Post by adeegee on Jun 26, 2005 11:25:44 GMT -5
Arrived at Wimbledon with 3 mates at about 5pm on the Friday afternoon, and it was absolutely pouring, with a little bit of thunder around. We guessed what the OOP would be for Saturday so we knew we had to get there quite early, but we got held up and we realised when we got there it was unlikely we’d get centre court tickets, and we’d probably have to settle for court 1, which was especially disappointing for me as I really wanted to see the Murray match. In the evening I phoned a friend to get me the order of play, and Court 1 wasn’t too bad plus I thought I could get Nadal/Lopez in the doubles on an outside court, until I heard they had pulled which added to my frustrations 
. Anyway, the queuing overnight was good fun, we had some Aussies next to us who were up for a laugh and a few drinks, as always it was a really good atmosphere. We ended up with about 2 hours sleep in the end.
As we had presumed, we only managed to get court 1 tickets, which wasn’t the end of the world. To have got on centre court we would’ve had to get there about midday on the Friday, some people had been queing since Thursday afternoon
. Anyway, play started at 12pm on the show courts, and 11am on some of the outside courts (which were mostly girls singles) so we went to Court 15 where Sergei Bubka jr was playing. (Note to Brinyi, I was looking out for his dad that you pointed out to me was indeed the pole vaulter but couldn’t see him!). He was playing a Czech kid that I hadn’t really heard of, turned out we were sitting right in front of his coach/family. Bubka has a nice all round game, pretty big serve, decent off both wings and mixes it up with the odd serve-volley. He didn’t seem fully comfortable with the pace of the court but still looked the better player early on, but he blew several break point chances. The young blonde lad from the Czech Republic, Dusan Lojda had a similar type game to Michael Llodra, he’s a lefty with a decent serve and pretty good forehand and volleys. It seemed Bubka would win pretty easily but he was broken at 4-4 and lost the set 6-4 (with the help of some blatant coaching from the fellow behind us, he was talking in Czech think but some words were similar to English). At which point we left to go to Court 1), I see Bubka ended up losing 6-4 6-4 I’m mildly surprised.
So off we headed for Court 1, with Sharapova v Srebotnik up first. When I saw the seats we were in it was a bit of a mixed reaction. We were in the front row which is great for seeing players’ reactions and how hard they hit the ball, but the umpires chair was blocking some of the view. We also had an extremely annoying kid nearby who’s excessive love for Sharapova was quite despairing, along with his England flag with “will you marry me Maria” on it. To be fair, Maria looked good in the flesh, and after about 1 minute it was obvious that the sheer weight of shot would be the deciding factor in the match. Srebotnik fought well to her credit and made it interesting especially in the 2nd set, but the match was on Sharapova’s terms, it was either winner or error from her with Srebotnik battling away creditably. A couple of points about Sharapova. Firstly, an annoying habit I was already aware of was the flicking her hair behind her ear before every single serve, and it grew even more irritating as I looked out for it. Another annoying habit which I hadn’t picked up from watching her on TV was the fact that just as she’s about to return a serve, she’ll slap her thigh twice with her hand, I have no idea why but it seems to be her routine now. Thirdly, her grunt is actually not as bad as it sounds on TV, I actually found it quite sweet in points. Her dad was acting like a bit of a clown as usual by the way, and I was quite happy when the match was out the way. The worst part of all was that I spent Friday morning giving myself a whole lot of room on my digital camera leaving myself with about 700 photos on my memory card, and about half way through the Sharapova match my battery died so I’ll have to settle for the limited amount of pictures that my friends took.
Next up was Venus v Hantuchova. I was very impressed with Hantuchova actually, she was matching Venus from the baseline and was well in the contest. At 5-5 in the first set, she had a 10 minute period where she had about 6 net cords all go against her, plus a shocker of a line call and she let it affect her and lost 5 straight games to trail 7-5 3-0. Then she came out and played 3 astonishing games, reeling off winner after winner to break back twice and level at 3-3. Venus upped her game and sealed the match with some impressive play, and it was probably the best I’ve seen her play for some time. If she had been playing like she has recently she would have lost this match, but she seemed determined to do well at Wimby and she might not be out the reckoning if she carries on like that.
