Chloe Goes to USO Qualies

[The Chloe]

Copied from MTF:

I suppose I could blog this, but those confuse me. Besides, I had been using mine just to write random stupid stuff.

If this belongs in the USO forum, somebody is welcome to move it. I put it here so that more people would see it, as per request.

If you are looking for detailed match reports, then you might want to skip this. It's people based and will have random comments about my trip and people I met.

Moving forward...

I arrived in NYC on Monday, but did nontennis blah that day. I stayed at Jazz-on-the-Park hostel at Central Park West. I liked the area, but I wish I had known it was going to be dead by midnight, or I would have arranged to be back much sooner. There are things I would rather do than wander alongside Central Park by myself, with luggage, at night when nobody is around to hear me die a horrible death.

Anyways, so I get up to my room and realize that since it's near the outside lounge where people are drinking, that the light is going to be on and the door left open the entire night. I was too tired to care, but normally this would madden me. Also, there were 6 bunk beds in the smallest room possible, and I had to unpack clothing on my bed and sleep with my bags on my bed since there was nowhere else to put them.

Then I decide I need to shower before bed, since I have to check into my other hostel first thing in the morning before heading to flushing for tennis. So I end up waiting a full hour for the front desk guy to bring my a towel. He seems more interested in chatting me and everybody else up than getting his partner to come downstairs and get me a bloody towel. And it turns out there were towels behind him the entire time. SIGH. I got to bed at 3am.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to stay at Jazz-on-the-Park, only do so if you plan on getting drunk, partying, and then crashing. Very nice staff, but it's loud and messy as Hell.

Okay, tennis on Tuesday will come in the next post

[The Chloe]

And then it was Tuesday. After my nice 4 hour sleep, I wander from 106 to 100 looking for 103rd and Amsterdam, because I'm a bit slow at that time in the morning. Eventually I find my hostel for the rest of the trip, Hostelling International NY, and check my bags. Then it's off to tennis, which is about an hour trip from that area by Central Park.

As has become my tradition at tennis, I plan to meet with people at the Arthur Ashe statue across from Ashe stadium. I didn't meet some until later since their train was late or some blah, but I met Jess (savestheday), whom I already knew from Montreal, and her mother. We go get an order of play and blah, and I make a point of circling everybody that I have to see so that I don't somehow fail to notice them on the sheet later that day.

I would have gotten an order of play on my way in, had I known where to do so. Later in the week they have them as soon as you enter the gates, but the first two days I had to go to the Information booth. This was clearly too obvious for me, and I had to find out from a nice man who was sitting near me that I spoke with before meeting Jess. Around this time I also spotted my first player of the USO - Adam Chadaj! No, really! He was! His blonde 'fro ran right by me a few times. It was impossible not to recognize him.

It seems that the first match we went to was Harel Levy vs Dusan Vemic. This was Jess' idea, because she likes to stalk people and hope they might show up at their countrymen's matches I didn't stick it out long, and wandered off to find Tipsarevic practicing a couple courts over. I alerted Jess, who joined me watching him. Not without arguing that it didn't look like Tipsarevic, though. Granted, he was one court over from where we were viewing, but come on! Who else looks like that, Jess?

Then it appears that I saw Clement practice. Somebody likes him that I chat with *cough*Deb*cough* so I took some pictures. Actually, I took pictures of everybody I have mentioned so far. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't remember I saw them

For some reason I watched the last set of Pless-Karanusic. I think Pless was injured. He didn't call for the trainer, but he was lying on the ground and stretching is back on changeovers. Karanusic was bouncing his racquet all over the place and not playing particularly well. He wasn't smashing it violently, he was just making it bounce so that he could then catch it. He did this over and over and over again until he finally got a code violation for it, at which point he finally just chucked it at his chair, knocking the chair a bit. I liked Roko, he was expressive Eventually he lost, and he didn't seem to take it too hard. I suppose that he could have, but he and Pless exchanged some kind words at the net (judging by their body language) and then he sat with his coach on the bench by the court for a while, and a short while later I spotted them eating in the food court.

After that I watched some of Gilles Simon and Ivan Miranda. I wasn't there for too long, since I only really went to take photos of Simon for somebody who insisted upon it, even though said person didn't take any photos of Mahut for me when he caught him practicing nekkid in Washington. *cough*KarolBeckFan*cough* Simon looks awfully young.

I watched the end of Dancevic and Mlynarik. Mlynarik's cheering squad was tiny, but they sure were loud. And he.... really shouldn't have lost that match. He served for it once that I saw, and possibly again before that. But when it came to the tb, Frank just stepped it up and served his brains out, was very agressive, and it paid off for him. I was rooting for Frank and good on him for pulling this match out, but I felt a bit for Mlynarik - and his camp!

Then it was time for the Adam Chadaj show. I wish that I could say more about Adam than his hair is awesome and who I assume is his gf is very good looking... but I really can't He was not having a good day. He doesn't seem to have one great shot, so I imagine that his keys are his speed and consistency off the ground... and he was sadly lacking consistency this day. He tried to mix it up a few times by throwing in a lob or drop shot, but they usually missed. The drop shots would bounce off the net back at him and the lobs would go long or wide. Like, he has to be better than this some days or he would not be ranked in the top 500 Anyways, so that is how Parmar kicked his butt. His hair still rules though. I took a picture of his gf too, when she wasn't looking. I think she was glaring at me for talking too much, but it could have been my imagination.

