2005 China Open (ATP Beijing)

[Kiro]

Sep.10th, 2005
Practise and Qualifying Rounds

I went to Beijing by train and arrived in morning. I met some friends and we had lunch together, then went to the site in the afternoon.

It was a cloudy Saturday. Qualifying matches were played, and some players were practising. I saw Wayne Arthurs, Nathan Healy, Mikhail Youzhny, Stefan Koubek, Ivo Heuberger, Lars Burgsmuller and Rainer Schuettler.

We heard that Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya were scheduled to practise at 3 p.m. But they didn¡¯t show up, because Nadal¡¯s luggages were lost during transportation. He had to wait until they get his shoes, clothes and racquets back.

Thomas Johansson came to practise at 16:10.. He chatted with Youzhny and Youzhny¡¯s coach, then hit with Koubek.

Then we saw Tripp Phillips came to practise with his doubles partner Huntley Montgomery. Tripp saw us, he waved arms to us with a big smile. ( He must have recognized us immediately. Later, when he finished practising and left the court, he was the first to say greetings: ¡®Hi! Last year I met you in Shanghai!¡¯ ;D )

Thomas finished practising at 17:30. He signed some autographs and left. The next one to show up was¡­Juan Carlos Ferrero! He came to practise as soon as he arrived.

This time he¡¯s travelling with Antonio Martinez, i.e. ¡®Toni¡¯. An Australian coach, Ivan, was also with them, I¡¯m not sure which role he was playing, though. Someone said that he¡¯s the physical trainer for Ferrero, and he seems to be coaching Guillermo Coria at the same time, too.

Juan Carlos¡¯ hair was much longer than before. He was wearing a Head shirt with orange sleeves. Shoes were still from Sergio Tacchini though. Though it was cloudy and the sky was already getting dark, he¡¯s still wearing a grey hat.

Juan Carlos seemed to be tired because of the long journey. He hit with Youzhny, it seems he wasn¡¯t feeling too well at that time. He practised for one hour and left the court.

A reporter from Tennis Magazine (China) went to Toni, asking if they could have an interview with Ferrero. Toni¡¯s not good at English, so Ivan acted as interpreter for their conversation. They told the reporter, Ferrero was going to practise on Sunday afternoon, and maybe they could have some time after practise. The anxious reporter couldn¡¯t wait and said: ¡®Right now, are you available for the interview?¡¯ Ivan said, ¡®No, today is not a good day. He just had a long trip.¡¯

I left the site to have dinner with some relatives. At night, I went to the airport to pick Dindin up. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 21:45, but it was postponed a little and didn¡¯t arrive until 22:15.

During the half hour when I was waiting for her, I was thinking: ¡®Well, if I¡¯m lucky, maybe I¡¯ll see some players arriving¡­¡¯ I noticed a plane from New York just arrived¡­And I saw Jarkko Nieminen! Jarkko was travelling alone, wearing a nice shirt (white, with flowers printed on it). He must be coming directly from US Open.

I went to him to say congratulations to his good run at NY. Jarkko smiled, said ¡®Thank you¡¯ and left with some staff from the tournament.

Well¡­I¡¯m so lucky to be the first one to greeting him in Beijing. And believe it or not, this could be the very start of the coming ¡®Jarkko mania¡¯!

Sep. 10th Pics:

www.jcfocus.com/talks/2005co01.htm

[TennisHack]

Kiro! I've been looking forward to your reports.

I wonder why Jarkko's been traveling alone. He went to the US Open alone, too. Anu's not happy to be the supportive wife on tour?

LOL @ Tripp Phillips, too.

[Lee]

I ran into Tripp Phillips in Scottsdale in 2003 and he was playing qualifying. He was not playing at that time but he was around talking with other players and coaches. I was too nervous to approach any player at that time (first hour in my first tournament ) but I could see he's a very friendly guy.

[Lee]

Thanks Kiro and

more pics?

[Kiro]

Sep.11th, 2005
Practise and Qualifying Rounds

The first thing Dindin, my friends and I did was to say hello to Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos didn¡¯t show up until 11:30. He was happy to see Dindin. Dindin brought 4 T-shirts from Hong Kong as gifts for Juan Carlos, Andres, Toni and GGL. After a brief lunch, Juan Carlos went to practise.

We went to the court too. Some players were training, we saw Carlos Moya, Guillermo Coria (his wife Carla was sitting beside the court watching him), Jarkko Nieminen, Rainer Schuettler, Stefan Koubek and Dick Norman.

