Sep. 14th, 2005
1st Round & 2nd RoundI got up at about 10 am, and went to the stadium. On the way, I got a message from Shanshan: Stoney's bag was found! The taxi driver listened to the radio, got her mobile number and contacted her in the morning. Thank God!
My friends came to the stadium with the flag of Espana. On this day, Nadal, Moya and Ferrero were all going to play their matches on centre court. 2nd round matches for Moya and Ferrero, 1st round for Nadal. We could make the biggest use of our flag, yeah! ;D
It was a sunny day. On the centre court, Nadal and Dimitry Tursonov warming up first, followed by Juan Carlos and Guillermo Coria. Juan Carlos hit for about half an hour and left. Coria stayed to practice his serve. His wife Carla helped him to set targets or to pick the balls.
The first match of the day started on 1 pm. It was a first round match, Rafael Nadal vs Yeu-Tzuoo Wang.
In this match it seemed that Rafael was trying to find the right rhythm on hard court. He won the 1st set 6-2 easily, but Wang started to play much better in the 2nd set. Rafael made some UEs and was facing some difficult moments in his own service game too, but he managed to make it out and won the 2nd set 6-4.
It was about 2:45 pm, when Juan Carlos and his opponent Dimitry Tursunov came to take the court. The sun light was very strong.
From the very beginning, Tursunov was making Juan Carlos struggle a lot. In Juan Carlos's service games, Tursunov's return went very deep, a lot of times just hit on the baseline, beside Juan Carlos's feet, and it made Juan Carlos very difficult to return. And Tursunov was serving very well himself. Juan Carlos was struggling in every service game, and Tursunov always held easily, untill the end of the 1st set.
Suddenly, in the 9th game, which was Tursunov's service game, Juan Carlos managed to make a couple of good returns. Tursunov felt the pressure immediately and was obviously getting tight. Well, I don't remember exactly how did Juan Carlos make it, or he's favoured by Tursunov's DF and UEs, anyway, all in a sudden, Juan Carlos got a decisive break and was serving for the set at 5-4.
The next game went to tons of deuces. Tursunov hit a lot of return winners and got quite a few chances to level the score. Juan Carlos was struggling but thank God he hang on there and in the end managed to hold. 6-4, Juan Carlos was leading by 1 set now, but it was obvious that he didn't have any margin over his opponent, and Tursunov seemed to be more motivated.
Juan Carlos did start to play better in the 2nd set, but the 2nd set was more difficult. He had to save a lot of BPs. The 2nd set came to the tie breaker, Juan Carlos was soon 1-4 down.
Then, suddenly, Juan Carlos made 2 good returns, and hit a winner right on the line. Tursunov choked again, he served the 2nd DF in the whole match and lost his advantage. Then Juan Carlos went on to win the TB 7-4...
When the last point was over and the umpire declared GSM Ferrero, we all jumped up from our seats. I was saying things like: 'Gosh, how the hell did he win this match? I'll check the statistics of the match, I bet Tursunov's stats were better than Ferrero's!'
Later I went to the news center to check the stats. I was right. Tursunov got higer first serve percentage, service winning percentage and return winning percentage. He's got more winners too. There were only a few factors in which Juan Carlos was better: DF, Juan Carlos had one, while Tursunov had 2; BPs saved/converted, Juan Carlos saved a lot of BPs, and grabbed the few chances when they appeared.
Anyway, a win is a win. I sent a message to Dindin to let her know the result. Dindin replied: 'That's good...How I miss him and you all! I'm even thinking of flying to Beijing again¡'
Next up was Nalbandian vs Hadad. David had a slow start again, but Hadad's level was far from challenging him. David won easily, 6-4, 6-0.
We went to have some dinner, and came back to the centre court to watch the night sessions. The first match of the evening was between Carlos Moya and Stefan Koubek.
We missed the first several games of the match. Koubek started very strongly. Moya made a lot of errors and lost the 1st set quickly. But in the 2nd set, Moya found his confidence again, and Koubek seemed to lose his strong power. Moya recovered from one set down and won the match 2-1.
We stayed in the stadium to watch the next match, the last match of the day, between Jarkko and Thomas. We were expecting the match quite eagerly, since I predicted it to be a good match.
Jarkko and Thomas didn't disappoint us. Jarkko played well and Thomas played a perfect match. Thomas was playing even better than in the match against Jonas. Jarkko kept trying to change the rhythm, using his forehand touches and strong backhand attacks, but Thomas was just too good. He returned every ball, and firmly controlled the match. In this match Thomas showed everything. Good defense, good attack, good groundstrokes, good volleys, good serves, good returns. This match reminds me of Thomas when he won 2002 Australian Open. They played a lot of great points, and made few UEs. The match was won by Thomas 6-4, 6-4. This was absolutely the best match of the day.
Well, Jarkko lost the match, but he did beat Thomas in one thing: He's got much more support from the fans than Thomas, who was seeded 4th (while Jarkko was unseeded) and in fact, as a Grand Slam champion, should be much more famous than Jarkko, lol. A lot of fans were cheering Jarkko up throughout the whole match. After the match, they were gathering at the entrance of the stadium, waiting for Jarkko.
Jarkko, Thomas and Jonas went out together. Fans all went to Jarkko. Few ppl paid any attention to Thomas and Jonas, lol. (I even felt sorry for Thomas and Jonas, hopefully they won't mind it, lol.)
Eleni and Shanshan gave a photo to Jarkko which was taken at Shanghai Open 2004, and asked him if he remembered the mooncakes? 'Oh yes of course, thank you, thank you' was Jarkko's reply.
Thomas had a Mecerdes-Benz car to carry him since he was the 4th seed, and he always brought Jonas by the same car. This evening they three decided to go back to the hotel together in the big Mecerdes-Benz car. Actually there were four of them, Thomas's coach took the seat beside the driver. Jarkko, Thomas, Jonas got on the car, they three sat in the back seat together, very closely indeed.
Just then a staff woman went to Jarkko. Although the car was able to carry 4 passengers without any problem, it seemed that the luggage compartment was not big enough for 3 racquet bags (Thomas', Jarkko's and Jonas'). Therefore, the woman was asking Jarkko if he was willing to take the shuttle bus instead of the car. Before Jarkko said anything, the fans were burst out complaining: 'No! You can't do this to Jarkko!' lol.
Jarkko went off the car to see if he could solve the problem. Under the help of the driver, he tried his best to put all the bags into the luggage compartment. He push the bags hard into the car...and the car, under his push, started to swing strongly...And do you remember? Thomas and Jonas were still in the car. In a moment they didn't know what was happening, but soon they understood the situation and they both laughed. It was very funny.
In the end Jarkko succeeded in the battle against the luggages. He got on the car, with the photo in his hand, and a look on his face as if he still couldn't believe himself being so loved by the fans. He waved good-bye to the fans and they left the stadium.
It was said that Jarkko left Beijing very early the next morning, at about 6 am. Even though, there were still some fans went to the hotel in the early morning to see him off.
Sep. 14th pics:
www.jcfocus.com/talks/2005co03.htmYou could see that Sep. 16th's pics are up too, ;D