Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Choupi in Stuttgart with reports on the King, fun in Båstad, snow in Gstaad

Choupi in Stuttgart with reports on the King, fun in Båstad, snow in Gstaad

Well once again Fearless Leader Mr.Disney is at. The genius idea of having 4 events in one week and also making them 28 player fields, it's moronic then and it's moronic now, plus the old chestnut when in doubt blame the Olympics is always used.

Stuttgart

Nadal was meant to be the big atttaction at this event, but he has withdrawn and this is no surprise. At the same time the Stuttgart owners were able to use his name to get some ticket sales. The true attractions of Stuttgart are not the 28 player field, the fact that there will be a roving reporter there from tomorrow, to get some of the action.

Baby Gordo Schwank is playing the weasel Coria, at least it will be a Germany vs Argentina second round match. Nice to see Calleri in Stuttgart, just hope he sticks around long enough so that he can be seen by Choupi and also he will play Cuevas if he gets past pretty boy Melzer in the 1st round. Almagro is the highest seed in this section, though little Richard Gasquet is the 2nd seed and should have a tough one against the Bye and then both qualifiers.

Results so far del Potro and Cuevas won their matches. Once again Acasuso from a break is rubbish and he lost to Fat Albert Montañes, who now plays the real headliner of Stuttgart King Oscar Hernandez, who handled Santi Ventura very easily. These guys are friends and the King needs the points, so I think Montañes will do the right thing and bow down to the King.


Båstad

The field isn't as good as it usually is, but with Disney doing this to the summer clay events, then this is not likely. Crazy Dani Koellerer qualified and he will play Darcis, this will be interesting to see how he acts, how he plays and also what the Swedes will think of this unstable cat.

Nieminen and Roitman, both of these guys need a good result and quickly, though Boredo is lurking and he wants to peak at this event. Moya is back here and has won Båstad before, but he is using this practice to peak for Umag next week. Great to see Marc Lopez in a MD, very humble and nice guy, just not strong enough to compete regularly on the tour, and Safin will be too busy fucking to concentrate on the tennis.

Berdman is another one who needs to get it back on track, he will hope that the wind stays away, but this isn't very likely in Båstad, being on the ocean will do that. I think it will be a Ferrer-Berdych final, just hope there is some good tennis and Volandri losing early would help.

Gstaad

The mountain and exclsuive air in Gstaad, one of the more scenic places on tour, well both the finalists are here again. Mathieu has to play Cilic again, well I think they should be familiar with each other now. Stani is the number 1 seed at home for the first time in his career and he should have had enough time to adjusted to the altitude and looks like a strong favourite here.

Lucho Horna fresh from qualifying for and winning the Lugano Challenger is in a tough section with Karlovic and Seppi. Ivo likes playing here, his serve is even more effective. but with him one can never tell. Seppi is playing a big server in Meffert, it's just the usual take care of your own service game and concentrate hard on the big servers, he should do enough and make it through to the next round.

Andreev finally won a match and hope he can finish the clown Serra as he needs to get back on track, since dumping Altur as coach, though at least he has Kirilenko, so not everything is going against him at the moment.

Newport

Just a total Mickey Mouse event, hope old man Santoro defends.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice that the King won his match in Stuttgart and hope that Choupi will be able to enjoy her dose of live tennis.

Båstad has been raining, but that can happen, it's summer in Sweden and anything is possible.

Just saw Seppi's first set against Meffert, definitely not pretty, hope he can get out of the match as the winner.

Anonymous said...

Hehehe, be sure that your special reporter in Stuttgart will definitely have her dose of live tennis. Just need to wait a bit because I won't be arriving at the venue before tomorrow afternoon. Will try to keep you posted.

Anonymous said...

i was also in stuttgart today and watched some nice matches, so i can give you a small report before choupi continues it ;)

first one was schukin-berlocq, not much to say, it was average challenger level. berlocq is such a limited player, especially his backhand, but yuri needed one and a half set to realize that. after that, it was all about him.

calleri-melzer: it was the first time i saw calleri live and i was impressed! this guy has such a unique technique, it's absolutely fun to watch. he played very aggressively, and produced some great winners with his fast hand, especially with good returns. melzer on the other hand was not feeling comfortable on court, he was gutted from start to end.