Juan Carlos started to hit with Stefan Koubek. Koubek was on fire and Juan Carlos still seemed to be a bit weak. They played a set and Koubek won quite easily. Koubek left the court and Juan Carlos stayed to practise more.

After the session, Juan Carlos sat on the bench, chatted with Toni for quite a long time. Then he put on a shirt and left the court.

I wandered for a while and watched several games of a qualifying match: Ashley Fisher vs Ishii. Jarkko and Tripp Phillips were watching the match too. Fisher won in 3 sets.

Then we saw Rafael Nadal came to practise. Rafa is such a big boy! Very very muscular. He¡¯s very active in his practise session too. He¡¯s exciting to watch.

Later Rafael went to the centre court to hit with Srichaphan. In the baseline rallies Nadal was obviously stronger than his opponent, but he was struggling on his serve.

When they were about to finish, Juan Carlos came to the centre court. Rafael chatted with him, laughing and making faces all the time.

Rafael left and Juan Carlos stayed to practise under Toni¡¯s instrutions. It¡¯s mainly focused on hitting while running and some excercises of footsteps. Starting from the baseline, left, right, left, right, run to the net, hit a forehand, run back chasing an overhead drop shot, and hit it back between legs. OK, then do it all over again. It¡¯s pretty interesting to watch.

While I was watching Juan Carlos practising, a photographer from a newspaper came to take some pictures. His colleague asked him: ¡°Do you know who¡¯s this player?¡± He said: ¡°He¡¯s Ferrero, isn¡¯t he?¡± But his colleague said: ¡°No, he can¡¯t be Ferrero. Ferrero is not as good-looking as him. This guy¡¯s much more handsome than Ferrero!¡± lol...

Sep. 11th Pics:

www.jcfocus.com/talks/2005co01.htm
(updated)

[TennisHack]

kiro said:

While I was watching Juan Carlos practising, a photographer from a newspaper came to take some pictures. His colleague asked him: ¡°Do you know who¡¯s this player?¡± He said: ¡°He¡¯s Ferrero, isn¡¯t he?¡± But his colleague said: ¡°No, he can¡¯t be Ferrero. Ferrero is not as good-looking as him. This guy¡¯s much more handsome than Ferrero!¡± lol...

Hilarious!

Hm, from most of the people I've talked to, JCF's looks have only gotten worse since his golden 2003...

[The Chloe]

They have, Hackie

[The Chloe]

Oh, and thanks Kiro ;D

[Lee]

Thanks Kiro again. Especially the Rainer pictures.

[The Chloe]

For some reason, I can't load the site. I mean, it will partially load, but only about half the photos... and it takes SO long to get that far, that I don't really bother. I always have this problem with Kiro's website

I have the same problem with a Chinese website that frequently has fairly good photos... I can't remember what it's called.

[Lee]

admin said:

For some reason, I can't load the site. I mean, it will partially load, but only about half the photos... and it takes SO long to get that far, that I don't really bother. I always have this problem with Kiro's website

I have the same problem with a Chinese website that frequently has fairly good photos... I can't remember what it's called.

Try when it's late night in China. Eastern time zone is 17 hours behind so try to access the site in the morning.

[The Chloe]

Thanks Lee, I will try tomorrow before class

[Kiro]

Sep. 12th, 2005
1st Round

Some final round qualifying matches would be finished on Monday, and the main draw matches also started on Monday. Moya vs Srichaphan was the 1st evening match, starting at 7 pm. Juan Carlos¡¯s first match was scheduled at night, not before 9 pm, against Hyung-Taik Lee.

We went to the stadium at noon. We watched Thomas Johansson training for a while. Jarkko and Rainer were training together. Tripp and his doubles partner came to warm up for their doubles match.

When I saw Jonas Bjorkman, I was surprised. I didn¡¯t expect him to be here. He accepted a wild card to play here in Beijing, but he¡¯s gonna play singles, not doubles. Jonas seemed to be in good mood, he played some good points with Youzhny. And they chatted with other players too, quite excited, I guess they were talking about the doubles final match of US Open, which Jonas and Max just played. Later David Nalbandian came to practice too.

Bjorkman signed autographs for fans at about 3:30 pm. We went there and I told him that we look forward to seeing him and Max in Shanghai in November too. He¡¯s glad to hear that.

