My Adventure @ Heineken Shanghai Open ^^

[Kiro]

Today is the first day of main draw matches. Actually there's only one main draw match of men's singles, featuring 2 time Shanghai Open Winner Magnus Norman and a Chinese player, Benqiang Zhu.

I went to the stadium at 9:30 in the morning. When I arrived, the main court was not opened yet. The first player I saw was Jan Vacek. he was warming up for his qualifying match, which began at 11:00.



I walked around for a while. At 10:00, some players came to practise.

No information about the practising schedule is provided, so I had to go to every court and try to recognize those players by myself. I saw Robert Kendrick and Jeff Salzenstein, but I didn't know their names, until I found out by reading their tournament ID cards.



Then I saw Guillemo Canas! His hit partner, I think that's Robin Soderling. Canas is shirtless, showing his tatoo on his shoulder. Soderling is in a shining yellow adidas shirt.




I watched them practising, Then Hyung-Taik Lee came to take the court. Canas came off court first, I said "welcome back" to him, he smiled and stopped to sign autographs, while Soderling left quickly and quietly. I haven't got chance to catch him. Hopefully I can do it later:)

Then I saw one guy practising. I thought I must have seen his match on TV before but I could't remember. I took some photos, when I came back home, I found out that he's Peter Luczak.



And he lost his last qualifying match, but since Albert Costa quit for back injury:'(, Luczak is in the main draw as a lucky loser now:). He will play Wayne Arthurs in the 1st round.

Alex Kim came, it seems nobody knows him, but I do;). He signed autograph for me and went on practising. Later he won his qualifying match. He will play Canas in the first round.

Ivo Karlovic has been practising with his coach. He spent most time on his serve. Then I saw Thomas Enqvist with several Sweden players. Both Ivo and Thomas signed a lot of autographs after training.



At 2:00 p.m., I went into the stadium to watch Magnus's match. The wheather was very good, a little cloudy, the tempraturer was just fine for a tennis match. Magnus started well, and the Chinese No. 1 player seemed to be lacking some confidence. From the end of the 1st set, Benqiang Zhu managed to make some good serves and tried to fight back, but Magnus was getting more and more familiar to the courts too. Magnus won easily.

When I went out, some players were practising again. I saw Ivo Karlovic, Peter Luczak. Fernando Verdasco was hitting with his coach. At that time I saw Jiri Novak! He was just about to leave the court. I ran to him and said "Great Performance at Davis Cup!"

Magnus pics:

[Ilhame]

Thanks Kiro

Sounds like you had a great time and those pics are great!

Too bad Marat isn't there

How long are you staying in Shanghai?

[Layla]

Thanks Kiro! It sounds great. I love the way you're able to talk to players, I didn't even dare to say good luck. LOL @ identifying them by their ID cards. ;D

And THANK YOU SO MUCH for the fantastic pics of Magnus! He's looking good.

[TennisHack]

Woohoo, another tournament thread! I'm beginning to really enjoy these ;D

Thanks for the reports, Kiro, and for the pictures. Magnus is looking pretty good, I'm glad he won a round

Yeah, that is Robin Soderling in the yellow. He's the only Swede with that really dark brown hair, and he wears a weird headband thing.

Eugh, I haven't even seen the main draw for this, so I'm falling behind on my job! Anyway, thanks for the reports, I'm looking forward to more!

[Kiro]

Ilhame said:

Thanks Kiro

Sounds like you had a great time and those pics are great!

Too bad Marat isn't there

How long are you staying in Shanghai?

I live in Shanghai, actually I take one week off my work to go to the tournament.

Yes, I miss Marat too...

[Kiro]

Layla said:

Thanks Kiro! It sounds great. I love the way you're able to talk to players, I didn't even dare to say good luck. LOL @ identifying them by their ID cards. ;D

And THANK YOU SO MUCH for the fantastic pics of Magnus! He's looking good.

I'm able to talk to players, maybe it's because actually I'm older than most of them
Well, in fact, before I went to the tournament I have been thinking about what should I say to those players respectively. Preparation work turned out to be good

[Kiro]

TennisHack said:

Eugh, I haven't even seen the main draw for this, so I'm falling behind on my job! Anyway, thanks for the reports, I'm looking forward to more!

There will be more, I promise

[Lee]

Great Kiro! Enjoy your tournament!

Time for mom duties and kick Vince out of door for the school bus!