Finally a mens match
as Roddick took on Andreev. Although I’m a fan of Roddick, I was hoping for a slightly closer match than what I got. Andy was playing a smart game, he wasn’t just blasting his serves as fast as he can, he was serving mid 120’s most of the time but placing them well. Igor on the other hand was playing without thinking in my opinion, he was trying to blast winners off Roddick’s serve and was getting absolutely no joy, as Roddick eased through service games rarely having to play other than get his serve in. Andreev finally changed his tactics in the 3rd set, and began to block a few returns and it made for a better match with more rallies, but there was only ever 1 winner. Andy’s backhand slice seems to be working well, I noticed a few other things I thought he could improve on though. He’s returning a lot closer in than he used to which is a good thing but he then retreats 3 feet behind the baseline, and he’s struggling to hit winners from the baseline which is surprising considering how strong his forehand is. I also fear that should he meet Federer in the final this will prove his downfall, Federer will control the rallies. Andy also doesn’t seem to have developed the shot of flattening out his forehand, he’s hitting it fairly powerfully but not getting too much joy off it as there’s just so much topspin on it. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing more than I do though ;D . Andreev as always hit some flashy winners, but I just felt it got a bit samey from him after a while. He seemed to be just trying to hit the cover off the ball, mainly on his forehand and didn’t change it up at all with the slice or anything, and didn’t look to have a proper gameplan.
We had the option of a doubles match with Bjorkman/Mirnyi on our court but we saw Murray had gone a set up on Fat Dave, so we went and watched a bit of this on the hill. It was absolute chaos on there, you could hardly see the screen but having just seen the full highlights now, I’m disappointed Andy didn’t win, but also happy that his game looks in good shape and once he builds up his body he can go quite a long way. We went over to try and watch Gasquet v Muller, but all the seats were taken and you could barely see anything from the standing section so we headed for Court 18 and Coria v Melzer. We arrived and Melzer was leading 6-3 6-3 2-2. I have no idea what happened, but Melzer lost the next 8 games after we arrived and Coria was playing out his skin. Cheered on by a large and noisy crowd, with a surprising amount of Argentinians, Coria was nailing every return low at Melzer’s feet, and was playing some glorious passing shots. Despite me not particularly liking Coria and the usual little games he plays, I couldn’t help but be drawn to him during the match, he was playing such nice tennis and showing Nadal-esque passion, and a few racquet throws from Melzer later and it was 2 sets all. Then the highlight of my day, originally we had been in the standing section as all the seats were taken. At the end of the 4th set, a few people left their seats so we went over to the seating section on one side of the court. Almost instantly, I spotted Coria’s coach opposite us, and next to him was my beloved Carla Coria, looking as gorgeous as ever
. I cursed my camera battery even more now, and spent much of the 5th set fixated on her, occasionally watching the tennis as Coria continued his good form and closed out the match 6-4. I commented he’d be tough to beat but then I remembered he plays Roddick now who I fancy will take care of him.
To end the day we headed to court 2 in the gloom to stand and watch Serena Williams produce a truly horrendous performance against Jill Craybas. She looked totally unfit and you could actually hear her panting in between points. Her groundstrokes were incredibly inconsistent, she’d play a couple of good points which would make you think she’s coming into a bit of form, and then hit a forehand about 6 feet out. Craybas was a worthy winner, she surprised me with her nerve, I didn’t think she’d be able to close it out but she was helped by some dreadful errors from Serena, who looked mightily pissed off by her own performance and the fact that she was on Court 2 instead of Centre Court.
Anyway, back to Wimby for a 3rd and final time on Wednesday. I must add we got very lucky with the weather. Firstly, we arrived just as the thunderstorm was ending so we didn’t get soaked in the queue. And then on Saturday, it was very grey all day and looked like it would rain but we only had the odd drop of rain and there were no delays to the tennis
Managed to get a few autographs, Youzhny, Coria, Jonny Mac who was about to play doubles with Fleming I think, Davenport who was extremely pleasant, and Roddick who I saw just as we were leaving and dashed over.