I went to watch doubles matches on Court 1 and Court 2. This was the first time the new doubles rules were adopted, I was curious to see how it works.
The first match I watched was between Tripp Philipps/Huntley Montgomery and a couple of twin brothers from Thailand.
Well, IMO the new rules brought too much random factors into the match. And it killed the tension of a game when 2 parties came to deuce. Maybe the match could be more dramatic, but the rules made the match out of rhythm and I don¡¯t like it.
When 2 parties came to deuce, the game would be decided by the very next point, the receiving party should decide which player to receive. And in such cases Tripp and Huntley were always unlucky. It was not because they were playing badly or the Thai brothers were hitting winners on those points, several times the ball just bounced on the net and dropped into Tripp and Montgomery¡¯s court, and there goes another game¡­as the match went on, Tripp became more and more upset. In the end he was shouting ¡°Every time I hate this!¡±
In the end Tripp and Montgomery lost the match. Obviously they were unhappy about the new rules. Ashley Fisher was watching Tripp¡¯s match, after the match, Tripp talked with him, complaining a lot about the rules.

At 6 pm, Juan Carlos came to warm up for his evening match. He was wearing an orange shirt. He hit with David Nalbandian for about half an hour, they had a pleasant chat and went back together.

And here comes the story of ¡°How did Jarkko Nieminen become a big star¡±.

We saw a group of European gentlemen came to the stadium together. About 20 gentlemen, all wearing suits or formal shirts with ties. Most of them were quite tall. They stayed together and one of them began to ask everyone he met: ¡°Excuse me, do you know where Jarkko Nieminen is playing?¡±
At first, few ppl knew exactly who Jarkko was and where his match was going to be played. The guy went to ask the staff guy at the entrance of the centre court, but the staff didn¡¯t know Jarkko either. Some girls who were playing juniors came out from the locker room. They guy went to them to ask if Jarkko was in the centre court or not. One of the girls went to the centre court to have a check, but Jarkko was not there either.
Anyway, in the end they found out that Jarkko did have a match to play in the evening. It¡¯s a doubles match, Jarkko/Rainer would play against Gimelstob/Healy at court 1.
Those gentlemen went to Court 1 to support Jarkko. Everyone went with a bottle of beer. Everytime Jarkko hit a good winner, they cheered and clapped hands for him. It was not like an unimportant doubles match, but like a big celebrating party.
Jarkko was playing ok in the match, except some errors on forehand volleys. But Rainer¡¯s making some errors and giving too many easy balls to their opponents. They lost in 3 sets.
After the match, while Jarkko was stopped by several fans, signing autographs, Rainer left the court immdiately, refused request for autographs.
The group of European gentlemen waited outside the court patiently. When Jarkko finished signing for the fans, they went to him to say hello. They were talking in their own language. I think they¡¯re Finnish too. Obviously, they were congratulating Jarkko for his good run at US Open. I guess they were telling Jarkko how exciting his win was. Jarkko seemed to be surprised but very happy. They had a photo together. (I took a pic of them too, click here to see it:
www.jcfocus.com/temp/jarkkofan.jpg
It¡¯s nice to see Jarkko surrounded by those guys, like a big star. )


Well, before this evening, few ppl knew Jarkko, but after this, he became really, really well-known here.

We went back to the centre court and caught the last game of Moya vs Srichaphan. Moya won in straight sets. After the match, winner Moya was supposed to hit some balls to the stands. Well, Careless Moya was too happy and he hit one of the balls out of the stadium. ;D

At about 8:30 pm, Hyung-Taik Lee came to the centre court to warm up. During the past several days we didn¡¯t see him at all. (Later we knew through his post match interview that he was in Korea for the openning of his tennis school on Sunday.) He practiced a little before the match.
At 9 pm, Juan Carlos came to the court to play the match. Lars Graff was the umpire.
The match started and Lee was serving first. Juan Carlos got BPs in the 1st game but didn¡¯t catch any of them. They went on holding their own service games. Soon it went to 5-4, Juan Carlos was serving to stay in the set.
On the 1st point he hit an forehand down the line, but it was a little wide. And then, he made some bad errors. The terrible game cost him the 1st set.
Juan Carlos adjusted himself and was performing better. In the end of the 2nd set he managed to break Lee and get one set back.
The 3rd set went on serve. Juan Carlos had 2 mps in Lee¡¯s service game at 5-4. Lee served an ace on the 1st mp, and on the 2nd mp Juan Carlos missed an easy forehand. They held one more game each, and it went to 6-5, Juan Carlos had another 2 mps at 15-40. This time he made an error on the 1st one and Lee served an ace on the 2nd one. They went to deuce, Juan Carlos took the advantage and it was already the 5th mp. This time Lee hit an overhead smash wide and Juan Carlos finally won the match. (Phew¡­)

Dindin was flying back to Hong Kong on Tuesday morning, so we waited for Juan Carlos after the match. Dindin said goodbye to Toni and Juan Carlos¡­Then we went to have our delayed dinner.

