Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Aus Open Day 1 Main Draw Reports

Honestly I couldn't think of a more snazzy or funky title, so this is going to have to do under the circumstances.

Got to the grounds just before the start of play, might make it there earlier, if all works out or not. It was fucking hot, but at least it was dry heat, which is a lot better than humidity. Now onto the matches.

Berydch vs. Ginepri : One can never tell with the Berdman, what is going to happen, but he had this under control. Berdych broke in the middle of the 1st set and was able to take it to 6-4, then he turns on the style to lead 4-0. He then gets bored and decides to clown around a biut and Gineprick comes back to level at 4-4, then Berdych wakes up and breaks him and takes the set 6-4, then in cruise control for the rest of the match.

Malisse vs. Llodra : Since I can't be at all of the matches, there are a mix of people that help me, these are Glen, Jimbo and Sam when it comes to some details in matches. Malisse was looking sharp and after a hard fought set, he turned on the style and was played some of the high quality tennis that he is very capable of and then annihilated Llodra continuing from his good finish against Dancevic.


Muller vs LaLo:
Not the match that I expected to spend the most amount of time at, but hey the thought of seeing LaLo lose is always good, plus unlike Adam I don't have a problem with Gilles Muller, in fact he has always been fine whenever I had any dealings with him.

He started well and was able to get the early break and hold on to take the 1st set, then got his chance in the tiebreaker, funny enough the 3rd and 4th sets won by LaLo, happened the same way Muller played some poor shots in his first service game and then it just went with serve to end the sets. There were very few baseline rallies and the ones that were, Muller was the better player, though he did lift off the forehand too often for my liking and LaLo was volleying well when he had to.

The 5th set was more of the same some big serving, Muller had a couple of half chances, but LaLo snuffed them out with some big bombs when it counted. It was dragging on in the heat, but there were some interested spectators like Pim Pim Johansson, who thinks maybe in two months he can play tennis again, Darcis, Rochus and some other players as well, alonng with Albert Costa. Big hold for Gilles at 15-14, then finally he was able to get a hold of the LaLo serve and hit two excellent returns and ripped a forehand past him to get to match point. LaLo saved one, but couldn't save the next one. ESPN ran onto the court to interview Muller and both of these guys are going to be tired as.

One hilarious moment, was the crowd were lacking some major brain power and both guys were waiting to play and this no talent arse clown just walks in at a non change of ends right in their eye line and LaLo said something and so did Muller, got to love these idiots without a clue, which lead to the majority of Serb fans during the Tipsarevic and Hernandez match later on.

Calleri vs Garcia-Lopez: I didn't get to see the start, so thanks to Roberto for filling me in with the stuff I missed. Gordo started off very well winning the first set 6-3 and leading 4-1, then he starts going a bit silly because of some shit line calls and then loses the 2nd set in a tiebreaker. After this GGL got some momentum, he placed the ball deep and then Calleri just self destructed hitting a clownish amount of unforced errors to only win 2 games in the last 2 sets, which was poor to say the least. Glad for him that he signed for some fans after he lost, but poor result.


Tipsarevic vs Hernandez :
Oscar started very well, using his serve effectively and opening up the court from there he was using the forehand to run Gattuso (Tipsarevic) around the court and was playing not too far behind the baseline and took the first set 6-4. Gattuso started to concentrate a bit better, plus he got some classy dead netcords at 30 all points twice in the second set and was able to break in these games, while making less errors.

Gattuso was bothered by some blisters and the heat and was pulling some classic timewasting tactics, but the umpire wasn't pulling up on anything, there were some bad line calls that went both ways. Oscar had a few words with Gattuso letting him know he wasn't impressed with the antics. Oscar and the umpire had a running dialogue. Oscar says to him "What is have you against me"? The umpire doesn't say anything and Oscar says that's the problem "you don't say or see anything", when it comes to linecalls.

Gattuso gets the early break and holds on in the 3rd set, then the hilarious sight, when both guys are getting treated by the trainer at the same time. Oscar with a back problem and not sure about Gattuso. The King starts playing like he did in the 4th set and was able to defend resolutely under the attacks of Gattuso.

The King loses his first service game with a shank that lands on the line from Gattuso and another netcord. Then he has a huge chance to break back, but the shoulder rotation on the backhand wasn't quick enough to get through the ball and it went metres wide or shanked. Gattuso gave him enough second serves and the King ended up a conversion rate of something like 4/20 break points which is not going to get it a done. This was a combo of his passive play and a good shots by Tipsarevic.

This matrch had a lot of things, some humour mostly from Oscar, a bit of niggle, clownish officiating, worst of all a bunch of absolute nationalistic moronic deadheads who only supported Tipsarevic because of his nationality. They know totally nothing about the game, just go there to be seen, just walk around in between points, pissing off both players.

Kudos for placing on this on a very small court so hardly any people could see it, this was more genius wotk from Craig Tiley.

Phau should consider retirement losing to Brydan Klein in any form and as for Starace, well hang his head he had more than enough chances to take this match, but Tomic has more go than Klein. As long as Muller is fresh enough, he should be able to take Tomic and expose his poor movement.

Of course thanks to glen, Jimbo, Sammy, Imran who helped with this as well.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Calleri shows his great Grand Slam pedigree, he has a shameful record in GS events.

Glad to see Muller take out LaLo, though not sure how fun it would have been to watch just serving.

Anonymous said...

would've been epic if the king had made it to the 2nd round, but tipsy was always winning that.

drama guaranteed, though.

i saw the ESPN crew interviewing muller, they were like "how do you feel after the longest match in history?", and he was like "it didn't feel that long to be honest".

lol

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reports. Please can I copy the report of Janko's match as we discussed before? Thanks in advance

Anonymous said...

Great reports, thanks, G

Deivid

Anonymous said...

Hehehe, I was ready to bet that Oscar's match was to take half of the 1st day report....
Sorry for Lalo but more for Al Costa even if he's not his coach anymore :(
Even more nice report than usual, it must be the King's inspiration....

A.

Anonymous said...

Great reports, looking forward to the next installments.

Hahaha, watching LaLo lose like that, would have been worth it.

Anonymous said...

Sure you just loved to see Lalo's ass being kicked hehe :p

And yes, Gordo and the Slam record...

Anonymous said...

Typical Serbian tactics got The King out of the slam ffs :mad: :fiery: :ungry: