Andrew goes to New Haven.

[Pamela Shriver]

I got to the site at around 8:45, and was really excited to finally see both men and women back in New Haven. Note that this report features both men's and women's match.

The first match I saw was on Grandstand, between Jan-Michael Gambill and Frantisek Cermak. Apparently JMG is back to the double handed forehand. He looked great though. He was very fit, and looked like he put on more muscle. His serve was great, and his return was quite impressive against the big serving Cermak. The first set was quite fun, with Jan-Mike getting the only break. Second set started off well for Cermak. He held serve easily, and had three points for a 2-0 lead, but JMG came up with two big serves to save them, and the other was won off of a volley winner (I think, can't be totally sure of that last point). JMG cruised through the next few games, until serving again at 3-5 down BP. Again, he saved them, and then broke for the match. He never lost serve, his backhand was booming, and I was quite confident about him "upsetting" the #1 qualy seed at that point (apparently I was wrong). Cermak is nothing special at all off the ground, but his serve is great. No spped meters on that court, but I'd say he was easily serving some up in the 130's at some points. I think he could climb the rankings further, but his ground game will really hold him back.

Next match I watched was again a men's match. The #4 seed in qualies, Razvan Sabau was playing young American Phillip Simmonds. This kid was young, really young. Not sure how old he was exactly, but I don't think he could have been any older than 20. Sabau's serve sucked, that was the first thing I really took notice of in the match. The first set was quite boring, and I debating leaving. But I stuck around, and I'm really glad I did. In the second set, there were some amazing points. Simmonds is quite talented, but his shot selection is very poor. He goes for broke on alot of his shots, which resulted in either a) winner, or b) error, sent four feet long. But, his movement was really excellent, and so was his serve. He had alot of aces, even a few off of the second serve. He actually was up a break at 2-1 in the third, but totally died from then on. Sabau really turned it up. He was screaming at himself and getting really angry, and apparently that motivated him to start moving to everything. Simmonds has a future though. If he can learn to control his ground game more, he could break into the top 100 at least. That serve is top notch.

Now it was time for lunch. So I snacked, and then about an hour later went over to Court One to check out what was going on there. I arrived right at the start of the Haynes Peschke match. This match kind of says it all about Angela, and why she's ranked where she is. The first set, Angela had alot of errors and was quite inconsistent, especially with her serve. Kveta has some really nice backhands, and just really frustrated Angela. The second set, Angela totally dominated. Her serve was booming, forehand cracking, and what an attitude...I haven't seen someone so fired up about playing, ever. She outdoes Serena, Lleyton, et al. She raced to a 5-1 lead, played a crap game to lose serve, but then broke for the set. She looked like a top 30 player there. The third set started out the same, a huge service hold to deuce. And then, she just died. As I said before, this match is Angela in a nutshell. She's wildly inconsistent. She stopped hitting winners, her serve became ineffective, and Kveta began controlling the match with her backhand. Angela lost five games in a row, and went down 0-40. But then, she really showed something. She saved tripple match point, all with either winners or huge serves, and made it 5-2. Even down 0-40, she was pumpnig her fist and fighting to stay in the match. It really says alot about her character. Kveta then served out the match to love with a really great game. It was a good match, but it was even better in showing Angela as a person. She's probably one of the nicest and most polite girls on tour, in addition to being one of the most inconsistent. If she can find a way to keep it in the court during her "off" game, she will be top 30, at least.