Apologies for the length of the report, especially after criticising Sjengster for the length of his
. Anyway, the queuing overnight was good fun, we had some Aussies next to us who were up for a laugh and a few drinks, as always it was a really good atmosphere. We ended up with about 2 hours sleep in the end. As we had presumed, we only managed to get court 1 tickets, which wasn’t the end of the world. To have got on centre court we would’ve had to get there about midday on the Friday, some people had been queing since Thursday afternoon
. Anyway, play started at 12pm on the show courts, and 11am on some of the outside courts (which were mostly girls singles) so we went to Court 15 where Sergei Bubka jr was playing. (Note to Brinyi, I was looking out for his dad that you pointed out to me was indeed the pole vaulter but couldn’t see him!). He was playing a Czech kid that I hadn’t really heard of, turned out we were sitting right in front of his coach/family. Bubka has a nice all round game, pretty big serve, decent off both wings and mixes it up with the odd serve-volley. He didn’t seem fully comfortable with the pace of the court but still looked the better player early on, but he blew several break point chances. The young blonde lad from the Czech Republic, Dusan Lojda had a similar type game to Michael Llodra, he’s a lefty with a decent serve and pretty good forehand and volleys. It seemed Bubka would win pretty easily but he was broken at 4-4 and lost the set 6-4 (with the help of some blatant coaching from the fellow behind us, he was talking in Czech think but some words were similar to English). At which point we left to go to Court 1), I see Bubka ended up losing 6-4 6-4 I’m mildly surprised.So off we headed for Court 1, with Sharapova v Srebotnik up first. When I saw the seats we were in it was a bit of a mixed reaction. We were in the front row which is great for seeing players’ reactions and how hard they hit the ball, but the umpires chair was blocking some of the view. We also had an extremely annoying kid nearby who’s excessive love for Sharapova was quite despairing, along with his England flag with “will you marry me Maria” on it. To be fair, Maria looked good in the flesh, and after about 1 minute it was obvious that the sheer weight of shot would be the deciding factor in the match. Srebotnik fought well to her credit and made it interesting especially in the 2nd set, but the match was on Sharapova’s terms, it was either winner or error from her with Srebotnik battling away creditably. A couple of points about Sharapova. Firstly, an annoying habit I was already aware of was the flicking her hair behind her ear before every single serve, and it grew even more irritating as I looked out for it. Another annoying habit which I hadn’t picked up from watching her on TV was the fact that just as she’s about to return a serve, she’ll slap her thigh twice with her hand, I have no idea why but it seems to be her routine now. Thirdly, her grunt is actually not as bad as it sounds on TV, I actually found it quite sweet in points. Her dad was acting like a bit of a clown as usual by the way, and I was quite happy when the match was out the way. The worst part of all was that I spent Friday morning giving myself a whole lot of room on my digital camera leaving myself with about 700 photos on my memory card, and about half way through the Sharapova match my battery died so I’ll have to settle for the limited amount of pictures that my friends took.
Next up was Venus v Hantuchova. I was very impressed with Hantuchova actually, she was matching Venus from the baseline and was well in the contest. At 5-5 in the first set, she had a 10 minute period where she had about 6 net cords all go against her, plus a shocker of a line call and she let it affect her and lost 5 straight games to trail 7-5 3-0. Then she came out and played 3 astonishing games, reeling off winner after winner to break back twice and level at 3-3. Venus upped her game and sealed the match with some impressive play, and it was probably the best I’ve seen her play for some time. If she had been playing like she has recently she would have lost this match, but she seemed determined to do well at Wimby and she might not be out the reckoning if she carries on like that.
