Alright, Not So Super Saturday

So today started out quite predictably. Mikhail Youzhny was just overmatched in his encounter with Rafael Nadal. I didn’t envy the player who stood between Rafa and his first US Open semifinal. Nadal has played his best tennis this week in New York. Whatever he did to his serve is working wonders and he’s yet to drop a set in the tournament. Nadal was on fire this morning, storming past Misha in three sets. This was still a great run for the Russian, who will jump back into the top 10 on Monday. This was also a great step forward for Nadal, who will compete for his first US Open title tomorrow afternoon, seeking the career Grand Slam.

While the first semifinal of the day took just over two hours, the second was set to be a little more competitive. The number two and three seeds were set to do battle for the last spot in Sunday’s final. Roger Federer has won five US Open titles, appeared in the last six US Open finals, and has sixteen Grand Slam titles to his name. This kind of makes him the perennial favorite. The media had already written off 3rd seed Novak Djokovic, in some cases quite literally. I saw several Fedal previews before the match even ended. In some ways I understood this. Roger Federer is the greatest player of all time so it’s odd for him to lose, but Novak Djokovic is no slouch. Djokovic took out Federer in the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2008, ending Federer’s longtime finals streak, and later earning his first Grand Slam title. Honestly, I expected Roger to take this in four. He’s been playing great all week and kind of owns the US Open. However, Djokovic was once again ready to take the wind out of Fed’s sails. Federer won the first set and the match seemed like a forgone conclusion. But then I’m not really sure what happened. Roger gave up two breaks and dropped the second set in a rare fashion, 6-1. The rest of the match was just as crazy as the beginning. Roger broke to win the third set and I was positive he would cruise to the finish line. No go. He lost serve in the first game of the fourth and Djokovic leveled the match at two sets all after winning the fourth 6-2. The fifth set was about as dramatic as we could’ve hoped for. The commentators and fans alike were still sure Roger would pull it out. He even held three match points on Nole’s serve. Djokovic did an amazing job of holding it together and finally got the break so he could serve for the match. Try as he might, Roger Federer could not stave off Novak Djokovic and succumbed 7-5 in the fifth set. As bad as I feel for Federer, Djokovic definitely deserved this. Bad news, we’ll be seeing more of those horrible shirts that Nole’s parents wear.

After this dramatic affair, what would the women give us? Vera Zvonareva looked nothing less than inspired against Caroline Wozniacki in the semifinals. ‘Bepa’ was all set to compete in her second consecutive Grand Slam final. Not bad for a girl who cried in the middle of her match last year. She’s come a long way mentally and has proven she has the game to beat top players. Bepa was set to face defending champion Kim Clijsters. Kim came into the final on a 20 match winning streak at Flushing Meadows. All the facts indicated that this should be an interesting match. Kim lead the head to head 5-2, but Vera came out on top in their last two meetings, both this summer.

If any of you actually watched this, you know where this story’s headed. Bepa lost. Alright, she didn’t just lose, she lost spectacularly. The match lasted a whopping 59 minutes, the shortest since 1980. Vera stuck with it, but Kim outplayed her, seemingly unable to miss a ball. Clijsters’ ability to return almost anything is just astounding. Kim finally put Bepa out of her misery and ended things at 6-1, 6-2. Vera did good. She held it together for the whole award ceremony. This was an unfortunate display for women’s tennis, which is generally less popular than men’s tennis. The fans seemed almost confused. Do you cheer against someone simply because they’re winning too quickly? Even Kim seemed embarrassed to celebrate such a crushing victory. All in all, this clearly wasn’t the best match of the tournament by any means, but congratulations to Kim Clijsters all the same.

On a totally unrelated note, I've included a pic of Sergey from Bepa's practice last Saturday, because really, who doesn't want a gratuitous picture of Sergey?

