Choupi is in Stuttgart and the Tulips are in Amersfoort
Starting off with Amersfoort, well this 1st round has been hilarious for a lot of funny results and funny can be taken in many different ways.
The PMK is playing Serra wins the 1st easily enough and then decides to only win 2 games for the rest of the match, he knows how to peak for the big events and also making the second week at Wimbledon and playing well must have confused him and impacted on the start to the summer clay season.
Massu losing to the powerful de Bakker in 2 TB sets and the draw opens up there now with a de Bakker/Serra match for a spot in the QFs.
Mantilla comes back and qualifies with a 6-0 6-0 and then can only get 5 games against Haase, the betting markets moved a lot and there must have been something up there, would like to found what it was. Calleri comes back from injury and only wins 4 games against Devilder.
Andreev comes out and beats the Serbian philosopher Tipsarevic in 37 minutes. Maybe Janko had too many space cakes the night before and the superstar Almagro loses to Eschauer, there could be a surprise winner of this event, the way this is going.
Stuttgart
I have only seen a few matches and no need when I have a special correspondent there. It was good to see Monfils beat Boredo, yes he manages to irritate some people, while others love him, that shows that he has something that doesn’t leave people indifferent.
Berdych gave Lapentti a good arse kicking 6-1 6-1 and now plays LaLo who somehow survived against Carlos “the Prince” Berlocq who had 4 match points and managed to lose, seems Albert Costa might have done some good for LaLo.
Putting El Fashionista Koubek and Chucho on early was cruel as both of these guys enjoy getting up late. Chucho saved a lot of mps, but couldn’t get the job done.
Baby Gaston (Hartfield) won over Hajek and now he takes on Ferrero who won very easily over big Gaston. Gaston is still in a big slump, just hope he doesn’t give up and can turn it around, but the problem is he needs matches to get into form, but without winning there are no matches to get into match form, it’s a vicious circle.
10 comments:
Yes, you're right. Monfils has something that doesn't leave ppl indifferent. You know my position btw...
So, I saw Monfils vs Robredo yesterday. Gael played great and I have to admit that Tommy wasn't at his best. Anyway, that doesn't take off the victory from Gael. What I mostly appreciated is that he made the show, like he's used to, but this time, he managed to stay focused and that was a positive point.
I saw Chucho/Monaco vs Hartfield/Armando. Not a great match but entertaining enough. Chucho showed his back to the crowd, to show how badly sunburnt he got. And when he faked pulling down the shorts, Monaco screamed NO NO NO!!!! At least, I'm not the only one to have sunburnt. And there's a justice, as it was because of Chucho.....
To be continued
Hahaha, that big goofy Argentine made you get sunburnt Choupi, well it was for a good cause.
At least Monaco won his singles match and now takes on Koubek, at least Stef gets on well with the Argentines.
2nd day:
I saw Chucho vs Koubek. Well, our Chucho definitely doesn't like early matches. Though he practised good and seemed ok before the match. The main pb has been the serve that wasn't working at all. Making him too shy and not confident enough to risk more. The 1st set was only one way. The 2nd one has been tighter. Chucho broke but couldn't hold. He saved 5 matchpoints.....but he left the court with his head very low on his shoulders.
Then, I saw Canas vs Wawrinka. That match was heartbreaking for me as I like both. It was a great fight. Long rallies, dropshots, lobs....But Willy wasn't well. At the end of the 1st set, he called for the doctor because he had breathing pbs. He had a sore throat and seemed to have some fever. But he kept on playing. What got things worse is that the match was longing and lasting and he eventually injured his left thigh. He got treated and massaged, to in the end, retire after he lost the 1st game of the 3rd set.
My day wasn't great at all. So I decided to watch Hartfield vs Hajek. I was curious to see Jan play. Well, somebody should let him know that it's not because you hit the ball harder and harder that it makes it go in more often....Diego- alias Baby Gaston took it easily in 2.
I ended up attending Gaudio/Ferrero. Interesting match. 2 former French Open winners....pb, Gaston wasn't confident enough to bother Ferrero. He could do great points but not enough in a row to win games. The score doesn't reflect that the 2nd set has been tighter.
Ok, enough for today. More later.
Thanks very much to the special reporter for the comments so far and I have not been able to see any of the matches, just saw the Monfils dance at the end of his match.
It would be good to see Nadal stopped, but this does not seem very likely at all.
Hahaha!!! that dance, well, you have to know that Gael is in Stuttgart with a training partner, member of the Benabiles team, called Erwan. He injured his knee btw during the 1st training session of Gael btw....and Gael said that if he would win against Robredo, which he wasn't really convinced of before the match, he'd make those dance moves. That's what he had promised to his coach, when he had him on the phone.
