Tennis Time
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Long live Cincinnati's tennis tradition!
This week was the Women's tennis event. This is tier III event so not many big names turn up. On the flip side, good seats are cheap.
This was the first year we bought tickets for women's series. Last year we were all set to buy the semifinals ticket and Sania lost in the quarters. This year since Serena was playing too, we bought tickets well in advance for courtside seats. Sania lost the quarters agains on Friday but she was to play in the doubles semi on Saturday and Serena was playing the singles semi too. So we were excited to be there.
One thing about watching these matches... It is extremely hot out there. They keep announcing the symptoms of heat stroke and advise people to keep drinking water ($3 per bottle). I smuggle 2 small gatorade bottles in my shorts pockets and then buy ice cups for 25 cents each to get me through first two sets without spending much.
Anyway, first match on Saturday was Sania's doubles semi. This was the first time we saw Sania and our first reaction was she seems to have lost a lot of weight. She looks and is very young (will turn 20 sometime this year) and we were sorry to think that such a talented young girl has to face fanatic clerics and just cannot be herself. I hope people do not give her too much trouble else US would be happy to make her play under stars and stripes in 3-4 years.
Highlights:
* Her Polish partner Marta and she were having fun on the court.
* They were smiling after almost every point and both hit some pretty impressive shots, especially forehands.
* Sania's weakness seems to be her serve and her speed but she had her UE under control. I heard that she had many UE the previous night but she does play a high risk game. It looked like since her partner's fate also depended on her, she was restraining herself.
* They won 6-0 6-1
Second match was the first singles semi between last year's champion Patty Schnyder (World # 8, Swiss) and Katarina Srebotnik (World # 24, Slovenian). Katarina is 5'11" and seemed to have a more pleasant personality than grumpy Patty.
* Patty won the first set and Katarina fought to win the second.
* Third set saw lots of action with Patty visually upset with a couple of calls going against her (never mind the fact that a couple of close calls went against Katarina.)
* Then she was audibly upset and also hit a ball away that ended up going out through a gate that people come in from.
* Third set went into Tiebreak and Patty had a match point.
* Katarina saved the match point with a nicely executed serve and volley.
* Patty double faulted to give Katarina game, set and match.
* As is the tradition with US tournaments, winner hits autographed balls in the crowd. I caught one of the balls that Katarina hit. Years of Tennis ball cricket paid off.
During the Patty-Katarina match, they announced that Sania and Marta would be signing autographs in the "air-conditioned retail tent". All desis including us formed a line and got her autograph and photograph.
Third match of the day was Serena Williams and Vera Zvoraneva (current world # 50). Vera was ranked as high as #8 in the past. This is Serena's first tournament after six months of injury break but she had demolished her opponents with ease to reach the quarters.
* Serena looked all set to waltz to the finals. At least the crowd thought so. Most of them were there only to watch Serena's match.
* Vera had other ideas. Before anyone figured out what was happening, Vera was 5-0 up in the first set.
* Serena made tons of UEs and Vera made very very few. She has a very good balance while hitting shots on the run and some of her shots made me believe that this girl is going be in top 20 very soon.
* The crowd and Serena started getting increasingly frustrated and there were sounds of "Go Baby" "You can do it Baby" all around. One woman was overdoing the "baby" cheer so much that many people must have thought that she was Serena's real biological mother.
* Serena never recovered and Vera kept playing great tennis. Serena lost in straight sets.
Then we spent the night at our friends' place and were ready for the finals next day.
Next day was little relaxed as we had a fair idea what was going to happen in singles finals. Vera won in straight sets. Sania unfortunately lost. My camera battery went dead a few minutes in the singles final so I have very few pictures from Sunday. Luckily I could squeeze little juice to click 2-3 pictures at the end of the match.
Highlights:
* Katarina was very gracious in her speech and made a light remark that she was happy to get the most games from Vera in a set in this tournament.
* After Vera hit four balls in the crowd, they announced that she is
going to hit a couple more bonus balls. Vera autographed a ball, walked
over to a side and handed it to her fan with a big Russian flag.
Appalause all around, a Kodak moment (my Canon was out of juice at that
time).
* Vera played some excellent shots and hardly gave any breathing space to her opponents.
* Katarina played well too but Vera's form was too good for her today.
* Doubles was good but Mirza and Marta lost the plot in the third set.
Maria Camerin (their opponent) was pretty relaxed with mimicing a loud linesman call once in the third set that made everyone laugh and forget about the heat for a few seconds.
Long live Cincinnati's tennis tradition!
This week was the Women's tennis event. This is tier III event so not many big names turn up. On the flip side, good seats are cheap.