[RogiFan]

Kiro, great report and great pix! Are they yours? How did you post them -- fr a piccie site? They are fab! Too bad Juanqui's not there for you -- he's in Bangkok [and Pandy w/drew w a big fine -- -- perfect!].

Awaiting your next report!

Thanks a lot!

[Ilhame]

Kiro said:

I live in Shanghai, actually I take one week off my work to go to the tournament.

I forgot Kiro

[Kiro]

September 23rd

The second day of Shanghai Open was great! All the famous players arrived and several great matches were played.

At 9:30, I went to the practise court. I was hoping I can see Fernando Verdasco warming up. His match against Vacek was the first one on the centre court, scheduled at 11:00 am.

Well, the first player I saw was still Jan Vacek ;D. He must be a hard-working guy. He came to practise very early, and after practising or before the match, you can always see him jogging around the stadium.

Perter Luczak's training with his coach. Then Scott Drapper joined him, they started to practise together. Luczak struggled a little bit on the groundstrokes, the rallies always end with Luczak hit the ball into the net .



At 10:00, Fernando Verdasco came to practise with his coach. Like those Spanish young guys, Fernando has beautiful groundstrokes . And a big serve too .





Fernando didn't stop practising untill 10:40. Then he went to play his 1st round match, and I ran to have my breakfast. Then I got into the stadium, to cheer for Fernando, of course .

Fernando Verdasco vs Jan Vacek

Fernando's hits and serve proved to be too strong for Vacek to handle. Fernando has been holding easily all the time, and got quite a few break points.

Magnus came to watch several games of Verdasco's match. They will be playing against each other tomorrow evening.

Fernando Verdasco won, 6-3, 6-4.

After Fernando's match, I went out of the stadium to watch Guillermo Canas and Alex Kim's match on "Grandstand" court. It's funny that they call it "Grandstand", actually it's nothing but an out side court . There are 3 rows of seats on one side, and on the other side it's connected with a practise court. No electronic scoreboard, no speed meter either.



You watch Guillermo playing, you know how hard it is for a top player to get back from bad injury . Alex Kim is familiar to hard court, his hits made it quite difficult for Guillermo. First set went to a tie-breaker, Guillermo won it 10-8.

In the second set Kim started to play even better. I was scared when Guillermo fell down, looked like he has twisted his ankle . He laid there for a while, then managed to get up and resume playing. The official asked him if the trainer should be called, he said "no, not now" at first, then said "call him, I think I can play now but I'm not sure, so call him." But he kept playing.

Guillermo had the chance to serve out the match but Kim managed to break back. The 2nd set went to a tie-breaker too, and 2 double faults from Kim helped Guillermo.

Guillermo Canas won, 7-6(8), 7-6(0).

Robert Kendrick vs Bjorn Phau

I went back to the stadium and was surprised to see that Kendrick and Phau's match was still ongoing! They started earlier than Canas-Kim, since in that match both sets went to tie-breakers and there were a lot of long rallies, I was thinking that the Kendrick-Phau's match should be over. But I was wrong: Kendrick and Phau went to the 3rd set, and all 3 sets were decided by tie-breakers ! When I came back to the centre court, they were just about to start the 3rd set tie-breaker. No doubt the crowd were excited to see such a match.

Robert Kendrick won, 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 7-6(5).

Jiri Novak vs Dennis van Scheppingen



Jiri is the top seed this time. In this match he was in control for most of the time. Scheppingen started the match with a double fault and one break down. Jiri won quickly, 6-2. In the 2nd set Scheppingen managed to make the tie-breaker, and Jiri won it 7-5.



After the match, there was a race of remote control car model between Jiri and a lucky boy. Jiri controlled the car very well, while the boy's car fell out of the court, a staff member had to go there to pick it back ;D. Jiri stopped his car before the endline waiting for the boy's car, and let the boy's car passed his car in the end .



Ivo Karlovic vs Cecil Mamiit

I went out to the Grandstand court again, Ivo Karlovic was playing against Mamiit. And they played 2 tie-breakers too. Ivo lost the first one and the first set. He won the 2nd set 6-2. The third set was into tie-breaker again, so many tie-breakers!

Ivo Karlovic won, 6-7(3), 6-2, 7-6(5).

Magnus and Andreas Vinciguerra played their doubles match today and they lost. Magnus was quite angry and threw his racquet several times . After the match, Magnus and Andreas stayed on the court and practised more.