After that I watched some of Roger-Vasselin and Pavel Snobel. I like, had to leave though, because Richard Gasquet was sitting right across court from me and I kept staring at his hair. Okay, I admit it. I really was doing this. I was having a fight with myself. It went something like this: "Wow, Richard has great hair! Give him a couple years and it will be as nice as Paul Henri's! Ew, Rebecca. STOP THAT. But, Richard has great hair! EW! STOP THAT!" It was really retarded and I couldn't handle it anymore, so I ran away. I have all these photos of R-V though, because I could have sworn that somebody asked me to take some. Now I'm thinking I imagined that. Most didn't turn out anyways.

I saw Schuettler practicing on court 5. Nobody cared, so it was easy to take pictures of him...but they kind of suck. Oh well.

Then I stopped and took a couple pictures of De Chaunac as I was walking by, and I really don't know why I did that. Probably because he beat Coria this year and now I know what he looks like.

Then I met up with Jess again - I saw her gawking from the bleachers on court 4 over the practice courts and realized that she was either seeing Djokovic or somebody else that rawks. So I follow her up there and we proceed to stare at Mario and Djokovic for the next hour. Well, I wasn't really paying attention to Mario, but I like him too so I probably should have been. I took lame pictures from up there, and they suck. Delic was playing Bogomolov on the court we were standing at, but who cared? And Delic is kind of hot to boot.

I saw some of Del Potro and Delgado. I left after the start of the second set. Did Del Potro call the trainer? Anyways, he's very raw and inconsistent. He would play a brilliant couple of points followed by several awful ones. But he's young - and TALL. I'll keep an eye on him. Delgado was basically cruising while I was there.

That's pretty much Tuesday. I will put the pyhotos up and now and link to them ASAP. I might have time to write up Wednesday after that.

I also saw some of the women, but I'm leaving them out of the reports for now.

[The Chloe]

And then it was Wednesday.

I woke up to find somebody sleeping at the foot of the bunk. I looked down at him for a while and wondered if I was too tired to make a flying leap over him. I decided that yes, I probably was. Thankfully, he stirred and looked up, then rolled over so that I had room. Why there were people on my floor, I never entirely understood, but they were there the entire time. I think their friends were in that room and just letting them sleep on the floor for free. If I was a jerk I could have reported them, but I'm not.

So I skip breakfast because I'm a cheapskate, and off to the tennis I go. So, as I always do, I take my order of play and sit at my spot by the Ashe statue. I didn't really have plans to meet up with anybody new today, so I wasn't stressed or anything.

My first stop of the day was Clement and Chen on court 11. I watched the first set and had a good feeling that Clement would run away with it. Chen wasn't bad but he seemed nervous and was making some bad errors as a result of that.

After that I spent time watching women's tennis to take pictures of somebody that a friend of mine happens to like.

Then it was time to check out Strakhovsky, whom somebody from my board had asked that I see. Well, I'm glad that I did! I really liked his game and hope to see more of him in the future. I suck at explaining games, but I'll do what I can here. He has a one handed backhand, is fairly agressive, finishes quite a few points at the net, moves pretty well, etc. There, that's why I don't explain how people play or what their strengths and weaknesses are Anyways, he sort of gagged when serving for the match against Carraz. He had a sitter at the net and he just dumped it. And the point before that he got fairly passive. If I remember correctly he needed at least a couple match points to close it out. Carraz was pissed when he got broken at 4all in the third, btw. He pouted in his chair and chucked his water bottle on to the court so hard that it busted and the ball people had to towel that part of the court off. Not that I blame him for being upset, I'm just sayin'.

Women's tennis stuff, blah.

I saw Marray play, because for some reason he has a fan thread on my board. So I took photos of him for them. Marray was playing Ascione. I don't think that he actually does, but Ascione kind of looks like he has a beer belly. I think he's just built thick like Nalbandian. I saw Luczak at some point during that time, but not for long. I just walked by and took a picture in case somebody liked him.

I saw Mayer practicing. I'm hard of seeing and wasn't sure it was him at first

And then, the event that made my day Well, one of two events that made my day. I see a crowd at the covered practice courts and wonder - who is here? So I get closer and see Novak Djokovic practicing and think "YAY" because I like him lots. So I take out my camera and then I get thinking.... erm, why the crowd? I mean, Novak rawks, but most people don't know that yet. So I ask somebody what is going on and they tell me that Federer is on the other side of the court (which I couldn't see from where I was standing). lol! I was not nearly as excited about this as he thought I should be, and continued trying to take pictures of Novak. So the guy is like "no no, that's Federer on the other side". lol! I'm like "yeah, I know". So then no less than half a dozen people over the next little while ask me who Novak is, where he's from, how old, is he any good, etc. Since I mispronounce his name, this kind of blew. But either than that it was fine. I watched this practice for about an hour and then took some photos of Novak on his way out, because I'm creepy like that. He thinks so too, if you look at the look on his face in the last one

I went to Benneteau and Hilton after that, to take some photos of Julien for a friend of mine who loves him *cough*Esther*cough*

I decided to wander at that point and see who was practicing. On the way to the practice courts I came across John Paul Fruttero and Michael Lammer. I wouldn't have stopped, since I wasn't interested in either, but Fruttero had this American flag bandana that amused me. Now, there is nothing wrong with this bandana, but it caught my attention and I'm easily amused. So I took a photo of him and noted that he doesn't curse to himself in English. Did he anglo his name to John Paul, or was he born in the USA? The ATP site tells me nothing, aside from the fact that we share a birthday. This makes him awesome.