I also saw all of the Kirilenko Gullickson match. Really, really strange match. I wanted Masha K to win coming into the match, but Carly won both me and most of the crowd over. She played extremely well to go up 5-3 in the first, especially off the serve. But, Maria turned it up, and Carly tanked it up. Suddenly, it was 7-5 4-0 40-0 Maria, and Carly looked like she checked out of the match. But Carly began to pull herself out of a horrible attitude and slumping game, and saved five break points to hold for 1-4. Things went really fast from there. Within minutes, Carly got herself back to one break down at 3-4. Then came the "injury" timeout. I know that Maria is battling a knee injury, but I don't know if it required immediate medical attention. I couldn't see it effecting her game, including her movement, at all. But, it really didn't help her. Carly broke again, to deuce, and then held for a 5-4 lead. Both held into the tiebreak, which turned into a marathon. Carly really blew it here. She was up 5-3, and then had the set on her racquet at 6-5. But her serve dropped off, and she started making alot of errors. She lost both her service points to go down match point at 6-7. She saved one for 7-7, then ended up losing 5-7 6-7 (7) off of another forehand error. Carly has alot of positive aspects to her game - namely the serve and backhand. She also has some horrible attributes - the forehand, consistency and attitude. Anyway, I hope Maria K qualifies now.

I left after that. Overall, a good day of matches.

[leena]

Even Andrew compared Angela to Serena. Does she have more fighting spirit than Mashona.

And is Carly still hefty?

[TennisHack]

Thanks for the reports!

How many days are you going?

[leena]

He's going all week.

[The Chloe]

Thanks, Andrew!

Hackie, I think he's going all week.

[Brinyi]

I believe he will be going all week. ;D

Thanks for the reports man -- a scouting report on Ivo Minar and report on Peng-Perry would be appreciated if you can fit these in. If not, whatever.

[TennisHack]

LOL, let me guess -- he'll be there all week? Thanks guys.

[The Chloe]

Well, at least there is no longer any doubt that I don't always read Leena

[leena]

Don't ask him for a review on Shenay.

[The Chloe]

I would not recommend that you ask him for a review on Perry.

[Maeby Fünke]

I'm looking forward to his Shenay Perry review.

[Pamela Shriver]

leena said:

Even Andrew compared Angela to Serena. Does she have more fighting spirit than Mashona.

And is Carly still hefty?

I've just never seen someone so fired up before. It's scary.

Yes, Carly is still a big girl. But I saw her in doubles today, and am in love. If she lost weight she'd look alot like Babsi. Which is a good thing in my book.

[Pamela Shriver]

Andrew Goes to New Haven: Part II

Play started at 10 today, and I made the decision ahead of time to stick to the Stadium. Overall, I'm happy with my plan.

The first match on was Kirilenko vs. Jackson. First off, anyone who says that Maria's knee was a problem in the match is full of crap. They probably didn't see the match, because if they did, they'd know why she lost. Jamea was just flat out better, and Maria was making too many errors. Maria moved around the court flawlessly. The knee was not an issue. Jamea has matured alot as a player over the past year. If she can work on her serve and really turn it into more of a weapon, she should move up the rankings. I don't get Maria at all. One day she's great, the next, she absolutely sucks. Oh well, maybe it's a maturity thing.

The next match on was Andy Ram vs. Scott Oudsema. Both had big serves, but Oudsema's was massive. He was hitting some first serves near the 140 mark, at 138 to be exact. But he couldn't do anything with Ram's serve, and was moving like crap. He was injured, looked like an issue with his right knee. Even after points he won, he would be bent over on the other leg in pain. I thought he would retire, but he put in a nice effort.

The next match up was Schnyder vs. Raymond. I was quite excited for this one. But, aftr the first set, I left, angry. When I came back, I was shocked to see that Lisa had easily won the second set. But, she was already down a break in the third. The story of the third set was lost opportunities. Lisa had BP to bring it to 1-2, and three BP's to get back on serve down 1-3. Patty's out wide spin serve to the deuce side really had Lisa fooled. Too bad, Lisa is going to drop alot after this week...

