Look for me on TV.

[DBBN]

If you see a really hot guy seducing half the ATP Tour? ME!

See you all Wednesday with reports.

[janie]

Now I have a reason to watch the US Open!! (But stay away from my Potito! )

[DBBN]

I will put some reports in when I am less , but you heard it here first:

Cornet is going to beat Wozniacki with the loss of maybe 5 games. But Wozniacki is the prettiest girl on site, so, she'lll have that.

*dead*

[DBBN]

God, I'm good.

I don't know...I don't really have anything of interest to say. Well, I do (I saw parts of at least 1/2 the matches played in the first two days) but I didn't think about much of the technical aspect because (A) I don't have much experience with technique, and (B) when I'm thinking about what I'm going to write about my vacation while I'm on my vacation, it makes my vacation feel like work.

I can tell you what dumb people said or which fans were the most obnoxious or who's surprisingly HOT (Melzer! Who knew?), but it will have to wait because I have a life-sucking job and am tired.

[Edna Krabappel]

hurley said:

I can tell you what dumb people said or which fans were the most obnoxious or who's surprisingly HOT

Yes, please. Just write what you remember. And if a player was a bitch/jerk, feel free to share.

[DBBN]

I did see part of Capdeville's match against :ass:, and he was fairly obnoxious, much like he is tonight. But most of the men I watched were annoying...I guess most of the ATP is now. Mathieu and Vasselin (who reminds me of Gambill in many ways) were particularly pissy, but the cake goes to Volandri. Volandri is really hot, though.

I'll go through my OOPs tomorrow or Friday and do my days chronologically. I only saw two or three good matches though...maybe next year I'll go for Round 2 or 3, now that I've gotten "let's see everybody on the WTA Tour" out of my system for at least three years, since I got K-Bond, Szavay, Paszek, Wozniacki, and Cornet out of the way.

Probably the highest-quality competitive match was the first one I saw, K-Bond vs. VRP. The most intense match was Wozniacki-Obziler. The best atmosphere was obviously a men's match: Sela-Lapentti. More to come.

[lexpretend]

I remember thinking Melzer was hot a couple of years ago. Then he grew his hair or something and everything went downhill.

[janie]

Hi Hurley! I'd like to hear about Szavay's game, and if you saw any of the next generation of USians -- Coco, Brengle, Oudin, Weinhold, Muhammed, etc -- and if so, what you thought of them. Only Oudin won a match.

[corswandt]

hurley said:

who's surprisingly HOT (Melzer! Who knew?)

Nikki V. ;D

I see you jump from court to court a lot. Isn't that very tiring in such a large venue? I mean, at the Estoril Open you can walk from one end of it to the other in 2-3 minutes.

[DBBN]

corswandt said:

hurley said:

I see you jump from court to court a lot. Isn't that very tiring in such a large venue? I mean, at the Estoril Open you can walk from one end of it to the other in 2-3 minutes.

I'm a jumper, always have been; Chole can probably vouch for that. I remember being ridiculously winded when I was younger, but my legs are pretty solid these days. I didn't even start to fall asleep when I had to drive back to Washington from 8 PM to 12:30 AM, which used to happen regularly on the 1-hour drive on the LIE from Queens to my parents' when I was 19 or 20. By Tuesday afternoon I started to get a little "Oh...I guess I'll just sit at this Lipsky-Martin doubles match for a bit," though.

[DBBN]

Okay. Monday.

So, right, I had to check my backpack, for the first time ever. Now, I'd gone to three consecutive Opens post 9/11, and this never happened before, so I can only assume the nice people from Bumblefuck, Midwest, who own the portable locker company prominently advertised on their campers offered the USTA a zillion dollars to let them use their space, and, of course the USTA agreed. Now, I'm all for security in such a prominent venue, and, whatever, $3 (I don't think I'd have said THAT a year ago), but really, that was 30 minutes on a stupid line and I was already late.

So I get in and booked it to Court 12 for K-Bond and VRP, K-Bond being one of the Holy Trinity I was determined to see this year (the others, for those impatient readers, being Paszek and Szavay). K-Bond is back to brunette, which is highly preferable. She enjoys dropshots, even terrible ones. When I got there, it was 3-3, but she was able to close out the set 6-3.

The second set was more competitive, as evidenced by the score. Both players were using a lot of slicing and lobbing, and neither player missed very often. It was excellent tennis, especially considering they played in New Haven and it had gone 2 and 2 to VRP. I felt bad rooting for K-Bond so vociferously because VRP is old and no one cared about her. K-Bond served about 4742087 double faults in one game but has very fine depth to her shots.

In the middle of the second set, K-Bond dumped a break to VRP after holding game points, and I could see the set slipping away, and so as not to get disgusted, I wandered. I went not very far to between Courts 15 and 16. On 15 was Makarova/Schruff, while on 16 was Govortsova/Arvidsson. I paid most attention to Makarova, who is a big hitter and was very excited to win over Schruff, who is an unattractive scrapper. But that must have been later.

Having seen Bepa 3 a zillion times, I returned to Court 12 as I saw on the giant scoreboard that K-Bond had gotten the second set back from 3-5 to 6-6. I was anxious to see if K-Bond could close out the match, and she looked quite steely. VRP has a bit of magic left, but her shots just aren't hard enough to trouble opponents on a good day; K-Bond had one and won it.

Also, the thing about Court 12 is there is literally no barrier, sound or otherwise, from Court 11, so the Donald Young mania from Court 11 was highly obnoxious and exploded during myriad points of their match.

So, yeah. I was hoping to see any of JCF-F-Lo, but it ended before K-Bond! JCF must have sucked like crazy. So, then I must have gone back and caught the end of both Govortsova and Makarova's wins (whatever, yawn), and then moved on over to Court 9 to see the last three points of Bepa's win. Great to see her again. She looks fit and content.

[janie]

Wow, very exciting to be in better shape now than when you were 19/20!
So did you see any glimpses of Govortsova at all? I remember Tracy Almeda-Singian was impressed with her in Florida a few months back.

I hope we'll get a tv glimpse of Makarova tomorrow, unless USA network continues their cruel We Hate Christine policy.

[DBBN]

Now, the Woz vs. the Obz. Tzipi looks exactly like I remember. Caroline is just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful girl. Her hair, her skin, her figure...she's enchanting. She is also MUCH smaller than I was expecting. I could not believe she would ever be defaulted for vulgarities! But it's always the ones you least expect.

Overall, I was not impressed by her game. She has a very fine first serve but a weak second serve and thin, short groundstrokes. It was no surprise that Obziler walloped many second serves back to take the first set. She also had almost the entire crowd behind her due to Hurley's First Law of the US Open, which is that one could be the worst player to ever pick up a racket, and possibly a baby-eater, but if you are representing Israel, you will pack your court with rabid Jewish fans because you are in New York.

Now, as you all know, I love Jews (in the sack particularly), but really...Obziler is annoying and ugly with a boring baseline game, kind of like a male Lleyton Hewitt. No one should ever support her. And in spite of the loss of the first set, I thought that if Caroline got more first serves in, she still had a shot at the comeback because she still had more variety than Obziler's run-and-punch nothing. During this match, Young won, and Court 11 exploded. Yawn.

I guess during the second set was when I went to look at Cohen-Petkovic, and I maybe made it through one point before thinking I must have lost my WTA craziness, since I didn't care AT ALL. Then I went to Court 10 to see a couple games of Safarova and Moore. These 6 strange little Indian kids had L-U-C-I-E-! letters (the U consistently held hers upside down) and a Czech flag sign that said "Lucie Safarova Rox My Sox!" I was...confused. Is Lucie famous now? It crossed my mind that these 6 children in concert could be famed Internet Personality Leena.

Jessica Moore...I don't know. She led 2-0 when I got there, and had some nice points, but she's cookie-cutter. Could be enough to get her into the Top 100 fairly quickly, but do we really need another Dellacqua? The answer is no.

[DBBN]

janie said:

So did you see any glimpses of Govortsova at all? I remember Tracy Almeda-Singian was impressed with her in Florida a few months back.

I did watch match game of the Olga-Sofia tilt, but I remember nothing, literally nothing. Well, I do remember that Sofia is still fat, but less fat!

[janie]

Why so anti-Young? He's got a fun game to watch. Despite any annoying fans.

[janie]

Oh, and before I forget, thanks a lot for all your hard work in writing up your impressions.