Moving on, I saw Gambill and Schuettler practicing. Took one photo of each and took off. The other day when I had seen Gambill somebody asked me if it was indeed he, because they thought as much from his two handed forehad. I said that year, I recognized him because of his torso.

For the second year in a row I watched Vahaly bow out of qualies on court 7. Too bad for him, he seems likable.

Then Paula Garcia and Virginia Ruano-Pascual won the "you play right before Mahut" sweepstake and got to have their pictures taken by moi. I had spent the entire day tracking the progress on court 13, because Mahut was 4th on that court and I lurve him. Anybody who has anything bad to say about him is banned from this thread. That means you, KBF

I watched Mahut's entire match, because I lurve him. I even kept the bad photos where he's like, wiping his face or nose or something, because I'm really quite sad. My favourite is the one where he has a disgusted look on his face and appears to be looking towards the camera. Well, he is sort of, becaue I was sitting two feet over from his coach or trainer or whatever. He glared at him basically the whole match. He played awful. I was sad. He can play much better than that. There were 2 or 3 double faults in the tie break with one of them coming at set point down. That about sums up how the match went. I sulked for a good half hour after this because, in case I failed to mention it, I lurve Mahut. My chance to see him for another two days had been crushed by Amritraj, who played well enough. It pains me to write about this

After sulking for a while like the loser fan girl that I am,... wait, wait, no first I followed him out like the loser fangirl that I am. His coach walked like, 20 meters behind him and Nicolas just went straight for the cars. I found this a bit strange, but I guess he's the sort that you don't go 5 feet from after a loss, which is more or less what I had figured out in Montreal as I watched him almost trample people on his way back to the players area after losing to Rochus. So then I sulked, then it was time for Dudi Sela and Andy Murray.

I really wanted to see Murray, since I've been kidding about him on here for a while to tease da hatas Also, a couple posters asked me to get Dudi pictures of something, so I did that. It was an enjoyable match, with the best point coming right before the last point of the match. I didn't count but it was more than a dozen strokes with some lobs, drop shots, and finally Murray getting something he couldn't handle at the net and dumping. The Dudi fans went wild

This match was fairly heavily attended, mainly because of the Murray buss I think, but the Israeli players had a good deal of support in qualies, I found. Dudi went off with his coach after the loss and his coach had his arm around him - I was like "aw, Dudi!" Then some of his fans went after him for photos. He was clearly crushed but stopped to take photos for them anyways, which I thought was awfully nice. I wouldn't have blamed him for sulking off (even though he didn't play badly at all, he just had a bad draw). About 5 minutes pass and I walk past court 7 again and see that Andy is still on court with a fairly large crowd of people waiting for photos and autographs as he gives an on camera interview on court. I found this all quite stunning and tried to get some photos of it, lol. The ones I got the next match were a bit better, and Friday was absolutely chaos. The media has made him quite the star, apparently I mean, I expected buzz, but that exceeded my expections.

Anyways, this youngish guy, a teenger, goes up and talks to Andy after the match. I had been sitting near him and it was clear he was a huge fan. No idea if he posts here, but I decided that he is definitely Andy's number 1 fan, and anybody who claims otherwise is lying I literally saw him do a fist pump after Andy walked away victorious. It was amazing.

Anyways, Andy haters should beware. He's very good and he is way too conceited to fail

That's pretty much Wednesday. I will write up the other two days and put photos up from those days tomorrow or Monday.

[TennisHack]

admin said:

I have all these photos of R-V though, because I could have sworn that somebody asked me to take some. Now I'm thinking I imagined that. Most didn't turn out anyways.

LMAO, that was me!

[leena]

Copied from MTF:

Andrew's is automatically better, already.

Around this time I also spotted my first player of the USO - Adam Chadaj! No, really! He was! His blonde 'fro ran right by me a few times. It was impossible not to recognize him.

Why didn't you try talking to him? I could have taught you some basic Polish, since everyone is Polish around here.

It seems that the first match we went to was Harel Levy vs Dusan Vemic. This was Jess' idea, because she likes to stalk people and hope they might show up at their countrymen's matches

Meeting me at a tourney = Bad.
Meeting crazy Croats = Good.
I'm hurt, truly.

*cough*KarolBeckFan*cough*

Please stop mentioning that useless queer.

I took a picture of his gf too, when she wasn't looking. I think she was glaring at me for talking too much, but it could have been my imagination.

Yep, that was the reason.

I didn't really have plans to meet up with anybody new today, so I wasn't stressed or anything.

Meeting message board people causes you stress? I liked when you used to be all hardcore, and stuff.

Women's tennis stuff, blah.

Well said.

After sulking for a while like the loser fan girl that I am,... wait, wait, no first I followed him out like the loser fangirl that I am.