The return of Alicia Molik was probably the highlight of the day, though. I really thought she'd win the match, but she was just way off her game. Her serve was her only "weapon" in this match, and even this has lost the punch it had before the illness. Her groundies were seriously horrendous. She wouldn't miss by inches, she'd miss by feet. What suprised me was how much the forehand has died. The backhand was actually the "stronger" shot, if you could call it that. The forehand was just everywhere. I can't even describe how off it was. But, Gisela has real talent. This was the first time I saw her play, and she could easily be top 20 within the next year. Solid groundies and movement, but the serve will be what gets her in trouble eventually.

Then came the final doubles qualifying match between Daniilidou/Russell and Craybas/Gullickson. Jill and Carly lead 6-3 3-0, before losing twelve of the last thirteen games. I was really shocked. They were both blasting winners in the first and early in the second set, but Eleni and Russell did a great job of coming back, and really got the crowd going for them. Too bad the crowd was about eight people at that point. I really like Carly. I hope she has a great career.

Other notes: Didn't get to see Perry's match; sorry, didn't check in here before leaving and setting my plan for today. But I did see her walking around the site with Carly. They look like they're good friends. Shenay was at Carly's match yesterday, and stuck around for Carly's doubles match today.

Also, I saw Lindsay Davenport around the site. She was with her coach, Adam, the first time I saw her. The second time I saw her she was chatting with Angela Haynes' father. It looked like quite a serious discussion, so I can only speculate what it was about. So, I kind of planted myself within view, but far enough away so that I wasn't an obvious stalker. Angela then came over and Lindsay smiled and started talking to her too. They seem like good friends, part of that WTA Southern California clique.

And Princess Tati was doing her thing for kids day. She was all made up, and quite pretty. I love her, too.

[leena]

Lindsay talking with Angela. Marissa and the other rich girls won't be pleased.

It's a shame with Carly. She's a very pretty girl, but she's big. I was hoping she changed. I was also surprised with your comments, since her forehand was fairly strong when I saw her. But, she was slow as molasses. And had quite the weak mentality.

I'm surprised you haven't seen Gisela before. I think Top 20 is a bit much for her, to be honest. No serve, and not much strength with her shots. But, she has the game to beat top players who play awful. Which she's taken advantage of in the past 2 weeks. And thank you for not mentioning she's "beautiful". She has the face of a 40-year old.

Shame to hear Molik is struggling like that. Obviously, her top 8 ranking was a fluke, but I like her game.

Please describe in detail how Princess Tati looked. And did you approach her. Since Marissa isn't there, she can be your girlfriend.

[Pamela Shriver]

leena said:

Lindsay talking with Angela. Marissa and the other rich girls won't be pleased.

It's a shame with Carly. She's a very pretty girl, but she's big. I was hoping she changed. I was also surprised with your comments, since her forehand was fairly strong when I saw her. But, she was slow as molasses. And had quite the weak mentality.

I'm surprised you haven't seen Gisela before. I think Top 20 is a bit much for her, to be honest. No serve, and not much strength with her shots. But, she has the game to beat top players who play awful. Which she's taken advantage of in the past 2 weeks. And thank you for not mentioning she's "beautiful". She has the face of a 40-year old.

Shame to hear Molik is struggling like that. Obviously, her top 8 ranking was a fluke, but I like her game.

Please describe in detail how Princess Tati looked. And did you approach her. Since Marissa isn't there, she can be your girlfriend.

I just looked up Carly's results, and she's gone from 542 last September up to 182. That's an amazing climb up the rankings in just under a year. Clearly she's doing more things right than wrong. From what I saw, her coach is a very positive influence. Very upbeat and encouraging during the matches.

I thought Gisela's groundies were quite good today. She was slamming the ball quite hard when she set up. But as you said, the serve isn't good. And that will probably hold her back. I don't think she's pretty.

It's going to be hard for Alicia to get back to where she was. I know alot of this was probably rust, but when her serve isn't even near where it was six months ago, that's a major issue. And as I said, the ground game is a disaster right now.

I couldn't see Princess Tati up close. She was doing some dumb kids day things, so about 200 kids were drolling over her. All I could tell was that she was all made up, and her body was smokin'. But that's always a given.