Marting Verkerk arrived in an orange-red tshirt. He practised and signed autographs. He was called "Davis Cup Hero", and he said "not any more" .

Then I saw Mark Philippoussis's father Nick ! He sat on the steps outside the news center, and next to a big black recycle bin ;D. Well, you know he's a heavy smoker, so he had to go outside for his little habit ;D. At first, no one recognized him (maybe because at that time he was not together with Mark). I went up to him to say hello. He's very kind, I wished Mark good luck, and he said "thank you very much!" Some guys saw us talking, and asked me who he was. I told them he's Mark's father, and suddenly everybody was running to him to say hello I'm fan of Mark! ;D And the guard brought a chair for him, so that he could sit there smoking comfortably.

Mark practised in the centre court. We told Nick, we want to see Mark. So Mark came out to sign autographs before he left. Mark was in a blue t-shirt. He looks far more handsome than on the photo! And he looks gorgeous in blue! Definitely better than in the red-white Fila outfit! So many fans got around him, I couldn't take good pictures. Well, I'll try to catch some later.

Nicolas Kiefer signed autographs after he finished training, too.

BTW, do you know this player?

[Ilhame]

Cool that you spoke to Mark's father

The player looks russian to me,but I'm not sure. Could it be Dimitri Tursunov or is he not there?

looking forward to tomorrow

[RogiFan]

Wow more stuff fr Shanghai! Thanks Kiro! This is great, even though my Rogi and Juanqui aren't there. Good to see Canas back.

I'm w Ilhame re that player... s check the draw first I guess!!



Hope ILR reads about Mark!

[Vera]

Thanks Kiro. Good stuffs.

Will you be watching Kiefer and Enqvist tomorrow? I hate this particular pairing because i like them both. But i'll have to go for Kiwi. He just improved his ranking to 54 after floating at the 70-80 range for like 1.5 yr. And you got his autograph, did you get a chance to talk to him?

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the tournament and pls continue this wonderful report for us.

[Ilhame]

Dimitri is not in singles, so now I'm confused

Maybe the others might recognise him

[ILR]

RogiFan said:

Wow more stuff fr Shanghai! Thanks Kiro! This is great, even though my Rogi and Juanqui aren't there. Good to see Canas back.

I'm w Ilhame re that player... s check the draw first I guess!!



Hope ILR reads about Mark!

Oh she has! ;D How cool is that! Mark Thanks for the reports! Sounds like you had fun there. Did you get his autograph? If so...*jealous*

[Lee]

Great report and lucky girl ;D

[The Chloe]

Yeah, that is Robin Soderling in the yellow. He's the only Swede with that really dark brown hair, and he wears a weird headband thing.

*ahem* Vincy has dark hair too

[TennisHack]

Indeed, Rebecca, but Soderling likes to dye his hair black. Hence the "really dark" part ;D

Thanks for the great reports, Kiro! I wish I had your ability to talk to the players and/or their parents. Glad to hear Nick was nice!

[Kiro]

September 24th

Another great day! Great matches were played. The Scud, Kiwi, the Face;D, Jiri and Magus...great day! The weather was great too.

First of all, I found the answer of the "Who is this guy" question. He is Tomas Berdych[CZE], just played their Davis Cup tie together with Jiri Novak. He's only 19 years old and he's now in the top 120 of the entry ranking. A future star.

This morning I saw Wayne Arthurs first! He seems to be the only player in Sergio Tacchini here. I'd like to say he looks younger than his real age. He's warming up for his match against Peter Luczak. We talked a little about the Davis Cup match, he asked "Did you watch it?" I said "no, I followed the live scores;D."





This early morning there were not many players practising. I was about to enter the stadium to watch Arthurs-Luczak, then I saw Lars Burgsmuller warming up for his match against Takao Suzuki. This match would be on the Grandstand court at the same time with Wayne's match. I said good luck to him, but it didn't work . In the end Lars lost the match.

Wayne Arthurs vs Peter Luczak



When I saw Peter practising against Drapper, I think he's struggling with his groundstrokes. But in the first set of this match, Peter's groundstrokes worked perfectly against Arthurs! He made a lot of passing shots, and won the set 7-5. But when they went on to play the 2nd set, Peter started to make mistakes, and Wayne managed to get it back from Peter's hand.

Wayne Arthurs won, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.