coria-schwank. well, well, the main event for me and if you look at the score, it tells you almost everything. i was expecting a loss for coria, and then he comes out and fires winners left and right, while edu was missing everything in sight and started to moan and bitch around. i was like "WTF is going on here" and the first set is over so quickly, though 6-0 seemed too harsh. then guille holds with some difficulties and has chances to make it 2-0, but suddenly edu is waking up and pushing himself, while coria fell apart from one moment to the other without any reason. the serve got worse every second, rallies were still competitive, but you cannot win against schwank when you produce 2-3 DFs per game. the little self-confidence from the first set is completely gone, there was hope when he shortened the lead to 2-3 in the third after the rain delay, but the serve is still missing. it was painful to watch, and you could see corias frustration very clearly. on a side note, i also saw him practising this morning, of course he didn't miss a serve there, but in a match his serve is a completely different thing. sometimes i could call the DF coming right after he tossed the ball up. congrats to edu though, his game in the last two sets was nice and he could make the final here.

last one was zverev-bolelli the first two sets. very interesting players, zverev trying serve-and-volley was quite good and i appreciate it. bolelli played some good shots and he used variety. he was the better player in the first set, but missed some good chances, even had 0-40 on mischas serve once. bolelli had a setpoint in the tiebreak and zverev produced a mishit which landed on the line and won after that, so it was quite lucky. bolelli was angry, but nevertheless regrouped for the second set and won it.

i watched some players practising, gasquet had an intense training match and was admired by the female fans. chucho looked like he was coming right out of bed, was not very motivated after his loss yesterday. no sign of the king, maybe he took a day off. kournikova cannot play tennis and her looks are overrated.

to sum it up, coria tried everything to spoil my day, but he was not successful.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reports Fab and as well for Choupi in advance.

Coria and his double fault problems are still plaguing him, it's a bad thing when you know the double faults are coming.

Schwank has a good chance to make the final in this event.

Horna and Seppi had bad losses.

Anonymous said...

Ok. My 1st day in Stuttgart has been pretty short, tenniswise. I arrived at the venue pretty late in the afternoon so couldn´t see many matches.

I saw Chucho/Prieto vs Kohlmann/Gremelmayr. Hasn´t been a great match but there have been some great moments. Especially when Kohlmann hit a huge forehand directly in Gremelmayr´s butt. You can imagine that everybody laughed hard. Players included...
I had seen both Arggies train for about 15 minutes before the match. They had fun. Nobody, watching them, could guess they were to play a match straight afterwards. The pb is, it´s nice to have fun on a court, but they shouldn´t forget why they were there. The Germans were too good, concentrated all the way and all naturally won.

Then I saw the end of the King´s match. All congrats to Montanes. A great battle from the baseline and the King has been outplayed, I have to be honest. What I liked the most was at the end of the match. The umpire, Damian Steiner had made a call that the King wasn´t agreeing with. And, after the match was over, the King called Steiner and they discussed that decision, each of them trying to explain how to interpret a mark on clay. That was very funny because the match was over and both men were laughing too.

I spot Orsanic but couldn´t approach him. I don´t know the name of Chucho´s new coach. Got a pic of him. Hope the blogger will be able to help on that regard when I come back home.

Ok folks. I think it´s enough for today. More to come.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for the reports Fab and Choupi (wow Choupi, you were fast with your day1 report)!

Hoping for a good result for both Gordo and the Baby one in Stuttgart.

In Gstaad I'll have only 1 fav left after the Wawrinka vs Canas match :(

Have fun with the live tennis!!

Martine

Anonymous said...

Hey Martine, I got a reputation to live up to!! Been acting the roving reporter for a few years now...

Ok, today, I´ve seen 3 completed matches. I wanted to watch Dabul vs Hernych. I had never seen that Argentine player before so I was pretty curious. All I can say is that this match was weird. The 1st set was tight and nobody could pick a winner before the end of the tiebreak. Dabul, who´s pretty much more looking like a wrestler than a tennis player, made 2 stupid mistakes in the tie break that cost him the 1st set. Then, Hernych seemed to have totally lost ground. The bagel he deserved and the bagel he got for the 2nd set. The decisive set began with Dabul losing his serve straight at the beginning. But he didn´t give up and fought till the end. This paid because he broke back when Hernych was serving for the match. Anyway, there had to be a winner and the lucky loser Hernych got the win.

After that match, I decided to wander around, looking for players on practise courts but it was nap time and it was pretty hot this afternoon, so not much to watch at that time.