[DBBN]

Okay! So this must have been when I went to see my real big surprise of the tournament, because I don't think I expected a great, great performance from Alize Cornet! And I'm excited to talk about her!

As you know, before the Cornet-Wozniacki match, I predicted a 2 and 3 win or so for Alize, and it was even more of a thumping, because when you watch them back to back, the difference is huge. Where Wozniacki is all shoved angles, Cornet is punching flat shots deep consistently, and continually misdirected the horrible Samantha Stosur, who can't retire soon enough as far as I'm concerned. Cornet is fairly small, but has great speed and sticks her damn shots, which Wozniacki (as well as Paszek...) has trouble doing. (But not Szavay.) The first set shut up those damn Australians, who are the Most Annoying Fans at the US Open.

Anyway, Cornet is not powerful, but like I said, her shots hit the ground and stay down. If she can keep that up, I think she'll be a Top 25 player.

[DBBN]

janie said:

Why so anti-Young? He's got a fun game to watch. Despite any annoying fans.

I was against the hype, but I'm not really anti-Young, I just don't care. I'm anti-obnoxious crowds screeching during K-Bond's service!

[Edna Krabappel]

Thanks!
Do you think Cornet can trouble Jankovic tomorrow?

Janie, I saw Govortsova yesterday. Basically she's another basher, she knows how to construct a point here or there and hit some excellent volleys, but most of the time she just drowns herself in unforced errors. And her serve sucks, Jankovic broke like 2345 times.

[janie]

joana said:

Thanks!
Do you think Cornet can trouble Jankovic tomorrow?

Janie, I saw Govortsova yesterday. Basically she's another basher, she knows how to construct a point here or there and hit some excellent volleys, but most of the time she just drowns herself in unforced errors. And her serve sucks, Jankovic broke like 2345 times.

Oh.

Well, at least we have Alizé to get excited about.

[corswandt]

hurley said:

Caroline [...] is also MUCH smaller than I was expecting.

That's what I thought as well when I saw her. She's very slight.

And you also confirm my impression that she hasn't got much in the way of weapons.

[DBBN]

So then, back to Wozniacki-Obziler? Am I forgetting something? Maybe that was when I ate my $8 hamburger (it was actually pretty big and good, but still...8 fucking dollars . OH. I watched the end of Poutchkova-Pironkova. I don't think Olga wants to win anymore. I think she's probably happier going 174-0 on the ITF Tour, which...she'll get the chance to do that again, really soon. To her credit, Pironkova's flat shots off both wings are awesome. Their rankings should be reversed. But Pironkova still has cameltoe. She should wear skirts.

Then back to Caro-Tzip. You know...as I said before, next year, I'm going for Rounds 2 and/or 3, because I saw only two competitive matches on the women's side. But I knew, once Caro won the second set, that this would go into a long third set. They're too evenly matched. By now Court 14, with very limited seating, was full. The Jews were rocking, but finally, FINALLY, there were glimpses of a game that could get Wozniacki up the rankings. Her backhand down the line passed Tzipi on crucial points, and she collapsed on the net when she won, pissing off the majority of the crowd except for, you know, the pervs, let's be honest.

Caroline needs to pack on some weight and learn to hit flatter and deeper. Her first serve is very good and she is not afraid to come into the net, but it's still one of the weaker games of the up-and-coming girls (even Parmentier puts her to shame) and she'll have to be even more crafty, like Hingis, if she wants to make a real charge. When she was taking the ball early, she carved some fine groundies, but, overall, I'm not so sure she'll pan out.

[DBBN]

joana said:

Thanks!
Do you think Cornet can trouble Jankovic tomorrow?

No, but she'll get about 7-8 games.

[DBBN]

I'm going to eat some frozen yogurt now. More to come!

[DBBN]

I also ate corn: not heated up, straight out of the can.

Okay, where was I? So, hmm, I guess after that I watched Cornet finish off Stosur easily, and caught a couple games of Bychkova beat up on Yan, who was making way too many unforced errors and seemed from her big month.