I admire your fangirlism. I hope you were better than the Andy Murray fan.

LMAO, that was me!

Shut up.

Becca, why didn't we ask me for pics.

[Maeby Fünke]

You seem to have a bit of a thing about hair.

[The Chloe]

And then it was Thursday.

Chloe was starting to get a bit tired of waking up and finding new people at the foot of her bunk, but she was on holidays and decided to brush it off.

To begin my day, the USTA decided that they wantd my boot up their ass when their dude demanded that I remove my medicine container from my bag and not bring it on the grounds. My medicine container was this little 1 cm by 5cm old mints tin that was full of stomache remedy and antinauseant stuff - things that I don't like just floating around in my bag on their own, since they get crushed and are expensive. I had taken this in the last two days without any problems whatsoever, but oh no, not today. So they inform that I can keep the medicine - HOW KIND OF THEM - but had to give up the tin. My head nearly exploded, and this one women working the table clearly felt really bad about the situation. So I'm like "FINE", I take the tin, throw it's contents into my bag, in the process dropping a few on the ground (which the woman then picks up, and I apologize to her). I was PISSED. I did say grimly that I was sorry, I realize they enforce rules, not create them (I do sympathize with them... it's a boring, thankless job they do)... but that doesn't change the fact it was completely unnecessary to remove that item. Items like that weren't even listed on the sign. So basically, the guy used his discretion. Afterall, I might hve ripped the tin open with my teeth midday and tried to cut somebody with it's jagged edge, right? Right.

I think it was this day that I met up with Swiss Mister. Lucky for him, that was about half an hour after being so rudely stripped by the bag checkers, because I was sulking for a good 15 minutes after that occured, grinding my teeth and the whole bit. This was also the first day that I did not see Mahut stroll by as I was sitting at the Ashe statue. He's so tall. Watching Mahut stroll by each day had been like, one of the highlights. One that I failed to mention, but there is too much to mention to write it all

So I meet up with SM and we decide to go see who is practicing. I think Hrbaty was, and a few other people I didn't care about. So I decide I'm going to go watch Delic and Peya, because Peya used to be The Hair and is thus a sentimental favourite of mine. Also, Delic is hot. I wandered in and out a couple times this match, but I watched most of the three sets. It's the best match that I saw this year, I believe. Both held match points in the tiebreaker and Delic actually served for it, but Peya fought and scrapped until the very end. Peya won me over that match. I was no longer just a fan of the artist formerly known as -and soon to be known again as- The Hair; I was a fan of his game too! He was scrappy and fighting hard in all matches that I watched him in this past week. Maybe because he knew that a lost would mean that his ranking would die a horrible death, even more horrible than the death it has already died. A pity for Delic to lose this one, though. He certainly had his chances. Playing Peya must be a pain in the ass though, he gets to everything and is a total junk baller.

I was sitting next to some guy that I thought was his coach, but after asking mid match it turned out it wasn't. I thought it was because he and the guy beside him had credentials and were quite vocal in their support for Alex and were clearly Austrian. But his explanation to me went something like this: "Alex come from Austria. We come from Austria". Anyways, I liked them a lot, because they were the two Alex fans among the sea of Delic fans, so I'm glad I choose to sit there. Some guy came up mid match and asked if they knew Alex's ranking and if he had been in the tournament before. The man beside me, his English wasn't super, so I had to help him out and tell the guy asking the questions that last year Alex made the third round and lost to Robredo. Then the guy comes over to me a few minutes later and asks if I know Peya personally. lol. I laughed and said that no, I just remembered him from last year and was a bit of a fan. I did not explain The Hair to him.

Womens tennis stuff, blah.

I stopped by Armando and Parmar to take a couple pictures of Hugo for his adoring fans who had begged for them. Sorry they aren't better, but Peya was still going on behind him at that point. I also saw Marray at some point since somebody on my board roots for him, I think, so I took photos for them.

I also saw Janko practicing, because Janko is omnipresent. He is, ask Jess. After a while you can't help but wonder "am I stalking Janko by accident? What is going on?!" I took a couple pictures of him, but he had no shirt on and I still feel kind of skeevy taking photos like that. I know that I shouldn't because everybody does it, but that's just how I am. Sorry they aren't better, since he is kind of hot and stuff.

I watched most of the second and third sets of Lisnard and Dancevic. To this day I can't figure out how Frank won the first set 6-1, but good for him. Lisnard cruised the rest of the match, basically. I was sitting beside one of their coaches, and realized after a while that he wasn't really cheering when Frank did stuff well, so I decided that I should stop sitting there and giggling over Lisnard's whining tirades with the umpire. I moved to the other side, at which point I found Lisnard's real coach. The conclusion here is that Frank's coach is either weird, or that wasn't the coach of either man. At one point Lisnard had a nice spaz at the umpire over a line call and said something about "the Canadian" and I thought perhaps he felt they were favouring the Canuck, but I might have heard him wrong. Some woman a couple seats over me was like "he is NASTY" and I giggled. I don't mind him, but yes, he's a bit nasty when PO-ed.