Then, there was the return of big Delpo, coached by Davin, Gaudio´s former coach. He was playing Bolleli. I was expecting a long match because both players are good claycourters. I was right. Delpo broke in the 1st set and Bolleli couldn´t come back. 2nd set was the opposite. You could hear Davin coaching from the stands, though I was used to this when he was with Gaudio. Delpo avoided the bagel but that wasn´t easy, as Bolleli was on fire after losing the 1st set.
The 3rd set was Delpo´s serve power. Good grounstrokes and a lot of temper. He won, that´s all that matters.

Here was I again on practise courts and how surprising!! I found Chucho training with Coria. Didn´t stay much as I had another match coming up, with baby Gordo, alias Schwank, a player I had never seen live and who I really was eager to see on flesh. And flesh he has....which is not a pb for me, on the contrary. He made me think of Zaba, not only physically, but also in his specific gruntings....I love that guy. Yes, I fell umder the charm. And cheering almost all alone on a center court, full of German ppl, hasn´t been easy. But I did it and it seemed the lucky charm acted. It´s not like Andi Beck is a great claycourter, but he obviously wanted to do well in front of his fellows. Nothing to be ashamed of but he simply has been outplayed today.

Ok, folks. Hope you appreciated the reports so far.

Anonymous said...

Great write up GW and thank you Choups for an entertaining read. Thumbs up!!! Continue enjoying yourself. Say hello from me to anyone I might know;-)

Sue

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the report Choupi!
Always good to get some first hand information :-)

Today will be a very busy day too for you. Hope the weather will be fine.

I'm glad you also fell for Baby Gordo (Baby Zabala would be a good nick too :p ), because the way he got me head over heels made me feel like a fangirl :lol:

Good to hear too Delpo also found his form again after the troubles he had with his back!

Looking forward to the next report!!

Martine

Anonymous said...

Stuttgart reports, part 3. And the hero of the day is......the RAIN!!!!
F**k that sucks when matches are constantly interrupted. Anyway, I saw 2 completed matches today.

I attended the 1st set of Gasquet vs Montanes. Gasquet won it pretty easily so I decided to wander around the practise courts, looking for some faves practising. Good idea I´ve had as I´ve found Delpo training with coach Davin, both shirtless. Sorry, the raving reporter being a girl, she can have some preferences, hehehe. The 1st rain storm stopped them from practising but it interrupted no play as Gasquet had finally won over Montanes.

I have been blessed I coud watch El Gordo Calleri, with no rain interruption please. He really seemed focused and he was playing the local Berrer, who´s always presented like the one living 5 min away from center court. So you can imagine that Agustin really wasn´t getting much support from the stands. He fought the whole match and I have to admit I´ve loved the way he made Berrer lose his arrogance. After the match, Baby Sarah and Mum were there to congratulate daddy Agustin, and that was so nice to see. El Gordo could finally sign my big Argentine flag, and he was so happy I could have hugged him...

The 2nd match I saw was Delpo vs Kohli, as they call him here. Mrs kohli was in the stands, like the start she thinks she is. That match has been hard to follow, as the 1st interruption came when it was 5-4 for Kohli. When both players came back on court, 1 hour later, Delpo won the tiebreak and the play has been suspended a second time. How great!! Gotta love that. The 2nd set has been easier for Delpo, though both players were giving their best. A pleasure to watch, I admit. No regrets to have resisted all those rain interruptions. Coach Davin was here, but more silent than in the previous matches. Does that mean Delpo knows what he´s gotta do? It seems so as he won.

The doubles he was to play with Schwank has been postponed because of the lack of light. Which means that Delpo will have to play with Eduardo that doubles match, and then, play against him, in the singles semi. Pretty weird situation, isn´t it?

Enough for today.

Anonymous said...

Thanks again for the report Choupi :D

I'm pretty happy with the results today and I really hope for 2 Argies in the final ;)

Martine

Anonymous said...

thanks for your reports, choupi, nice read.

yes, i'm also very happy with the results. sorry to hear about the rain, it's not getting better the next days.

Anonymous said...

Nice write up again Choups. I think you need to take a picture of your flag ;-)
Enjoy tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

Great reports and the rain is such a pain, at the same time it is very good for Argentina, that they have three men in the semi finals, maybe one of them will win the event.

Anonymous said...

Ok, this will be my last report from Stuttgart. And no need to tell that I´m writing it in a nostalgic mood, already thinking about next year´s event...