Sep. 12th Pics:

www.jcfocus.com/talks/2005co02.htm

[TennisHack]

kiro said:

And here comes the story of How did Jarkko Nieminen become a big star.
.
.
.
The group of European gentlemen waited outside the court patiently. When Jarkko finished signing for the fans, they went to him to say hello. They were talking in their own language. I think they're Finnish too. Obviously, they were congratulating Jarkko for his good run at US Open. I guess they were telling Jarkko how exciting his win was. Jarkko seemed to be surprised but very happy. They had a photo together. (I took a pic of them too, click here to see it:
www.jcfocus.com/temp/jarkkofan.jpg
It's nice to see Jarkko surrounded by those guys, like a big star. )


Well, before this evening, few ppl knew Jarkko, but after this, he became really, really well-known here.

Wow! Wowee wowee wow!

I wonder who they wore, like corporate sponsors or something? Why else would they follow him to Beijing?

Well hopefully it was a good thing for him. It could've have happened to a nicer guy.

[Lee]

admin said:

Thanks Lee, I will try tomorrow before class

If you still have trouble, I can save the pic and send to you if Kiro doesn't mind.

[Ilhame]

Thanks a lot for the reports and pics!

[Lee]

tennishack said:

Wow! Wowee wowee wow!

I wonder who they wore, like corporate sponsors or something? Why else would they follow him to Beijing?

Well hopefully it was a good thing for him. It could've have happened to a nicer guy.

My guess they are buisnessmen trying to generate business in China.

[Lee]

Thanks for the report again, Kiro. And thanks for confirming what I already suspect, Rainer played like shit these days.

[Kiro]

Sep. 13th, 2005
1st Round

Dindin and I didn't sleep untill 4 am, and got up at 7 am. We arrived at the airport at about 8:30. Dindin went to check in and I went out, got on the bus. Just then I got a message from Dindin: The staff said that she arrived late and might miss the flight which was going to leave on 9:10. WTF?! She must be worried and I didn't know what to do either. Anyway, in the end she managed to catch the flight. Phew...

I got my friend Shanshan's phone call when I went to the stadium, saying that she would be late. My friend Stoney left a bag on taxi, in which were a national flag of Spain (which was used to show our support of the Espana players, especially Juan Carlos), a league flag of Real Madrid (with autographs of those famous players) and two battery chargers. In other ppl's eyes these may be of little value, but they mean a lot to my friends. Stoney felt terrible about the matter. Shanshan was trying to help her, she went to the radio station to have a message broadcasted. They were hoping that the taxi driver would contact them if he heard the message.

I saw some players training at noon. Jarkko was on his way to practice, together with a Japanese player. I saw something cute on Jarkko's bag, I would love to have a picture of it. They were walking pretty quickly, I was in a hurry to set my camera...I managed to take a pic and thank God it was a good one!

Then it started to rain. I had my lunch and waited... During the rain break Dmitry Tursunov signed autographs for fans.

The rain finally stopped. My friends arrived and we went into the stadium to watch Thomas Johansson vs Jonas Bjorkman. The match was delayed due to the rain.

I haven't got enough sleep in the night. But the match was so well-played that I couldn't neglect the game to fall asleep. Both were playing very well, especially Thomas. He was serving well too. Jonas played some great volleys, and Thomas carried out a great all-round game. Thomas won the match between friends.

The next match was between David Nalbandian and Pless. I stayed for several games, David had a slow start. The match was not too bad but it just couldn't compare to the one before it.

We knew that Juan Carlos and Thomas were going to sign autographs at 5:30. Dindin knew that too, she sent me a message after arriving at Hong Kong, saying 'please get one for me too!' My friends and I went out of the stadium at 5 pm, there were already a lot of ppl waiting in line.

Juan Carlos arrived at the stadium at 5 pm and went to the autograph desk on time. They started to sign for fans. You could get autograph from both players. First you go to Thomas, and then Juan Carlos. But some ppl just skipped Thomas and went straightly to Juan Carlos... *shrug*

Soon it went to my turn. First, I got an autograph from Thomas. This was the 2nd autograph I got from him.