A friend of mine on another board likes Moodie, so I watched the last half of Moodie and Roger-Vasselin. I was pleased to see that although his coach was present, Richard's hair was not there to distract me. At some point near the end I spotted Swiss Mister standing down court from me so I went over there just in time for him to tell me that Richard's hair had JUST walked by him on his cell phone. So I was like "WHERE DID IT GO?" and I start talking about how awesome his hair is. Um, then he walks RIGHT by me. This was a horrible, horrible moment. I doubt he was listening or cared if he was, but that is not the point. Roger-Vasselin saved one match point with a would-have-been drop shot that just hardly trickled over the net. It was a bit lucky, and I thought out loud that my Moodie-fan friend must be flipping out over Moodie's wasted matchpoints

Um, after that I think that I may have debated following Richard's hair. Did I? Probably. Sad. That is a disgusting habit that I've formed, but the Gasquet fans here must love it since it's unlikely I will be bothering then next time he plays Nadal

Womens tennis stuff, blah.

So then I decide to watch Stakhovksy, a potential new Chloe fave, face Clement. I thought he had a great shot against Clement and he showed that in the first set. Near the end of the first set I see a crowd forming on court 5 where players sometimes practice. I see a guy that I recognize as Almagro, based on the size of his head. I think to myself "Almagro for life! I'm SO THERE after this set". But then I get thinking to myself....waaaaiiiit a second... why the crowd? For Almagro? WHO IS HE PRACTICING WITH? Then I notice that a lot of people around me have gotten up and the crowd is continuing to grow around court 5. Then I hear somebody near me say "is that Nadal?" So naturally, I wait until the point is over and I BOOT it towards the exit. Thankfully the point ended a game, otherwise I would have been risking a death glare from Clement. He stares holes through people who move during his games. Sometimes he even stops play to do this until they notice him glaring at them.

Anyways, so I go see Nadal and Almagro for a bit. Being the grown up that I am, I squeeze by children to get a front row seat on the bleacher. Unfortunately, I was facing the sun, so those photos weren't going to work. I switched sides and patiently waited oppotunities to move in and get some shots. I even took a couple videos of Rafa A few people asked me who Almagro was, since I was one of few bothering to photograph him. One guy looked quite pleased and was like "oh yes, I've heard about him", and this pleased me. You might notice that the Almagro pictures tended to turn out better- that's because his half of the court was easier to get right up beside than Rafa's, and I wasn't taking photos through people's heads

I also took a ocuple pictures of Uncle Toni, since somebody named Mary likes him or something. Right? Right.

I went back to Clement and Stakhovsky at this point. As I was waiting to get on court at an appropriate time, in order to avoid Clement stare downs, a woman approaches me and asks "are you from Canada?" See, I had been waving around my hat that happens to have a Canadian flag on the side. I am like "yes, yes I am", and she asks "Rebecca? As in Chloe?" And I'm like "yo, I'm a rockstar". Okay, no, not really. To make a longer story short, I met michelleg, who just happened to approach some random person with a Canuck flag and ask if it was Chloe. But I'm glad she did! We had a great time story telling and what not, I believe. So thanks, Michelle

At some point I watched part of Andy Murray's match. This may have been before I met Michelle, my timeframe is a bit messed up here. I took a lot of photos to demonstrate more Andy mania, and show that he is a great fan-loving humanitarian. Sadly, I did not see Andy's number 1 fan, but I was sure he was around somewhere.

Jarkko was practicing right near this court, so I got a few photos of him as well. And a 4 second video clip for somebody I know who likes him. I didn't realize it was so short, but I was running out of camera space so I did what I could

I watched Benneteau's match with Michelle, and Swiss mister joined us part way through. A good time was had by all.

Okay, that's basically it for Thursday. One more thing occured to me that is worth mentioning, and that was when I left the venue to buy a hotdog in the middle of the day. There is a hotdog stand right outside the main gates where it's much cheaper to buy drinks, candy, food, etc. so I went there often during my trip in order to avoid giving the USTA 34234 dollars for a single meal. So this time I'm sitting there at a picnic table with my hotdog, a pop, and a package of skittles out. This guy comes over with an order of play or a draw in hand, and asks me if I've seen any good matches. He seems nice enough, so I tell him about Delic and Peya a bit. Then he asks me if I'm qualifying. SERIOUSLY. I'm like "huh, sorry?" and he waves his sheet and asks if I'm in the draw. I'm like, trying not to die, and tell him that no, I'm just a fan. Oh, hilarity.

[The Chloe]

willow said:

You seem to have a bit of a thing about hair.

I know. This is stupid and quite new, actually. I don't remember going on about guys with great hair in the past.

[The Chloe]

tennishack said:

admin said:

I have all these photos of R-V though, because I could have sworn that somebody asked me to take some. Now I'm thinking I imagined that. Most didn't turn out anyways.

LMAO, that was me!

Oh

Well just so everybody knows, the photos are all on MTF in my photo album there. They should start on page 1 and are in reverse order... that is, the last day posted is first.

It takes so long to put them up that I can't be bothered to organize them. If you can't find a photo of somebody that I mentioned that you wanted to see, or don't have an MTF account, let me know and I can email you the photos.