It’s too late for me to do an in depth finals preview for Nole/Rafa, so I’m going to get straight to the point here. Rafa’s playing incredible tennis. Nole played a five set match against the best player of all time less than 24 hours before he has to best the current best player in the world. The odds are kind of stacked in Nadal’s favor here. I think Djokovic will put up at least some resistance. Don’t worry, we’re not going to see another Kim/Vera. However, I think Rafa will keep on rolling and win his first US Open title without dropping a set. I’ll check back in tomorrow for my post match summary. Good night all!

Super Saturday

It’s Super Saturday at the US Open and that means two men’s semifinals and the women’s final. I’ve put together a few quick predictions. I was super tempted to do a write up like Nick Bollettieri, who said both women’s semifinals could go either way, but I mustered up some courage and decided to be decisive. I may be wrong, but I figured that’s half the fun.

First up, Rafael Nadal and Mikhail Youzhny will fight for a spot in their first US Open final. It’s pretty shocking that Rafael Nadal hasn’t been able to make the final at Flushing Meadows before. He has 8 Grand Slam titles, including one on hard courts at the Australian Open. I don’t agree with the chatter that he could be the GOAT. I’m going to need him to win another 8 Slams before I consider that, but he definitely has what it takes to win the US Open. Youzhny has equaled his best Grand Slam performance by making this semifinal, which will put him back in the top 10. Going into the competition, I believed Nadal would be troubled by Andy Murray and lose in the semifinals. Not only did Andy Murray lose in the 3^rd round, but Nadal has showcased a new service motion that makes him appear unbeatable. Youzhny scraped through his quarterfinal against Wawrinka on Thursday in five sets and played a four setter against Tommy Robredo in the 4^th round. Nadal, on the other hand, has only dropped serve once during the whole tournament and has yet to lose a set. I think you can all see where this is going. This has been a great showing for Mikhail Youzhny, but Nadal will book a spot in his first US Open final by defeating Youzhny in straight sets.

Next up, five time champion Roger Federer will take on Novak Djokovic. It’s tough to bet against a guy who’s won five of the last six US Opens and came in runner up last year. In my original preview, I thought Mardy Fish might be able to give Novak a run for his money in the 4^th round, but no such luck for Mardy. After a five set scare by countryman Viktor Troicki in the first round, Djokovic has cruised into the semifinals without losing another set. I attended his 3^rd round match against James Blake and Nole looked to be in great form. It’s windy and by windy I mean Arthur Ashe seems to be acting like the home to a mini tornado. I would argue that no player has dealt better with the wind the past two weeks than Roger Federer. In his quarterfinal against Robin Soderling, Federer seemed to be playing in completely normal conditions while Soderling looked like he was fighting a wind tunnel. I’m a big Federer fan, but frankly there’s something magic about this guy. Plus, he’s given us tennis’ new trend, the tweener, which he first showcased in last year’s semifinal against Novak. Djokovic may be playing very well, but I think Federer will edge his way into a seventh consecutive US Open final. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Novak will take a set off Federer, but even that’s hopeful. I think we’re in store for the very first Fedal final in Flushing Meadows.

I’ll do a more in depth final preview once we’re sure it’s going to be those two.

Finally, Vera Zvonareva and defending champion Kim Clijsters will take the court to compete for the women’s singles title. Initially, I chose Maria Sharapova as 2010 champion, but the wind proved too much for her in her battle against Caroline Wozniacki. I’m not taking anything away from Caroline. I had paid little attention to Wozniacki before, but was truly amazed by her court coverage and her returning ability in the last week and a half. As soon as Masha went down, I changed my mind and was absolutely certain that Caro would be the eventual champion. I’m clearly not very good at this bracket making thing. The number one seed lost yesterday’s semifinal to Vera Zvonareva, Wimbledon finalist. Zvonareva has had an incredible year, making two Grand Slam finals, something she had never done prior to Wimbledon. She’s well known in New York for her 4^th round meltdown in 2009. She held six match points but ended up losing the match after being bageled in the third set against Flavia Pennetta. Vera’s come a long way from USO 2009. She’s calm and collected. Well at least as calm as Bepa can be. I like emotional players. I think it makes them seem more human. She’s endearing and I would love to see her win her first Grand Slam title. Her opponent will be Kim Clijsters, who has now won 20 consecutive matches at the US Open. She was the 2005 champion and returned from retirement in 2009 to win the entire tournament. Kim bypassed Venus Williams yesterday to make it to her third consecutive final at Flushing Meadows. She certainly goes in as the favorite. Both of these players are known for losing it a little on court. Bepa tends to cry while Kim just tends to disappear for a few games at a time. The final outcome will depend on who can hold it together mentally. Both players have showed they have the skills to win, but with the windy conditions and the added pressure of a Grand Slam title at stake, one of them will fold. I think Kim’s experience will help pull her through to her third US Open title in three sets.

