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Post by cert. murse aphex on Mar 20, 2007 2:29:30 GMT -5
Alright! Pics of Lee! Where are they?  |
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Post by Lee on Mar 20, 2007 21:32:45 GMT -5
Alright! Pics of Lee! Where are they? You think I will post my pic on MTF? You're kidding me, right? |
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Mar 21, 2007 6:42:23 GMT -5
 I guess I was. |
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Post by Lee on Mar 21, 2007 13:53:13 GMT -5
I guess I was. There are so many pyschos in MTF these days that it's scary.  |
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Post by ilhame on Mar 21, 2007 15:42:43 GMT -5
Then mail it to us  |
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Post by Lee on Mar 21, 2007 17:28:12 GMT -5
After Guga’s match, I only cared to watch Rainer’s match which would be the last match on court 5, so I stayed around that area. I went to Clement vs Troicki in court 6. Troicki has a BIG first serve but not very reliable. i.e. 1st serve percentage is low and there are many rooms for improvement for his 2nd serve. He has the habit of collecting all 6 balls on his racket before picking one to serve when he starts serving. And he’s the male version of Kim Clijster, the way he slides to an almost split on the hard court is scary. Clement is same old Clement. Kept the balling playing in court. Late in the match at deuce, Clement serving, they exchanged more than 20 shots and a cell phone rang on Clement’s side of the court. It kept ringing and finally Clement lost the point. He was really pissed and actually other audiences too. Clement asked: “Who’s the guy with the cell phone ringing?” and one of the audience said it’s a lady and another said she works for the tournament. Oops. She was wearing a tournament T-shirt. The insane thing was, she didn’t even turned off her cell phone after the incident. Clement and the umpire asked her to turn it off and she just sat there. People plus Clement just stared at her and finally, she grabbed her cell phone and turned it off. In the end, experience won in this match. Worth mentioning was a ball from court 5 bounced into court during the match. But it’s no wonder as there’s where Guccione vs FLo. The courts 4, 5 and 6 are like a terrace with court 4 the highest and separated by a walkway about 6 ft in between courts end to end. After this, I watched many matches including Dlouhy vs Moodie. Although not many people there but Moodie had quite a cheering squad there. Both players were not good. I didn’t know much about Dlouhy but IMO, Moodie could play better. Anyway, he won. I also watched Seppi vs Kuznetsov. Like many Americans, Kuznetsov has a big 1st serve but not much ground game. Seppi usually came up winning points with more than a few exchanges. Easy win for the Italian. While waiting for Waske/Dancevic’s match to start, I watched a few games between Zheng and Azarenka, a qualifier from Belarus on court 5. The match was boring but the young Belarusian has potential and look. Next is Dancevic vs Waske in court 5. I like Waske but his on court tactics are really disgusting. Of course, he was playing vs Frank. This made my tolerance level lowered many degrees. Frank played well and Waske was a bit off in the first set. Frank won easily 6-1. 2nd set, Waske pulled all his tricks in throwing his opponents off like arguing about line calls even he knew the linesmen/umpire were right, etc. At the beginning, I was sitting on the court opposite to the umpire but determined near the end of 1st set to move the other side because some of the flood light was bothering me. And that’s a smart decision. While I was waiting to re-enter the bench seats in court 4, a guy and his wife stood right next to me waiting too. He’s my favourite Canadian came cheering for his compatriot, Daniel Nestor and his wife. He sat behind a bunch of older guys cheering for Frank and I sat about 2 spaces away from him. No doubt they were snowbirds from Canada. Nestor is a really nice guy talking with them and finally, I asked to take a picture of him with his wife. They were so lovely together. It’s getting cold and he even let his wife put her wrap around him too. We talked about next DC ties vs Brazil. I could not remember who would host and I asked Nestor. He said in Brazil and I said “Good Luck” and he said, “yeah” I said all Brasilians are in a slump and he was worried about Guga’s come back. He probably hadn’t really followed that. And I told him about my take on Guga. He’s about 2 steps slow now. But yes, Canadians have very high respect for Brasilians on clay. Back to Dancevic/Waske match. Waske had this habit of wanting his winning