[TennisHack]

admin said:

Then it was time to check out Strakhovsky, whom somebody from my board had asked that I see. Well, I'm glad that I did! I really liked his game and hope to see more of him in the future. I suck at explaining games, but I'll do what I can here. He has a one handed backhand, is fairly agressive, finishes quite a few points at the net, moves pretty well, etc. There, that's why I don't explain how people play or what their strengths and weaknesses are Anyways, he sort of gagged when serving for the match against Carraz. He had a sitter at the net and he just dumped it. And the point before that he got fairly passive. If I remember correctly he needed at least a couple match points to close it out.

Well I'm glad I inspired you I remember seeing his name in the junior draw last year, he made the final. He has had a great entrance onto the tour in challengers, and made the Milan QFs earlier this year. He pretty much sucks on the clay, though, and his momentum stalled halfway through the year. I'm sorry he couldn't qualify here, but am looking forward to him doing well indoors again this year.

I saw Marray play, because for some reason he has a fan thread on my board. So I took photos of him for them. Marray was playing Ascione.

Because he's the true British hope, that's why Seriously, ILR really liked him when she saw him at Queen's last year and thus we started a thread for him He's kinda cute. Unfortunately he's wildly inconsistent and hasn't had nearly the success his game would suggest. He's 24 so he's getting up there in years.

I'll have to raid your galleries for him!

I saw Mayer practicing. I'm hard of seeing and wasn't sure it was him at first

:lust:

Too bad we won't be getting coverage of his matches this year I fell in love with him during last year's USO.

I was not nearly as excited about this as he thought I should be, and continued trying to take pictures of Novak. So the guy is like "no no, that's Federer on the other side". lol! I'm like "yeah, I know". So then no less than half a dozen people over the next little while ask me who Novak is, where he's from, how old, is he any good, etc. Since I mispronounce his name, this kind of blew.

LMAO!!! Well at least you got your pics. I hope he was wearing a hat to balance out his face.

Anyways, Andy haters should beware. He's very good and he is way too conceited to fail

*groan*

[tennis32378]

I figured that I would eventually find some kind of report by Chloe if I stopped by here . I'm sad that there is not more of a report about anything to do with Alex Bogomolov. I definitely would have cared about that practice session .

[TennisHack]

admin said:

So they inform that I can keep the medicine - HOW KIND OF THEM - but had to give up the tin.

What assholes! I can only imagine what the security's going to be like for the men's final...

I did not explain The Hair to him.

I'm trying to picture you having that conversation. Many hand gestures would be involved, no doubt. The Austrians might think you were a crazy weirdo. Good choice!

A friend of mine on another board likes Moodie, so I watched the last half of Moodie and Roger-Vasselin. I was pleased to see that although his coach was present, Richard's hair was not there to distract me. At some point near the end I spotted Swiss Mister standing down court from me so I went over there just in time for him to tell me that Richard's hair had JUST walked by him on his cell phone. So I was like "WHERE DID IT GO?" and I start talking about how awesome his hair is. Um, then he walks RIGHT by me. This was a horrible, horrible moment. I doubt he was listening or cared if he was, but that is not the point. Roger-Vasselin saved one match point with a would-have-been drop shot that just hardly trickled over the net. It was a bit lucky, and I thought out loud that my Moodie-fan friend must be flipping out over Moodie's wasted matchpoints

First of all: LMAO at your newly developed complex over Gasquet's hair. I've never seen it in person for myself but it must be pretty magnificent. I totally know what you mean about the awkward moment, though.

Nice of Richie to support his fellow young Frenchies

BTW, I wasn't really following the scoreboard for Wes's matches; I expected him to have a very hard time with Roger-Vasselin and was surprised and pleased with his scoreline (straights). Sounds like it's a good thing Firefox developed an allergy to the scoreboard, LOL.

I met michelleg, who just happened to approach some random person with a Canuck flag and ask if it was Chloe. But I'm glad she did! We had a great time story telling and what not, I believe. So thanks, Michelle

Cool!

Jarkko was practicing right near this court, so I got a few photos of him as well. And a 4 second video clip for somebody I know who likes him. I didn't realize it was so short, but I was running out of camera space so I did what I could

And she thanks you

Then he asks me if I'm qualifying. SERIOUSLY. I'm like "huh, sorry?" and he waves his sheet and asks if I'm in the draw. I'm like, trying not to die, and tell him that no, I'm just a fan. Oh, hilarity.

WTF?! Was he staking out the hotdog stand for quallie girls? Sketchy!

[The Chloe]

tennis32378 said:

I figured that I would eventually find some kind of report by Chloe if I stopped by here . I'm sad that there is not more of a report about anything to do with Alex Bogomolov. I definitely would have cared about that practice session .

Well I did see his last match, and will post that in my Friday report. I will bite my tongue for you, since I was not rooting for him

[The Chloe]

I hope he was wearing a hat to balance out his face.

Huh? Nothing wrong with his face

[TennisHack]

admin said:

I hope he was wearing a hat to balance out his face.

Huh? Nothing wrong with his face

If you read my comments in the ATP Portraits thread, you'd know what I meant

Why didn't you tell me that I wasn't the lone Moodie fan? Glad he had a few onsite to smile at after his Thurs win

[The Chloe]

Ah, yes, I stuck around and took that just for you. There were a few who went up and talked to him, and he seemed nice enough.