I went out for a while during this match and I caught Mark practising. Here're some pics:

















Soderling vs Van Lottum

I went to the Grandstand several times too. The first time I went there I saw Lars Burgsmuller losing. After some time I went there again, this time I saw Robin Soderling beating Van Lottum. ;D

Robin was on fire this morning! His serve and return worked perfectly. Van Lottum had no answer to Robin's game. He lost the 1st set 2-6, then in the 2nd set, he was bagelled. He cursed and threw his racket. Robin was quiet, but you can see he's very happy about today's performance. His coach was happy too. They went together to watch Thomas Enqvist's match against Nicolas Kiefer.

Enqvist vs Kiefer

I'd say this is the match of the day.









Thomas started very strongly, making very good returns and shots. Nicolas had problems with his serve in the 1st set, and Thomas won it 6-1.
However, Nicolas found his rhythm after that. His serve was on, and he's getting stable in the long rallies. They played a lot of beautiful points.:heart: Thomas choked a little at some key points, and Nicolas took the chance. Nicolas won the 2nd and 3rd sets, 6-3, 6-3. He was very excited for the win, jumping and pumping his fist.



And Nicolas won his doubles match today, too.

Verkerk vs Zeng

Well, I don't have much to say about this match. The story was quite simple: the 2nd player of China found it "mission impossible" to handle the FACE's serves, and struggled in his own service games. Verkerk won, 6-2, 6-3. After the match, he went to practice immdiately.

Philippoussis vs Vinciguerra

I went back into the stadim and took my seat, and I found Nick sitting here too, Mark can see him throughout the whole match. I happened to sit very close to Nick, there were only 2 or 3 spare seats between us. In the match, Mark often looked at his father.
Vinciguerra tried his best, but Mark's serve and forehand, when it's on, it's too big.

Philippoussis won, 6-4, 7-6.

Jiri Novak vs Robert Kendrick

Today's first evening match was interesting. Good start for Jili, then Robert made a big fight to get 1st set 7-6. He looked to be still on fire when they entered the 2nd set, but Jiri's magic suddenly caught him. I'm more and more interested in Jiri's game. He doesn't hit strongly, but his shots has the best depth, and he's choosing his shots very calmly. It's a great controll. Robert served and hit the ball strongly, but made much more errors than winners.
In the 3rd set, Jiri broke Robert twice to go up 4-0. Robert then managed to hold once, he raised his arms like a relief, like "thanks God I won't be bagelled" .
In the final game, Jiri's serving for the match. He got 3 mps at 40-0. Robert saved the 1st one bravely. The second one became a long rally, the audience started to applause during the rally, and Jiri hit the ball into the net. The commentator then said to the crowd (in Chinese), don't applause before a point ends. Robert might think that the commentator was apologizing or what, and he raised his hand and said "No, no, it's ok." Well, it helps, right? ;D But Jiri wouldn't give him any more chances, he won the match at the 3rd mp.

Novak won, 6-7, 6-1, 6-2.

Fernando Verdasco vs Magnus Norman

I like Verdasco. But I knew that for some reason, Magnus must have made up his mind to win it, no matter how difficult it would be.
Fernando's got more power than Magnus, but Magnus's giving everything to win it. Fernando was affected by a line call in the end of the 1st set. He then lost 1st set 5-7. In the 2nd set Fernando was too anxious in some big points and missed a lot of chances. They went on to play the tie-breaker, and Magnus finally won it. He was so happy after the match.

[Lee]

Kiro, thanks for the report and all those Kiwi pix ;D ;D

[RogiFan]

Fab report and fab pix, Kiro! They're amazing! Nice ones of Mark and Kiwi and Enqvist esp!! Thank you!!

[Vera]

Kiro, you take excellent pictures, so close and so clear

Whoa, it must be really fun to be able to talk to most of those players out there. If I ever get to a tourney, that's what I'll do, talk to all the players.

Oh, thanks for the report, esp the Kiwi/Enqvist match. I'm sad for Thomas but very excited that Kiwi is so excited for his win. He is like one of the guys who got the most titles in Asia or sth. So I'm really hoping that he can win this one.

[Ilhame]

another great report

[TennisHack]

Thanks for the reports, Kiro Sounds like you're having a fabulous time!

You take fantastic pictures Heh, you even manage to make Wayne Arthurs of all people look good! ;D But I kid. He has a very nice body -- the man can wear a pair of jeans like nobody's business

There must not be very much barrier between you and the courts or else you have a fantastic zoom. Either way, brava!