[leena]

Carly's results were probably better in 2003, though... she may not have been ranked as high because of AER, but she did make QF's in Memphis, and qualified for Wimbly. Whereas now all her points are coming from Tier 8's.

If Alicia can't serve, Alicia can't win.

Please go into detail on how Shenay looks like a frog.

[Brinyi]

Supporting the theory I expressed in another thread regading Kirilenko's loss to Jackson being a tankeroony, she just polished off SFE Inc. whilst losing just 4 games.

Poor Shenay doesn't have hubba hubba appeal, but she has a good game to watch and is a good kid.

[janie]

Poor Alicia. I feel bad for her.

[leena]

Mikiri is the biggest mystery on tour to me. Why is she so inconsistent? And how does she often come up with these destructions of good players with her game?

[leena]

Kveta Peschke d. Tatiana Golovin 6-3 6-4.

Sigh. And, I hope you got some quality pics of her while she was there.

Also, tournament over.

[Brinyi]

Well, SFE is just back from injury, isn't she?

[leena]

I don't know.

And, I have to chance to go to Connecticut this weekend. Are there any tickets available for either final?

Edit: Actually, just the men's final on Sunday. Thanks.

[Pamela Shriver]

I might have a few spare tickets.

Monday report up soon, featurning Andy's love affair with Megs.

[janie]

andrew said:

Monday report up soon, featurning Andy's love affair with Megs.

[leena]

Where's the update on Meg's 12-pack?

And tell us how awful MAGGIE! is.

[Pamela Shriver]

Monday:

I started off watching Maria Kirilenko playing Silvia Farina Elia on Court 1. Other than Stadium, Court 1 is probably my favorite court, because you are literally right on the players. It's also a very nice setting. Quiet, and in a good location. Anyway, I really don't get this Maria thing. She was sucks losts ends to Jamea the day before, and now she absolutely kills Silvia. This could be in part because Silvia was just awful. She beat herself at her own game. She would try to make the points as long as possible, and yet after about five or six shots, error. Maria really didn't impress me that much again...not a ton of winners, and nothing extraordinary. Silvia is horrible now though. It's matches like this that probably make her think more and more about retirement.

Next I watched Shuai! play Vera Douchevina. Damn... Bepa D is crazy. She's not like Bepa Z where she freaks out and breaks things. But this girl has some issues. After every shot she starts mumbling to herself...it's like she's possessed. And you look into those eyes, she looks insane. I figure she has to blow up sometime. I wouldn't mind being there to watch when it happened. But, this match was odd. Shuai has sucked all tournament, to it's not a real suprise that Bepa ended up beating her. She never looked on top of it, always seemed really flat. And her backhand was crap. Serious crap. Bepa got everything back, which was driving Shuai nuts, something I didn't think would happen, considering she beat Kim. One of her coaches wasn't at the match, don't know what the deal was with that.

Next, I went over to Stadium to watch Princess Tati. I didn't appreciate the outfit, but oh well. Tati was stupid throughout the match. She really should have won, but screwed up huge on her chances, and thus screwed herself. I don't know what's gone on with Tati, but she's not the same anymore. So many errors, lack of thinking. I don't get it. But, at least she has a second career to fall back on. Peschke is good though, quite good. I like her game alot. Pretty hard and flat groundies, but her serve sucks.