ball back to his side of court. If the ball kids kept the ball on his opponent’s side of court, he would walk up, asked for the ball and then dropped it back to the ball kids on his side. Anyway, Alex played better in 2nd set and no doubt his tactics got on Frank’s nerve a bit and Alex won 7-5 in TB 2nd set. I had to leave with the match tied 1-1 in sets because Rainer/Gilles Simon match started in court 5. Frank won the 3rd set 6-4 though. Rainer played better than some of his matches I had the chance watched before (didn’t say much as I hardly saw any of his matches  ) But, not good enough. Simon has again, a big first serve but his 2nd serve is yuck. He also has an explosive forehand but not frequent enough. The officiating was terrible and Rainer had many words. Lucky most of them were in German. Although I don’t know German but I bet he would definitely get fined if he said the same thing in English. After losing his serve late in 2nd set, he put a ball on the umpire’s chair between his legs and said: “I can put my grandma here and do the same job”. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to how both players were playing as I spent my energy fighting the cold and cheering for Rainer. After losing 0-2 sets, he just sat there motionless. It’s so sad. I thought about talked to him but he seemed to really need some private moment so I left and also it’s very late, 11pm already and I really needed to get back to my motel room and washed all the sun screen, sweat, dust, etc. |
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Post by Lee on Mar 21, 2007 17:48:37 GMT -5
Finally finished my first day report And here's the link to my pic with Rainer. My face was a mess with all the sunscreen and the ink from the newspaper came with my OOP and the sunshades made me looked weird. edit: Pic is gone now. |
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Post by TennisHack on Mar 22, 2007 0:25:59 GMT -5
 Lee thanks for sharing your pics with us! I understand your reluctance to post them to MTF You two are soooooooooooooooooooooo cute! ;D I'm glad you had a chance to cheer for (and meet) Rainer. I'm sure it meant a lot to him, even if he played like shit, to know he still had a fan who cared so much about him. If it makes you feel better, the last time I saw him live, I cried. I didn't know Waske was known for having tactics. Grrr, he's gone down a notch in my book!  Nice to see Wes not being a complete nobody. He did pretty well, for him, at IW. I was more impressed with him when I first saw him, in Cincy 4 years ago, but I have a soft spot for him nonetheless. Isn't it fun bonding with other tennis fans at an event? |
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Post by cert. murse aphex on Mar 22, 2007 11:42:32 GMT -5
Lee!   So does this mean I owe you? |
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Post by Lee on Mar 22, 2007 14:44:15 GMT -5
Lee thanks for sharing your pics with us! I understand your reluctance to post them to MTF Not reluctance, it's more like there's no way. When I left after the match, I almost wanted to hug him and cry but he is really determined to play bettern so I didn't want him to think his fan lost confidence in him. He can be quite a prick but he's still really cute I am really surprised too but considered Alejandro Falla from Colombia also had quite a cheering squad there.  That match will be in my 2nd day report. Yup. |
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) But, not good enough. Simon has again, a big first serve but his 2nd serve is yuck. He also has an explosive forehand but not frequent enough. The officiating was terrible and Rainer had many words. Lucky most of them were in German. Although I don’t know German but I bet he would definitely get fined if he said the same thing in English. After losing his serve late in 2nd set, he put a ball on the umpire’s chair between his legs and said: “I can put my grandma here and do the same job”. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to how both players were playing as I spent my energy fighting the cold and cheering for Rainer. After losing 0-2 sets, he just sat there motionless. It’s so sad. I thought about talked to him but he seemed to really need some private moment so I left and also it’s very late, 11pm already and I really needed to get back to my motel room and washed all the sun screen, sweat, dust, etc. 
Lee thanks for sharing your pics with us! I understand your reluctance to post them to MTF 
Nice to see Wes not being a complete nobody. He did pretty well, for him, at IW. I was more impressed with him when I first saw him, in Cincy 4 years ago, but I have a soft spot for him nonetheless.
That match will be in my 2nd day report.