Finally a mens match
as Roddick took on Andreev. Although I’m a fan of Roddick, I was hoping for a slightly closer match than what I got. Andy was playing a smart game, he wasn’t just blasting his serves as fast as he can, he was serving mid 120’s most of the time but placing them well. Igor on the other hand was playing without thinking in my opinion, he was trying to blast winners off Roddick’s serve and was getting absolutely no joy, as Roddick eased through service games rarely having to play other than get his serve in. Andreev finally changed his tactics in the 3rd set, and began to block a few returns and it made for a better match with more rallies, but there was only ever 1 winner. Andy’s backhand slice seems to be working well, I noticed a few other things I thought he could improve on though. He’s returning a lot closer in than he used to which is a good thing but he then retreats 3 feet behind the baseline, and he’s struggling to hit winners from the baseline which is surprising considering how strong his forehand is. I also fear that should he meet Federer in the final this will prove his downfall, Federer will control the rallies. Andy also doesn’t seem to have developed the shot of flattening out his forehand, he’s hitting it fairly powerfully but not getting too much joy off it as there’s just so much topspin on it. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing more than I do though ;D . Andreev as always hit some flashy winners, but I just felt it got a bit samey from him after a while. He seemed to be just trying to hit the cover off the ball, mainly on his forehand and didn’t change it up at all with the slice or anything, and didn’t look to have a proper gameplan. We had the option of a doubles match with Bjorkman/Mirnyi on our court but we saw Murray had gone a set up on Fat Dave, so we went and watched a bit of this on the hill. It was absolute chaos on there, you could hardly see the screen but having just seen the full highlights now, I’m disappointed Andy didn’t win, but also happy that his game looks in good shape and once he builds up his body he can go quite a long way. We went over to try and watch Gasquet v Muller, but all the seats were taken and you could barely see anything from the standing section so we headed for Court 18 and Coria v Melzer. We arrived and Melzer was leading 6-3 6-3 2-2. I have no idea what happened, but Melzer lost the next 8 games after we arrived and Coria was playing out his skin. Cheered on by a large and noisy crowd, with a surprising amount of Argentinians, Coria was nailing every return low at Melzer’s feet, and was playing some glorious passing shots. Despite me not particularly liking Coria and the usual little games he plays, I couldn’t help but be drawn to him during the match, he was playing such nice tennis and showing Nadal-esque passion, and a few racquet throws from Melzer later and it was 2 sets all. Then the highlight of my day, originally we had been in the standing section as all the seats were taken. At the end of the 4th set, a few people left their seats so we went over to the seating section on one side of the court. Almost instantly, I spotted Coria’s coach opposite us, and next to him was my beloved Carla Coria, looking as gorgeous as ever
. I cursed my camera battery even more now, and spent much of the 5th set fixated on her, occasionally watching the tennis as Coria continued his good form and closed out the match 6-4. I commented he’d be tough to beat but then I remembered he plays Roddick now who I fancy will take care of him.To end the day we headed to court 2 in the gloom to stand and watch Serena Williams produce a truly horrendous performance against Jill Craybas. She looked totally unfit and you could actually hear her panting in between points. Her groundstrokes were incredibly inconsistent, she’d play a couple of good points which would make you think she’s coming into a bit of form, and then hit a forehand about 6 feet out. Craybas was a worthy winner, she surprised me with her nerve, I didn’t think she’d be able to close it out but she was helped by some dreadful errors from Serena, who looked mightily pissed off by her own performance and the fact that she was on Court 2 instead of Centre Court.
Anyway, back to Wimby for a 3rd and final time on Wednesday. I must add we got very lucky with the weather. Firstly, we arrived just as the thunderstorm was ending so we didn’t get soaked in the queue. And then on Saturday, it was very grey all day and looked like it would rain but we only had the odd drop of rain and there were no delays to the tennis
Managed to get a few autographs, Youzhny, Coria, Jonny Mac who was about to play doubles with Fleming I think, Davenport who was extremely pleasant, and Roddick who I saw just as we were leaving and dashed over. Apologies for the length of the report, especially after criticising Sjengster for the length of his
Gugaaaaaaaaa 
I'll do my best. I'll get a load of photos this time the battery is charged up and ready to roll. Only problem is I don't know where I'll be sitting, I'm guessing I won't have as good picture opportunities as I did on Saturday.
in my 7 or 8 visits to Wimbledon I've never been round that side. There were quite a lot of people queing up for autographs, so we guessed some top players might be on the horizon. Almost instantly Venus came along off the practise courts, signed a few autographs and headed on. We stayed for about 15 minutes, and in that time Sharapova, Davenport, Clijsters and Andy Murray 
). Now the negatives. A lot of people talk about how sporting he is, and what a nice guy he is but I must comment, not once did he praise a shot Gonzalez hit, instead choosing to berate himself about the shot he had played previously. He looked surprisingly uncomfortable at the net, it kind of looked like he didn't actually want to be there, and that he was just kind of experimenting. I thought 3-0 Federer was a very harsh reflection of the match, but Gonzo made just a few too many errors on big points. 