When I woke up this morning, I saw that it was still raining and I thought, gosh, not 2 days of shitty rain in a row!! But things got better after I finished breakfast. It was grey and cold, but at least, rain had stopped. So I went to the venue, eager to watch the semis with 3 Argentines, 3 of my faves, playing today. But actually, I wasn´t in such a hurry as I knew that this would be my last day here.

I began to look for some practise and I decided to stay and watch Baby Gordo, aka Schwank. All I can say is that the bandwagon is getting crowded. Eduardo trained hard for a little more than 1 hour, trying to avoid the crowd. I don´t know if he´s really shy or if he wants to remain focused, but he always acts that way.

So I slowly headed my seat on the Center Court and....the rain said hello again. Fortunately it was just a shower and it didn´t last too long. The match between Delpo and Schwank took place with a great mood. That was great to see that the crowd had some taste outside German players...ok, that was for the joke/rant.
Schwank started the match making errors, he seemed pretty tense. Not like he is used with playing against a friend at that level of competition. Because yes, those 2 guys are friends and they don´t need any umpire to make calls. Delpo is far more experienced and it showed. He was focused since the very 1st point and the serve was just working like crazy. Poor Eduardo gave all he could but I´m afraid the poor guy had run out of gas. In the 2nd set he was looking in the stands towards his coach, asking for solutions or complaining he couldn´t do anything. The result was to be expected, Delpo will make the final and I´m satisfied with that result.
When interviewed after the match, Delpo said he wanted to play the doubles with his friend Schwank and hoped that he wouldn´t kill him as soon as he would enter the lockerroom.

Then came sir Agustin Calleri and monsieur Gasquet. I was hoping for Agustin to kick some French ass. But it didn´t start that well for Agustin as he got broken straight at the beginning. Gasquet, still with the arrogance that I´ve already seen in him before, played confident and should I say, overconfident. He wasn´t obviously expecting Calleri to come back in that 1st set. But that is not knowing what Agustin is like. Of course he fought like a lion and broke Richie when he was serving for the set at 5-4. Gasquet started to get frustrated and you could see the frustration grow with Calleri pushing him in a tiebreak. Calleri took that tiebreak and I was so happy to see that he made Gasquet swallow that arrogance deep inside.
But unfortunately, the 2nd set began like the 1st one, with Calleri being broken straight. Pb is that the shoulder forced him to get massaged at 3-2 for Gasquet. And the poor Agustin, though still in the fight, lost that 2nd set pretty harshly. I was getting worried for the decisive set as again, Agustin lost his serve. He clearly gave all he could but you could see that the shoulder had been bothering for a long time. And I felt sorry for him when he had to shake the hand of the winner Gasquet.

I rushed outside the court as Delpo-Schwank were still on, playing doubles. I arrived when they lost the 2nd set after a tiebreak, having won the 1st. The super tiebreak was fun to see as those 2 Argentine guys are friends and mostly wanted to get some fun on the court. They won the match, so I was hoping to get some action later in the day. But the speaker announced, later in the afternoon, that due to a player injured, the pair Berrer-Zverev would play an exhibition match on Center court instead of the doubles initially scheduled. That was the end of my day, and week in Stuttgart.

Hope you´ve appreciated the reports as much as I´ve appreciated reporting.

Anonymous said...

I think I can safely and rightly say that we all appreciate the roving reporter doing her fiar share. Thanks so much for all your reports!!
Til next year;-)

Sigurd Sigurdsson said...

Fantastic reports from the roving reporter and too bad the showpony defeated Calleri, but he had a good week and possibly he can go to Kitzi and win there again.

Schwank, is probably not used to all the attention he is now getting, some people can handle it and others don't, though Juan isn't the most talkative guy around.

Glad you got some signatures from the players on the flag.

Anonymous said...

Having watched Del Potro this week for the first time in almost half an year, I have to say I find him bigger in body but esencially in confidence. I'm very impressed by his solid and steady game in Stuttgart.

This title could be a turning point in his career.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great reports Choupi!

I was hoping for 2 Argies in the final but too bad Gordo's shoulder was bothering him so much.
But he played a good tournament and I hope he's ok.

Delpo clearly was the more experienced player in the other semi but Credit to Schwank. The last few months his career got a big boost, but however this is great, it also means a lot of mental stres and he has to learn to cope with that(but I have good hope for him :-)).

And of course it was great to see Delpo win his 1st ATP tournament, beating the showpony hehe!!

Martine