I’m sure at least one of these predictions will go awry, so I’ll check back tomorrow with a women’s wrap up and a men’s finals preview. For now, I'm going to call it a night.

A Spectator's Dream

Like I mentioned in my introductory post, I'm living in London for the next several months. The invention of low cost airlines and the almost ridiculous security check I had to endure before starting my job afforded me the opportunity to visit the ABN AMRO ATP 500 event in Rotterdam a couple of weeks ago. I've been very busy for the last few weeks and haven't had much time to write about my experience there. Since it's already been so long, I'm sure you could all look up the fact that Robin Soderling won the tournament and any other relevant details that interest you. However, I would still like to share some of my observations.

First of all, I've never been to one of the small ATP tournaments and I could not have been more excited. I traveled to Rotterdam on my own after visiting a friend in Amsterdam for a day or two and checked into my hotel. The players all stay at the Manhattan Hotel in Rotterdam, the only 5 star hotel in the city. If you want the full experience, it would probably be great fun to stay there, but by the time I booked, it was already full and I'm fairly certain it was out of my price range anyway. I stayed at the Golden Tulip Inn, which was absolutely fantastic and more reasonably priced. I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting this tournament as it is a very convenient commute to the venue.

When I arrived, I decided to settle in and get the layout of the city instead of going to the day session on Wednesday. Instead, I decided to try out the Wednesday night session and the Thursday day session. I could not find very good tickets online and decided to try my luck at the box office. I highly recommend this strategy. The tickets online never seem to be as good as the tickets you get the day before the event at the box office. The best available tickets for the night session were not very good (because I arrived approximately two hours before the matches started), but I got one of the best seats in the house (excluding VIPs) for the day session.

If you ever plan on going to a smaller tournament, be sure to check the schedule of play. For instance, there are only two matches in the night session at Rotterdam. This means that your seat assignment for main court is very important. However, during the day session, there are usually matches going on on Centre Court and Court 1, sometimes even Court 2. There is no assigned seating on Court 1 and I found that almost no one bothered to watch the matches on that court. This meant that I consistently got to sit in the front row directly behind the players. At this point, it barely mattered to me who was playing, I was getting to see incredible tennis from less than 10 feet away. I even decided to forgo my awesome Centre Court seat for the Monfils match to watch Benneteau/Berrer match on Court 1. I even noticed Florian Mayer sitting in the stands and taking in the match on his off day. I felt bad squandering such a great seat, so I did head over to Centre Court to watch the Youzhny/Ilhan match, some of the Djokovic/Chiudinelli match, and the Robredo/Lopez vs Nestor/Zimonjic doubles match.

All the matches were great to watch, but by far the best part of this tournament was the opportunity for interacting with the players. You may not be as excited about meeting the players as I am, but I had a fantastic time wandering around seeing who I would run into. Immediately upon entering the tennis facility on Wednesday night, I decided to explore a little. I eventually happened upon Court 2, which happens to be the practice court that most of the players use. As I walked right up to the edge of the court, probably only 5 feet from the player, I realized that I was one of maybe 6 people watching Tommy Robredo prepare for his match. It was truly incredible how few people bothered to come watch the players practice. I honestly preferred it to match play because I was able to get so close to the action and I got to see a lot more of the players' personalities because they were much less serious than they would have been during an actual match.