Then it was back to Court 14 for Chan! Yung! Jan! against Knapp. Chan is not a pusher, contrary to popular opinion. In fact, it was total Sprembledon. I watched a couple games of Chan blast the ball out of the court on every point and quickly got over her. Knapp is cute and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wuh huh guh snrrk? Oh. Anyway. Watched a little of :ass: play Capdeville. Rainer still has a swell :ass: and I positioned myself for maximum ogling. Capdeville, as we all saw last night, is kind of cute, but a big whiner. Rainer has lost some steps, but still is wily and has a fine passing shot, which frustrated Capdeville to no end. Capdeville was mopey after losing the first set, and I was surprised that he was able to pull himself together and win.

Speaking of pulling himself together! I watched the second set of PHM vs. Verdasco, and PHM was absolutely on fire, cracking winners from all over. Verdasco was totally uninterested. Also: hot. I couldn't believe, as I was leaving, that Verdasco had tied it up, and did a spit take the next day when I saw he had won!

Fishin' Hat? Caught a couple games, but I have watched her soooo many times and knew she was going to lose, and she did, and no one cared.

So I'm all like...why did I stay so late? And just now I remembered:

[DBBN]

So, obviously Ioana Raluca Olaru.

I knew she was going to have a tough task with the crowd against Harkleroad, but I also knew that Harkleroad has been the most useless player on Tour since Maja Palaversic Coopersmith (tied with Marie-Eve Pelletier). She is a nothing. It's not even tennis, the Harkleroad game. It's existence. So I thought Olaru would have a shot.

Jesus. Olaru is Milagros Sequera...minus 20 pounds. At one point, she vanished into thin air, but then she turned back around. She's never going to be great, but she could easily have a fine Medinaesque career, winning the majority of her matches in clay Tier IVAs and playing to her seeding on other surfaces.

Did McEnroe just say "getting jiggy with it"??

Anyway. Olaru has a lovely backhand and moves very well and a stiff breeze could knock her over. She choked serving for the first set at 5-4 with some DF's, but she was playing air molecules and quickly broke back and held for 7-5. Quiet as a mouse, too. She's Sequera. She's the ghost of Sequera. I went home confident she would win; it looks like she got a little nervous in the second and third sets but...come on.

And then I went home. Also, Azarenka does yell exactly like Sharapova, and therefore needs to be aborted nearly two decades into her mother's pregnancy.

[DBBN]

Aggh! Tuesday! I was late, stuck in traffic. Entered the gates, passing Bepa 3! Gave her a "Davay," but she was right to ignore the crazy person. Zipped over to Court 13, a large, lovely court, to see Aga da Pole, already up a set. Again, she has been unfairly maligned as a pusher. She's no power demon, for sure, but she has an excellent first serve and a perfect lob. Her second serve is what will kill her, but everything else is just fine.

I thought Mpaperfolding would give her a real run, but her shots were consistently wide and she was in a terrible mood all morning. Surprisingly, this was never a contest.

I definitely wanted to see Juan "The Body" Principality in motion, and also wanted to check out Ed "Roger" Vaseline, but I figured I should check out Cibulkova-Garbin and Perebiynis-Pin while I still could. Watched four seconds of Perebiynis tank before focusing on Cibulkova, who was overpowering Tax and seems to have adjusted to hardcourts nicely.

Then off to Court 10, where I hunkered down for a set and change of Principality-Vaseline. Got two nice shirt changes of the Body, which is one of those better in tight clothes than shirtless, sadly. Principality also has a simian face and hits his shots very low to the ground with non-racket arm extended. Getting low like that will make him a threat on faster surfaces, at least more so than his dirtballing peers. He plays very well and I could see him having a Ferrer-type career: sprinkling a few big runs at the French amongst a lengthy Top 20 stay.

As for Vaseline, he's a sneerer, like Gambill, and he has a two-handed backhand reminiscent of Gambill's, and he looks like Gambill! Got his shirt change too, and, sadly, he doesn't have abs like Gambill. With snittiness comes feistiness, and he pumped himself up after winning the first set, but employed some Gallic gesturing as he sucked it up in the third and would go on to lose in four.

Also it was during this match that I noticed Azarenka's murderous screams, as she was next door at Court 9.

[DBBN]

I should point out that, again, another really loud match being played on Court 11 was ruining everything with its moise, that being KING IVO-Naud. Except that one went on twice as long as Young-Gooch and was therefore twice as annoying.