This was the first year we bought tickets for women's series. Last year we were all set to buy the semifinals ticket and Sania lost in the quarters. This year since Serena was playing too, we bought tickets well in advance for courtside seats. Sania lost the quarters agains on Friday but she was to play in the doubles semi on Saturday and Serena was playing the singles semi too. So we were excited to be there.
One thing about watching these matches... It is extremely hot out there. They keep announcing the symptoms of heat stroke and advise people to keep drinking water ($3 per bottle). I smuggle 2 small gatorade bottles in my shorts pockets and then buy ice cups for 25 cents each to get me through first two sets without spending much.
Anyway, first match on Saturday was Sania's doubles semi. This was the first time we saw Sania and our first reaction was she seems to have lost a lot of weight. She looks and is very young (will turn 20 sometime this year) and we were sorry to think that such a talented young girl has to face fanatic clerics and just cannot be herself. I hope people do not give her too much trouble else US would be happy to make her play under stars and stripes in 3-4 years.
Highlights:
* Her Polish partner Marta and she were having fun on the court.
* They were smiling after almost every point and both hit some pretty impressive shots, especially forehands.
* Sania's weakness seems to be her serve and her speed but she had her UE under control. I heard that she had many UE the previous night but she does play a high risk game. It looked like since her partner's fate also depended on her, she was restraining herself.
* They won 6-0 6-1
Second match was the first singles semi between last year's champion Patty Schnyder (World # 8, Swiss) and Katarina Srebotnik (World # 24, Slovenian). Katarina is 5'11" and seemed to have a more pleasant personality than grumpy Patty.
* Patty won the first set and Katarina fought to win the second.
* Third set saw lots of action with Patty visually upset with a couple of calls going against her (never mind the fact that a couple of close calls went against Katarina.)
* Then she was audibly upset and also hit a ball away that ended up going out through a gate that people come in from.
* Third set went into Tiebreak and Patty had a match point.
* Katarina saved the match point with a nicely executed serve and volley.
* Patty double faulted to give Katarina game, set and match.
* As is the tradition with US tournaments, winner hits autographed balls in the crowd. I caught one of the balls that Katarina hit. Years of Tennis ball cricket paid off.
During the Patty-Katarina match, they announced that Sania and Marta would be signing autographs in the "air-conditioned retail tent". All desis including us formed a line and got her autograph and photograph.
Third match of the day was Serena Williams and Vera Zvoraneva (current world # 50). Vera was ranked as high as #8 in the past. This is Serena's first tournament after six months of injury break but she had demolished her opponents with ease to reach the quarters.
* Serena looked all set to waltz to the finals. At least the crowd thought so. Most of them were there only to watch Serena's match.
* Vera had other ideas. Before anyone figured out what was happening, Vera was 5-0 up in the first set.
* Serena made tons of UEs and Vera made very very few. She has a very good balance while hitting shots on the run and some of her shots made me believe that this girl is going be in top 20 very soon.
* The crowd and Serena started getting increasingly frustrated and there were sounds of "Go Baby" "You can do it Baby" all around. One woman was overdoing the "baby" cheer so much that many people must have thought that she was Serena's real biological mother.
* Serena never recovered and Vera kept playing great tennis. Serena lost in straight sets.
Then we spent the night at our friends' place and were ready for the finals next day.
Next day was little relaxed as we had a fair idea what was going to happen in singles finals. Vera won in straight sets. Sania unfortunately lost. My camera battery went dead a few minutes in the singles final so I have very few pictures from Sunday. Luckily I could squeeze little juice to click 2-3 pictures at the end of the match.
Highlights:
* Katarina was very gracious in her speech and made a light remark that she was happy to get the most games from Vera in a set in this tournament.
* After Vera hit four balls in the crowd, they announced that she is
going to hit a couple more bonus balls. Vera autographed a ball, walked
over to a side and handed it to her fan with a big Russian flag.
Appalause all around, a Kodak moment (my Canon was out of juice at that
time).
* Vera played some excellent shots and hardly gave any breathing space to her opponents.
* Katarina played well too but Vera's form was too good for her today.
* Doubles was good but Mirza and Marta lost the plot in the third set.
Maria Camerin (their opponent) was pretty relaxed with mimicing a loud linesman call once in the third set that made everyone laugh and forget about the heat for a few seconds.
posted by Nikhil at 10:11 PM
3 Comments:
Does blogger allow good control of where to place the image exactly in the blog? I had given a quick try once and wasnt very happy with the image placement. Seemed to affect the readability of the blog.
You lucky dude...I can't believe you are doing to get to see Roger, nadal etc all battle it out next week...
I really regret not going to Bank of the west...we dillydallied till the last minute and then there were no tickets :((
Anyway, since u already have an autograph of federer et al maybe u can get us one this time :)
Abbe, mar gaya kya?
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