handed backhand, as you can see
Plenty of players were watching from the stands. Armando was at Oudsema's match, and vice versa. I spotted Nathalie Grandin at Wes's match, and Noam Okun ambled over to see the Korolev match after his finished. I believe Paul Capdeville was scouting his competition at the Korolev match because he was there for most of it, talking to his coach(?). Womens' players were in and out, too, but no one I recognized on site.
Let's see...oh yes, the linespeople. There were only 2 linesmen on the sidelines for these matches. Not two on each end, but two, period: one on the center service line who hurried to the left or the right, and the other on the other side of the net who watched the opposite line. The players had plenty to say about that, and I thought it pretty appalling myself. Qualifying or no, there should have at least been a set on each end, especially for the men's matches. This is a Tour level event, after all!
Hopefully, they will get better as the week progresses.
Tomorrow is likely to be short, so I won't fall too far behind 
