Viva Sydney

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Well today decided to go to Sydney and check out some of this event, even though I was more interested in what is happening in Auckland, then again this blogger's aversion to WTA is very well known.

The weather was a bit up and down, but managed to see plenty of matches unlike tomorrow, which will consist of maybe one match and the rest training.

The qualies here have 2 rounds played on the same day, then the qualifying round tomorrow which is annoying, but it's the same for all players and they have to finish the tournament on a Saturday and then down to the big one.

First match I saw was Fernando Vicente beat Dick Norman, it wasn't a great match, though Vicente's antics were quite funny and was showing his skill as a footballer, at times he was getting a bit gnarly with the ball kids, though not to the level of Arnaud Clement and he is a repeat offender.

When Vicente played this match, the conditions were windy and overcast and Vicente won the first set with some good play and was able to keep Norman pinned on the baseline, then the second set he started to lose the length of his shots and was becoming increasingly pissed off and threw his racquet against the ad signs between the linesman and the ballkids and got a warning for it. He got back on track in the 3rd set and was able to do what he was doing in the 1st set and Norman was getting pissed off with the conditions. I saw one of the ballkids who did that match and Vicente won't be winning any prizes from them.

After that I went and saw the German Brazilian Tomas Behrend playing against a young Aussie Sadik Kadir and at the start of the match Behrend was absolutely woeful and that grunt is a wonderful thing, so long and he doesn't hit the ball as hard as he grunts, he just kept making errors and errors and Kadir who is a short guy, who moves well, but is not the most powerful was just consistent and getting the ball back and letting Behrend make the mistakes, which he did with great skill and managed to lose 6-2 6-4. On this performance it is easy to see why Behrend doesn't win many matches off the clay, though his shots aren't bad, but he should not be losing a match like this.

Stefan Koubek played his first match of the year and he was hitting the ball quite well considering he only arrived on Wednesday from Vienna. He seems to have done some good off court training and is fit and for those who care and others who don't, big Koubi had the navel ring and happening and this excited one particular fan in a very good way. His opponent Stakhovsky has some good potential, but didn't handle the conditions very well and in the second set he took a 3-0 lead, but Koubek woke up and took the next 6 games for a convincing win.

Juan Monaco played Ramon Delgado on the court next to Koubek and that was good for convenience reasons alone and didn't see all of this match, but the parts that were seen, it was Monaco who was moving well and hitting good length and moving forward to the net and making most of the volleys and he was too classy for Delgado.

Last match of the first round was Andreas Seppi against Justin Gimelclown and yes Gimelknob does have very skinny legs. This was a bit rough for Seppi, he makes the quarter finals in Adelaide and gets killed in 48 minutes against Malisse, then has to back up and play 2 matches in a day the next day. In the first set he was struggling and Gimelstob took it, then came back halfway through the second set and Seppi was moving his feet better and keeping better length and took the second set. The last set was pretty ugly tennis, though Seppi hit some good shots and Gimelclown was attacking the net when he could, but Seppi was too good in the end.