Next! I selected Parmentier-Malek, because, I don't know. And I think this was maybe the only match I watched over 75% of. As I said yesterday, Malek is fat. Less fat than Magui Serna, but more fat than Brie Whitehead. She has a fine serve but a mediocre forehand and only possesses a slice backhand. Fat and a slice backhand...I'm sorry, this is not 1992 and your name is not Conchita Martinez, so this tennis thing is not going to work out for you, sorry.

Parmentier, on the other hand, has a problematic serve, but is very solid off both wings. She doesn't move particularly well but that doesn't matter when you have 200 pounds of German potato salad plodding on the other side of the court. It was evident from the very beginning that Parmentier, with 0% body fat, was going to beat her on every point she could get the serve back, unless she got nervous. And she did, at the end, but it was starting to get hot, actually hot, for the first time all tournament, and Malek couldn't deal anymore. Parmentier won easily, and was pumped up and very appreciative of the crowd.

[DBBN]

As that was going on, the Jews were crazy on Court 16, chanting DU-DI! DU-DI! I went over there for match game, and it was pure hysterics when Sela closed out Nico Lapentti. I swear, Dudi Sela sucks, but they put him on an outer court again tomorrow, and they could very easily carry him past the Principality.

Then I went and watched a chunk of Volandri-Llodra because Volandri...mmmm. Rub that boy all over me, please. And while I was there, I looked across the way and saw a BODY playing on Court 9. I was like, who is THAT? MELZER? How? When? Why? He was wearing those tight adidas shirts with the shiny stripes crossing on the back which the Principality favors but did not wear when I saw him, and...yowza. But that match, against Hartfield, was tedious. Still, that was definitely the hottest part of the day, especially when Volandri changed into a red sleeveless thingy. He had nice shirts. Sponsored by "EA7" Anyone?

But yeah. Volandri is a dick. He is definitely one of the biggest whiners I've ever seen, and gave the ball a good pounding out of court once (warning). He questioned a lot of calls and got down on himself as he kept handing service games away...he reminds me of that little bitch Clement. Llodra of course played his standard game, big serve, forward motion, and yeah, no surprise here.

Then I moved back to between Courts 15 and 16 to view Bremond-Gallovits, and Kostanic-Vesnina, which started a bit later. Bremond, one of my favorites, played very well, assuredly better than she has been all year. Great net play, as to be expected. She has no fear of going up there. Gallovits is a no-hoper.

Bremond choked serving for the match at 5-4, as she started pushing and got Gallovits into rallies, which is the only way Gallovits had a chance. But she quickly got the break back, and after a penultimate point in which Gallovits aimed at her head and Bremond had to fall on her ass to avoid the ball, which went long, Severine closed her out. Gallovits joins Chan on the Over It list. This match I watched next to Lilia Osterloh, her coach, and her very cute, very old parents. Osterloh is playing doubles with Gallovits and should probably...not.

As for Vesnina, she's batshit crazy. Dunno what the hell she was thinking, but I couldn't look.

[DBBN]

Hmm, what next. I guess that was when I went out to buy lunch: two hot dogs for $4 from a stand. Still too much money, but cheaper than the alternative. Saw Fat Dave wandering around out there. He's fat.

Then, hmm, I guess was the Pennetta-Peng, which was the only other really competitive match I saw. Peng is BIG, man. She has a lot more power than Pennetta, but just loves to push that ball out at the worst times. I think she could stand to lose some weight.

Pennetta played a very nice comeback match, though. The third set went back and forth and both players had numerous chances in various games, but Pennetta got a break early and Peng could never shake free of that. Peng was very disappointed when she lost the match, but got supported by numerous proud Chinese barrackers, while Flavia got fired up after the long final set, cheered on by numerous Italian supporters. It was a close and fun match, if sloppy.

Rodionova was playing next door on Court 10 at the same time. Why they put Rodionova-Savchuk on big Court 10 while Peng and Pennetta were on teeny Court 9 is a mystery to me. I see they put Petrova on Armstrong when she plays Rodionova but on Court 7 for her first round. I guess they're hoping Rodionova actually kills someone on court one day, and they want to make sure enough people have seats to see that.

And then I watched some Fit Dave. Shirt change! Not bad. Too many necklaces though. He's good. We all know how he plays, right? It's late. And we're finally getting to the good stuff.