[tennis32378]

admin said:

Well I did see his last match, and will post that in my Friday report. I will bite my tongue for you, since I was not rooting for him

No need to bite your tongue. Yes, I get defensive . But, you warned me so let it all out . I said just as much in the PM that I sent you on MTF so where ever I read it. Any details will help

[The Chloe]

And then it was Friday.

I was late to get to the park on Friday because I was exhausted and slept in until almost 9am that morning Yes, somebody was sleeping near the foot of my bunk. Again. It was my last night, and I can't say I was too sad about that. The night before while using the shower I noticed the balls of hair on the ground and erm, stuff (it appeared to be mucus) wiped on the walls. I was pretty revolted, as one would be.

I decided that I would carry my bags with me to the park and check them there so that I wouldn't have to go back to the hostel after tennis and pick them up - the hostel was totally out of the way from the bus station. So after getting my bag stuck in the turnstiles at the subway station again, as I always do, I make my way towards the baggage check. Like, I'm clearly walking towards baggage check and not continuing down the boardwalk. Not only am I pointed towards it, but I'm carrying a rolling suitcase and backpack, as well as my purse. Regardless, Captain Obivous starts yelling at me as I'm walking RIGHT BY HER on my way to the Baggage Check. I have earphones on and would have ignored her if not for the fact that she's GLARING at me. So I stop and am like "what?" and she's like "you need to check your bags". Like, my head nearly exploded. Holy. Fucking. Duh. I looked at her and was like "uh, yeah, that's why I'm walking STRAIGHT FOR BAGGAGE CHECK". Holy fucking stupid. She and the other person she was standing with had been commenting that I had a backpack, apparently. Somehow they had failed to notice 1) the rolling suitcase and 2) the fact that I was walking for baggage check anyways. Oh yes, USO security is like, totally awesome.

Nothing that I cared about was on first, so I decided to hang out and see who was practicing. While doing so I ran right into Michelle, which was a pleasant surprise since she was not supposed to come that day, but changed her mind at last minute.

Right away we see Benneteau practicing alongside Berdych, and Karol Beck seems to be floating around there as well. I say I have to take Beck photos for a certain somebody who posts here, despite the fact that he bypassed taking photos of Mahut's body for me not too long ago. No, Scott, I will never forgive you for that

Then we wander over to see Costa and Calleri. Calleri was just coming off, and HE is a beautiful man. I took some photos of him that I was VERY pleased with. He's not usually all that photogenic, but he really is very handsome. I am not a fangirl of his, but I do appreciate beauty when I see it

Costa had actually walked by Michelle and I earlier in the day, and I was like "I LOVE COSTA" right behind him when Michelle pointed him out. However, I was not embarassed for myself because I wasn't very loud Regardless, I failed to notice his pink striped shorts when I saw him in person, but they sort of look like really ugly boxer shorts. WTF, Costa? He's like "yo, I'm Costa. I'll wear my ugly pink shorts if I want". This makes him awesome.

I also saw Monfils and Moya practicing, though not together. Monfils was actually practicing with Scoville Jenkins, further examination of my photos has revealed. At one point, Monfils went to run down a shot and fell down and sprawled out on his back. When he gets up, Scoville is like "that was just totally unnecessary" and Monfils looks amused. Either he didn't need to go all out like that, or the fall was over the top and dramatic. I wasn't sure which Scoville meant.

Then I saw Gasquet practicing on court with Mayer. The Gasquet photos are, again, hilariously awful. He's making constipated faces in all of them. I love it. Mayer looks lonely, he has nobody to talk to at his chair

After this I went to watch the last half of Peya and Okun. Just my luck, I end up sitting right next to the only 5 Austrian fans in the crowd. Okun, being from Israel, has a pretty large voice of support. Now, if I remember this correctly, Okun ought to have won in straight sets. But Peya just would not die. Okun eventually won the third, but Peya really really fought to stay in it. He looked sad when he lost, probably because his ranking is about to die a horrible death. Again. He'll survive, and hopefully bounce back. The Austrian fans were good fun, btw. They were super loud and this random NYer decided to join and started saying what they were saying, and asking them what it meant. It was really quite funny, but he was pissing of some Okun supporters Near the end as Alex was bound to go down sooner or later they jsut screamed "Alex! Alex! Alex!" over and over again. This really small kid near me scrunched up his face at his mother and said " I don't like when they do that" and started mocking them. I would have wanted to kick him if he was about 10 years older

Goods news for fans of The Hair. As my changeover photos reveal, it appears that The Hair may be potentially make a slow comeback. He took off his hat to reveal his short, yet spiked up hair. We can only hope that he's planning on growing it all the way back.

After this I saw Safin practice with Moya and took a couple pictures of Safin and his coach. Apparently he quit practice not long after, but I didn't stay long enough to notice.

I watched the end of Bjorkmans' match so that I would be comfortable for Murray and Lapentti. Apparently everybody else had this idea too, because not many people left after Bjorkman. When the match started you could have mistaken court 4 as being a main draw match for how well attended it was

Gio stunk up a storm in the first set. He was stunningly bad. I was bored. I considered leaving but figured it could only get better. And I was right Andy started to get pissy and Gio started to play much better. Andy kept slicing his backhand, and I really wished he would stop that because it really wasn't working out for him. Apparently he does that 90% of the time though, so at least it wasn't just a seriously stupid tactic that he failed to notice wasn't working on Gio.

