Monday, July 13, 2009

Partying in Båstad and there is a French gnome in Stuttgart, the land of spätzle and Mercedes

We have the fun summer clay events, as much as I like Båstad, there aren't going to be any fan reports from this event, unlike Stuttgart, so I will get the Båstad info out of the way first.

Situated in the southwest of Sweden Båstad is the tenniscentre of Sweden. Lots of rich Stockholmers with summer houses, plenty of parties and a good amount of tourists enjoy the place and the town is at its liveliest when this event is on.

The players get looked after, plenty of good looking women and not quite like the Dnepr Challenger in Ukraine which is famous and not for the natural scenery of the building kind.

Vinciguerra makes it back to the main tour. The qualie draw is seriously weak there, but good that the adopted Swede Luczak, Gimeno-Traver, Cañas and Starace made the main draw.

Onto Stuttgart, this is where we get fan reports and that is the best part, no propaganda here. They took their time in releasing the main draw, but when Koubek is the special wildcard, then this is understandable, as we all know Koubek is the man and not just for the yellow shorts either. Also in Stuttgart, there is Tomas Berdych coming back from a successful Davis Cup adventure in Ostrava. Then our reporter gets to drool over Santoro and it will be one of the last times to see the wily old fox play.

Acasuso will be happy to be on the clay, though the memories in Stuttgart are still there 2 sets to 1 and leading 5-1 in the final before losing it are still there, has a tough one against another ballbasher in Chardy. Lurch Hanescu won his his first rounder, he is an atypical Romanian, very introverted and a gentle giant, but he did the world a favour in taking Simon out of RG.

Best of all and most importantly his majesty Oscar Hernandez is there in Stuttgart, so all the lovers of spätzle, one of the best ever foods can appreciate the genius and flair of Hernandez, even if he doesn't win here, he wins at life.