Note to potential attendees: Take a look at the draw before the tournament and look at pictures of players. I'm familiar with most of the players in the top 100, but many of the players look different in person. Since you can't identify who might be famous based on the amount of people crowding around them, it might be a good idea to take a look at some of the players' photos if you want to be able to recognize them. Unlike at major tournaments, most of the players are not surrounded by large groups of fans and they generally don't ask security to escort them anywhere. The only exceptions to the large crowd rule that I found in Rotterdam were Djokovic and Davydenko and even then, a 'large crowd' meant about 20 people. I'm not very pushy and didn't want to intrude on any of the players' practice time, so if I can get autographs, anyone can. If you want pictures with the players, you may have to be a little more forward and you're definitely going to need a friend who's prepared to take them.

Now that I've rattled through all of my tips, I'd just like to share some of my favorite parts of my visit.

• Watching Michael Llodra/Andy Ram practice for their doubles match - I've never been a huge fan of Michael Llodra before and I barely knew who Andy Ram was (I had to look up who Llodra's partner was for the doubles to figure out who I was watching), but I had a surprisingly good time watching this particular practice. Of all the players I watched, Llodra and Ram definitely had the most personality and I was getting a bit of a private show since I was actually the only person watching. They joked around a lot and Llodra even broke out into song a couple of times. At the end of the practice, they walked off the court to about where I was standing and it was super easy to walk up and say hello, and get an autograph. They weren't in a hurry and seemed happy to stop for a second.
• Robin Soderling eventually went on to win the tournament, but I stopped by one of his mid-week practices just as it was ending and managed to get an autograph. After reading all of the tennis gossip, I expected Soderling to be a little surly and unsocial, but he was perfectly happy to stop and take pictures with fans. He was a bit quiet, but didn't seem at all unfriendly.
• Apparently Monfils prefers to play soccer as a warm-up to actually playing tennis. He spent at least 50% of his practice time playing soccer with 3 members of his entourage. He's another fun player to watch and fairly interactive with the crowd. At some point he went behind the netting on the outside of the court, picked up a ball and hit it right at me. I think there may have been some laughing when I couldn't catch it and let it roll away. I'd like to assume he was trying to give me a souvenir, not hit me in the face. However he would not sign any autographs or take any pictures after practice and asked security to escort him back to the players' area. I think this might have been due to the timing of his match though, so I won't count him out as unfriendly yet.
• Tommy Robredo somehow seemed to be everywhere, and his practice with doubles partner Feliciano Lopez was particularly nice to watch. They're both good singles players and they had a fun routine. Robredo would intensely run around the court, stretch out, and hit with his coach, while Lopez spent at least 10 or 15 minutes sitting on the sidelines on his mobile. Robredo managed to hit all of the balls outside of the practice court and most of them landed right in front of my feet. I picked them up and brought them back over to hand to his coach on the sideline, but he came over to the net to collect them and say thank you.
• I would also like to mention that there are about 20 rows of VIP seats surrounding Centre Court, most of which are empty. I would particularly like to find out what I would have to do to get one of these seats. They also come with access to the VIP areas of the grounds, which compromise about half of the complex.
• As a final observation, I would just like to mention the odd displays. There were big chickens playing tennis and all kinds of apparel shops (but oddly no real tournament merchandise) as well as tennis fashion shows. All this made sense, or at least had to do with tennis. However, there were also booths for airlines, jewelry, furniture, handbags, and meat. Yes, a meat stand. Not like a concession, just a stand that sold meat you could cook at home.

I hope you all take away something interesting. I know it's a long post, but I just wanted to share some of my favorite moments and observations. While most of you probably won't visit the ABN AMRO Tournament, there are plenty of ATP 250, 500, and 1000 level tournaments around the world which all offer a much more intimate experience than a Grand Slam. Hopefully I'll be visiting several more during my stay here.

**If you're interested in seeing more photos, follow this link...

http://s966.photobucket.com/albums/ae146/lubinskya/