The most hilarious thing about this match was this wacko fan who joined mid match. She didn't speak English very well and had like, half a dozen phrases that she would repeat over and over, during points. These would include "one more net!" whenever Gio hit a first serve fault, "Go Andy!" when Andy was serving and during points, "be careful!" when Andy was playing a long baseline rally, and a couple other things that I forget. Perhaps Swiss Mister can remember a couple others? She would also be like "ooohhh, ahhhhh" very very loudly during the points. Everybody around her starting telling her to shut up, and I was trying not to crack up. I was undecided if she was new to tennis, very very stupid, actually slow in which case I should stop laughing at her, or what. I think that I concluded at that point that she was slow, because there was just no other way somebody would act like that, especially after being shushed 2343 times.

After Andy's match, I saw Andy's number 1 fan again and pointed him out to Swiss Mister, because everybody should realize who Andyfan#1 is and RESPECT. So Andyfan#1 makes his way through Andymania to tell Andy that his camera is working today and can he get a quick photo with him this time when he has a second, and Andy is like "yeah, sure" and Andyfan#1 is like "cool, take your time, take your time". So Andyfan#1 then backs up and tells other people to "give him space!", and Swiss Mister spends the rest of the evening doing impressions of this. Right? Right. So Andyfan#1 eventually gets his photo with Andy and starts asking him stuff about some camp he's starting up, or something along that lines, and Andy continues to humour him. Andy rocks! Finally, Andy manages to get away and Andyfan#1 pumps his first in the air. No, seriously.

Andyfan#1, if you post here, you rock.

Anyways, after this it's on to Benneteau and Bogomolov. I was rooting for Benneteau from the beginning, but obviously Bogo was the crowd favourite. There was one group in particular that was screaming for him between games. It was cute, I suppose.

Bogomolov won the first set off a mishit overhead. He mishit it so badly that it popped way up in the air and the crowd went "awwww". But somehow, it smacks right down on the side of the net and then bounces back to his side. This IRRITATED me to no end since it was the luckiest mishit ever, and Bogo and the crowd both went absolutely fucking ballastic as if it was intentional. ROAR. ROAR ROAR ROAR. AOFIJASLKJDFAS. I wanted to know where his half-assed hand-wave apology was

Anways, at some point I was joined by SM, and at some point after that we were joined by the weird lady from Andy Murray's match. She started saying the same phrases and making the same noises for Alex! We concluded that she was insane, not slow. People were telling her to shut up and I saw her turn and glare and say "no, you shu-up. You shu-up" back at them. SM claims that she also turned to ask Benneteau's coach if he liked tennis, and I did hear her say that but did not get to see who she asked. She also tried to talk up some random tournament dude who was sitting beside her at one point, probably also wondering if he liked tennis. She was also laughing like crazy during points after doing her ridiculous cheering shit. And what had once become funny became annoying. Benneteau complained about it to the umpire, I think, but I don't know for sure. He went up and had a long talk with the guy, but was really quiet about it. She was definitely pissing off his camp, that much was for sure (she was sitting right infront and beside them, and we were right in front of her). A guy beside me was like "I guess this is what we should expect when it's free". Hee. True story.

Okay, that's basically it. I will add random comments and put Fridya pictures up later today.

[Patrik Sjöberg]

Thanks for the reports Chloe, these are so much better than I produce and good to see you had fun with Novak and the Mahut love will never die will it.

Good to see that you met Michelle and as for Al Costa the man is a charisma machine and those shorts prove it. As for Calleri, he has a lot of female fans it seems and not teeny boppers either which is good.

The tour needs more good hair and maybe Peya will deliver.

[tennis32378]

I have never seen Alex do the "hand apology" before so it doesn't surprise me at all that he didn't then. It's insincere most of the time anyway so no big.

Thanks for the report, Chloe.

[leena]

And then it was Monday.

I stayed home, and thought about Mahut. And I talked with Chloe on MSN. I feel... so sad.

[The Chloe]

tennis32378 said:

I have never seen Alex do the "hand apology" before so it doesn't surprise me at all that he didn't then. It's insincere most of the time anyway so no big.

Thanks for the report, Chloe.

It's insincere by nature, but it's something something most people do. Not that I normally would have cared that somebody passed on the gesture.

[The Chloe]

leena said:

And then it was Monday.

I stayed home, and thought about Mahut. And I talked with Chloe on MSN. I feel... so sad.

Mahut :lust:

And Novak! :lust:

[leena]

Did you injure Novak, Leena?

WHY DIDNT YOU HURT ANDY!!!!111

[The Chloe]

Which Novak?

[leena]

The non-cheating one.

[janie]

Fun to read! Thanks, Chloe. (Does make me glad I'm too old for hostels, though!)

I think Andy's #1 Fan is DEFINITELY our own Brinyi!

[The Chloe]

You're not too old for hostels, a guy at the first one I stayed with was down to visit his son... he looked to be in his late 50s ;D

[janie]

Darn!!! I was REALLY hoping I was too old!! I was hoping I had NO CHOICE but to check into plush hotels.

Becca, you saw Scotsboy. How would you compare his game & his level to Gasquet's?

[The Chloe]

He and Gasquet are nothing alike