[Kiro]

September 25th

This morning I went to cheer for Guillermo Canas. I cheered for him in his first round match on Tuesday against Alex Kim. In that match, he narrowly missed twisting his ankle. I met him after the match and asked him about it. He said, he felt a little pain, but it should be ok soon and he would be ready to play the next round . I said, “good luck in the 2nd round too, Guillermo, I’ll be supporting you.”
Today, Guillermo was going to play his 2nd round match against Taino at 11:00 am. In the morning, he practiced on the centre court in the stadium and I couldn’t get in there. I wandered between the outside courts, and saw some players warming up. Wayne was going to play Suzuki on the Grandstand Court. Robin Soderling and Justin Gimelstob’s match would be on that court too. These players were all warming up, and I took some pictures.







Guillermo Canas vs Eric Taino





It’s definitely not easy for Guillermo! Taino is familiar to hard court, just as Alex Kim is. And he is left-handed. Guillermo struggled in his service games, especially when he was facing the sun. The sunshine has been very strong at noon these days (actually, my shoulders and arms are well tanned now, I even feel a little burned, because yesterday I wore a sleeveless shirt ).
Guillermo’s game was not as great as before yet, but he fought bravely in this match. At several points, I’ve got a feeling that Canas is really back, running for every point. Such a tough match. Guillermo lost the 1st TB, then won the 2nd set 6-4. He then had a chance to serve for the match at 5-4 in the 3rd set, but he couldn’t do it. They go to TB again, Guillermo tried his best to get the last points. He saved several “impossible” points to get the win.
After the match Guillermo signed autograph for fans. He recognized me and said “Thank you” to me. ;D He was very glad about the win.

Robin Soderling vs Justin Gimelstob














Another happy winner of today is Robin. This kid is growing on me, his return and shots are powerful and enjoyable. He won the match 6-4, 6-4, well, maybe he could do better than this. Thus, after 2 matches on the “Grandstand” court, Robin would make his first appearance on the centre court! He then watched several matches in the stadium, together with his coach and some Swedish players.

I haven’t seen the match between Wayne and Suzuki, which was won by Wayne easily. I went to have some food during the Draper-Verkerk match. When I was eating my pasta, I heard that Verkerk retired due to injury. He had to retire from the doubles too, he was supposed to play doubles with the Scud. And Mark just said yesterday that he would play doubles this time, for he wanted to get more practice. But since Verkerk pulled out, Mark had to give up the doubles match too. :-[Draper/Luczak entered the doubles main draw instead of them. They were defeated by Jiri Novak/Pala in the evening.

Mark Philippoussis vs Jeff Salzenstein







Mark won in straight sets. Nick has been encouraging his son throughout the match. ;D

Ivo Karlovic vs Nicolas Kiefer

Sorry Kiwi fans, Nicolas was defeated by the Giant. Nicolas still struggled with his serve. His serve was too weak and was attacked by Karlovic all the time. Karlovic’s groundstrokes were not good at all, but he served well, and he gave Nicolas a lot of pressure by coming to the net.
At the end of the match, in the 2nd set TB, both players choked. Karlovic had match points at *6-4, and he served a double fault. 6-5*, Kiwi serving, and he double-faulted too, and thus he handed the win to Karlovic.

And some more pics of Magnus practising:

[Lee]

Thanks Kiro for the report. Emma will definitely all over Mark's pic.

Kiwi

[Kiro]

Lee said:

Thanks Kiro for the report. Emma will definitely all over Mark's pic.

Kiwi

Lee

And Vera, Hackie! About the pictures, a digital camera with a good zoom is important, and the weather is great, that helps too.
I haven't got good pictures for the night sessions though, for the light is not enough and I can't use flash to take pictures.

[TennisHack]

Thanks for the reports, Kiro!! Robin Soderling sounds so promising He beat Micha in the Istanbul challenger final. I think he's ranked in the Top 100 now He was supposed to be of Gasquet's generation and already he's surpassing him too (I think Robin is older). Just wish he'd get rid of that freaking headband!

Magnus is slowly winning me over as well. Or should I say, once again Layla's influence is slowly winning me over Hope he wins his next match!! It's about time for the Swedes to do well.

[Ilhame]

for Kiro

Can't believe you got the chance to speak to so many players during this tournament.

Martin

The pics are icious