Then, the most fun match of the day. Lisa Raymond and Sam Stosur against Emelie Loit and Nicole Pratt. There were really some extraordinary points in the match, with all four of the players scrambling around the court. But, the drama came in the second set. Loit felt she had gotten two really horrible calls against her. The umpire was a very tiny woman who I've seen alot before, but I forget her name. So she goes up to the umpire and says, "Do you know what shit is?" The umpire answers, "Yes." Loit then says, "Well, you're a big shit." Interresting. The chair let it go. Then, third call against Loit. Loit freaks out, screaming things at the umpire, but at the next changeover, she says, "You know, after the match, I can kill you. You know what? I can kill you." The chair just whispered something in her radio then, not sure what. And when Loit and Pratt walked back on court, Loit pointed at the umpire and then slashed her finger across her neck. It was quite amusing. Then later in the second, Pratt just got a ball back, and Lisa was at the net ready to hit an overhead. The ball bounced, but Pratt was standing right it front of Lisa. Lisa started to come down on the ball, but pulled off because she was going to hit Pratt. The ball then bounced back over to the other side of the court, but Lisa didn't touch it. Lisa then jokingly pushed Pratt, and both laughed. But then, "Who won the point." Pratt: "Oh, I don't know the rule. Sorry." Lisa: "I won the point." Loit: "It our point! It our point!!" Stosur just stood there looking stupid, as she did for most of the match. Ump said the point goes to Pratt/Loit, because it bounced on Lisa's side and then went back. Lisa then said that if she had swung at the ball and hit it, she would have "killed Prattie", and asked the ump: "Did you want me to kill Prattie?". Thus, they yapped about this, for a full fifteen minutes. They finally started playing again, after Lisa and Sam had both an on court chat with their coaches, and with themselves. The ump had absolutely no control of the match. Anyway, after that nothing exciting happened, so meh. Lisa finally won. I say Lisa, because Sam kind of sucked, and did nothing, except whiff at serves.

Then to stadium court I went, to cheer for Megs against Dechy. I've always loved Meghann. She's a great girl, and her serve can be flat out amazing. But, she's sucked lately, so a win here would be alot to ask for. But, Meghann delivered. She served great in the first set, only facing two break points, saving one with a service winner, the other with a forehand winner. In the first set, she was banging the serve and forehand. She's miss half the time on the forehand, but it was all good with our three service winners per game. Plus, she was coming into net quite a bit, and hit some nifty volleys in the tiebreak to take it easily. In the second set, Meghann tried to do the same thing, but Dechy started to pick the serves a little bit more, and also Meghann's unforced errors really increased. I kind of thought it was over then. But in the third, Meghann came out with a totally new strategy. She stopped killing every ball, and went for variety. About half the time she'd bang the serve, but she'd also put more spins on it. The took alot off of the groundstrokes, and hit alot of moonballs, which pissed off Nat to no end. They traded two breaks in the first few games, but Decht finally went ahead 4-3. Then, Meghann really busted out. Enough of the variety crap. It was battle time. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Holds to love. Bang, error, error, bang, bang. Breaks. Bang, bang, error, bang. Game, set match, Megs. What was great about Meghann tonight was how she was fighting. She was so pumped, it was great. She was feeding off of the crowd alot. They were totally pro-Meghann, and after she got one really horrible call, she really got at it with the chair, and the crowd let him have it. It was like Paris. So many booos that it was all you could hear, "blind man", "Cut him!", and "What do we pay you for?" were some of the other common phrases. I love Meghann. She's so cool. Still has the 10 pack, and is still a twig. It was good to see her so excited during the match, and so happy to win. The crowd loves her, responded to her more than any other player I've seen. She responded too, she thanked us all, saying that we got her through it, and how happy she was, and how greatful she was to have played hear. Meghann rocks.

[Pamela Shriver]

Tuesday tomorrow.

[Brinyi]

That was a funny report on the doubles match.

"Did you want me to kill Prattie?"

I know what I would have said if I was the umpire! ;D

I'm not sure what Raymond is arguing about. If the ball hits her side and bounces back to the other side, she loses the point. It's Pratty's damn fault for standing in the wrong place.

[leena]

I'm not sure on the rule... but, if the other player impedes your stroke, they lose the point. It's umpire's discretion on that, though. And with Loit wanting to murder her, she probably didn't want to get cute.

[leena]

Ugh... Beebee is in the US Open draw. There goes any hope of a protected ranking next year. Sigh.