Thank you very much for the reports and as for Hajek, he is definitely hit or miss, at the moment it's a lot of miss unlike last season.
How bad was the reporters sunburn?
Thanks for caring about the reporter's sunburn.....it was bad on the 1st day, but now it's far better. Let's say I wasn't used to find a lobster when I was looking into the mirror!!!
Ok, this was my last day in Stuttgart. I am a bit nostalgic right now as I have just left the venue, knowing I wouldn't be back till next year....
I started the morning under the rain, pouring down. I arrived pretty early at the venue, still under that rain, and I can say I was the only spectator around. Apart from the staff of course. They must have thought I was crazy but I wanted to believe this was only a shower that would stop....and it seems I was right as the sun has been with us almost all day long. So, players weren't really late in their trainings as they could start on the practice courts around 11am.
I was still a bit disappointed by Gaston's match and I decided to watch him practice, as he was Monaco's sparring partner. They first played football together. There were Gaston and Pico, with Pecora -Gaston's psy- and Pico's coach. Those guys had a lot of fun and it was nice to see a big smile on Gaston's face.....because he was really low yesterday after the match. Then, they trained together and Pico left, but Gaston kept on hitting the ball. Pecora worked with him on his serve, as it seems he feels like blocked when he's serving in a match...that's what he said.....anyway, Gaston practiced for more than 2 hours.
Then, I decided to go and see the end of Chela vs Pashanski. I arrived at the beginning of the 3rd set. Both players were looking exhausted and Pashanski got treated on his left thigh. Long rallies, groundstrokes mostly...and Chela's been the strongest. He said he was relieved to have won because he was really tired.
Then, I was waiting for Monfils, I had seen practicing for a few minutes. Gael made the show, as always I should say, and poor Vanek was giving points in the 1st set, like it were Xmas. But the 2nd set has been far tighter with no break at all, and Vanek was playing so much better. So that Gael got trapped and had to give up that set. The crowd was delighted, because that was meaning more to see.....but I was starting to fear...when I saw Gael losing focus, but still making the show. That's a sign I hate to see with him, and I was right today. Again. His trainer Erwan even left the court in the middle of that last set, obviously not satisfied with the way Gael was taking things. Gael complained about it to the other guy accompanying him. Saying he had no right to abandon him like that, at such an important moment. He ended up losing the match, good operation for Vanek, who Gael congratulated warmly during handshake. There must have been a stormy discussion with Erwan as they both left the venue seperately....
I didn't want to see Ferrer vs Verdasco, so I went and saw a doubles match. Pretty entertaining I should say. Koubek/Kohlschreiber vs Pala/Vizhner. 1st set won easily by the Austrian/German pair. But they got broken early in the 2nd set. Anyway, they were the crowd's faves so they needed to do something and finally broke back. The crowd was delighted of course, and after that, they took the match, looking really happy together.
Well, I hope the reports have been fun to read, as much as I had to be here, reporting.
Thanks for the reports special reporter, it sounds you had a great time in Stuttgart. Lalo vs. Berdych was pure comedy, it was one of these days that Lalo had the Midas touch turning everything to gold, and Berdych had the inverse Midas touch, that is he turned every ball to shit. The funniest was an exchange where Lalo was hitting backhand defensive slices, then Tomas comes to the net only to see a screaming crosscourt backhand winner passing him. Then Lalo hit a clean backhand winner from the baseline and also a dropshot backhand winner. Well, that is already more than he usually hits in a whole tournament.
The key though was the serve and the return, Tomas' serve lacked variety and Lalo was reading it easily, while Lalo never faced problems on his own serve. Tomas routinely eneded up on the defense, and that was not good to see. Overall, it appeared that Tomas had hangover or something, perhaps he came from a huge night. For whatever reason, his movement was atrocious and he barely hit winners during the match. That was too ugly, hopefully Tomas will forget this match as soon as possible. It was good to see Al Costa in the stands, it seemed that he could barely keep his seriousness and he would burst out laughing at any moment.
Amersfoort has an interesting quarter final line, it looks like Moya and Andreev have a big chance at this tournament but I would like to see Korolev doing well here. In any case, Carlos may be thinking about Umag next week.
Thanks for all your reports and hopefully they will be able to make it a 48 draw again for next year, but you got to see Muster and that is great.
Too bad you didn't see LaLo hitting screaming backhand winners, it was strange watching him run hard and scramble for shots.
Gael still seems to have some attitude problems, well he needs to sort them out.
Big Werner Eschauer and Steve Darcis in the final of Amersfoort, I love comedy.
Thanks for the reports. It was a very nice read. Specially since I didn't watch any tennis... only highlights, actually.
Its so sad what el Gato is going through... I miss his tennis.
This last week was a good one for Italians and thats good since they add some very unique spice into the ATP tour. I hope they keep their level up.
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