Then I went to Juan Carlos. I had my cartoon of him printed on an A4 paper. I told him: 'Juan Carlos, this one is for Dindin.' He signed it immediately, addressing Dindin's name with greeting words, obviously there's no need to remind him what to say to Dindin.

Then I asked him: 'may I have one (autograph) for myself?' I was holding my autograph book. The guard standing beside, saying 'only one allowed', was trying to take my book away. But Juan Carlos grabbed it by both hands, signed it, gave me a big smile and a wink.

Juan Carlos and Thomas finished the session and left. At that time Rafael was about to finish his practice session too. My friends were encouraging me to give Rafa my cartoon of him, but when he came out there were too many exciting fans and I didn't have any chance to get to him.

Juan Carlos practiced with coach Toni, and then left the stadium.

We heard that David beat Pless. It seemed that after we left the center court, David found his rhythm and finished his opponent pretty quickly. And Coria was beating a Chinese player Shaoxuan Zeng at ease too.

In another match between friends, Jarkko played his first round singles match against Rainer. Another group of European fans were supporting Jarkko, this time there were both ladies and gentlemen. A lot of Chinese fans were there too, it seemed that they became Jarkko's fan during these few days.

Jarkko won the match and the fans were crazy about him! After the match, he was surrounded by autograph books and cameras...The fans blocked the road, the umpire had to stay in the court too, he then called the staff: 'Please get a bodyguard for this guy!' lol Jarkko might be scared...Last year few ppl here knew him.

The night session of Tuesday didn't seem to be interesting, so we left the stadium. Stoney was working in the day, and she went to have dinner with us. She was still feeling bad about the bag she lost. We tried to cheer her up...in the end we went to Karaoke.

Sep. 13 pics:

www.jcfocus.com/talks/2005co02.htm

Oh, Lee, I'd be obliged if you would help Chloe about the pics Thank you! *big kiss*

[Lee]

Thanks for the report and all the pix *big big kiss*

[TennisHack]

Thanks, Kiro!

JCF is such a sweetie LOL, of course it helps that you and your friends are his friends, too

Poor Jarkko, he better get used to having a lot of fans! I wonder if any of them followed him to Bangkok.

[Kiro]

BTW, Everyone who's able to see the pics: Among the 20 pics of each day, please tell me which is your favourite one, i.e. your choice of "Pic of the Day". Thanks;)

[RogiFan]

Great report and pix, Kiro, thank you! I'm sure Juanqui loved your cute cartoon -- it IS the best!

Sep 12 -- Nalby 091209
sep 13 -- too many to choose from: Jarkko 091301 or Juanqui 091315

I like em all!

[TennisHack]

kiro said:

BTW, Everyone who's able to see the pics: Among the 20 pics of each day, please tell me which is your favourite one, i.e. your choice of "Pic of the Day". Thanks;)

All your pics are great

My votes:

Sept 10: www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0910/091017.jpg

Sept 11: www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0911/091110.jpg

Sept 12: Hard to pic just one! Jarkko's my fave, of course, but I'm also a fan of action pics and this one of Tripp Phillips was good, too

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0912/091204.jpg
www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0912/091219.jpg
www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0912/091202.jpg

Sept 13: www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0913/091317.jpg

I think Kristen (Bjorkman_Girl) gave Jarkko this thing on his bag at the AO this year (you may wanna check, though ) www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0913/091301.jpg

[Lee]

kiro said:

BTW, Everyone who's able to see the pics: Among the 20 pics of each day, please tell me which is your favourite one, i.e. your choice of "Pic of the Day". Thanks;)

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0912/091206.jpg

This one from 9-12. Not because it's Rainer :angel: although his footwork was great but that tummy of Dirk ;D

[TennisHack]

lee said:

that tummy of Dirk ;D

Just imagine if he was shirtless!

[Lee]

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0913/091317.jpg JCF

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0913/091303.jpg Jarkko

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0913/091304.jpg Rainer

[Lee]

We pick the same one on sept 13 of JCF

[TennisHack]

I don't like that shirt that Jarkko's wearing. Bleh, too preppy.

[Lee]

Sept 10

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0910/091009.jpg

Nathan Healey, just because of the muscles on his arms

Sept 11

www.jcfocus.com/img/2005co/0911/091111.jpg


JCF was sooooo cute