Australian Open Day 1 Qualies

Yes, first report of the year, figured I'd start it off at a Slam. The scheduling sucked with all the matches I wanted to see at the end, but overall not a bad but long day.

No photos so far, will try and make it a bit better, but laziness is a problem. They are doing some major restructuring to the venue. The great old court 4 doesn't exist anymore, it used to be a practice court but it had one of the best Aus Open matches in ages. The Antonio Veic vs. Dani Koellerer 5 set classic, there were only 3 rows on side that were full, the walkways were full. The other side was all grass in between Court 6 which is a showcourt. Every supervisor was there, players like Darcis, Melzer, Rochus watched it, plenty of antics with Koellerer getting warnings, bitchung about people walking. Best of all the top 2 tiers on Court 6 were watching clapping loudly while interfering in the Monaco vs. Gulbis match which was on that court. Goodbye Court 4.

Now onto business.

Brown vs. Moriya

Brown was struggling with the wind initially and Moriya wasn't missing too much. The 4-4 where Brown was broken he played a dog of a game, then at 15-30, Moriya gets a netcord over Brown at net to get 15-40. Moriya serves 2 doubles yet manages to win 6-4.

Brown got footfaulted second serve break point down to lose his early serve, which he was less than amused about. He broke back straight away, was hitting some huge forehands, yes the love affair with the dropshot continued worked well for the most part.

Dreddy created a lot of break chances, through a mix of solid Moriya play and Brown's erratic play kept it closer than it needed to be, eventually Brown broke for the 2nd set.

He started playing better and Moriya's second serve makes Seppi's look like Sampras. Best part was the woman who footfaulted Brown made another tight call, which set him off. He said "I didn't get footfaulted before this, nor after this. Moriya's shot hit the line, yet mine was out in the same spot. This is not a coincidence. You know it's not easy playing 3 against 1."

After this he steamrolled the final set.

Weintraub vs. Odesnik

Pretty tight match and reasonable standard as well. Surprisingly Odesnik had more support, he must have imported a crowd here to cheer for him.

Weintraub's backhand was working very well such a well produced stroke, though his forehand is pretty ugly and was missing some simple mid court ones.

Odesnik was being his usual rat self, wasting time in between points, took an injury timeout for the sake of it at the end of the 2nd. Usually it's the toilet break after he lost the 1st set.

Weintraub when he rushed Odesnik was the better player which is what he did in the 1st and 3rd set. He missed a few more shots in the 2nd and was a bit passive and the Rat took advantage.

Amir did the tennis world a favour.

Young vs. Sektic

Good old DY, didn't get there in time to see if he had the pimp headphones on. He is an example of how not to manage a teenage talent.

Man DY was passive, some huge moonballing on and if he played a better player it would be just fodder. Sure there were some good volleys, but a poor showing all round.

Stebe vs. Ignatik

Ignatik went up the early break in both sets, but once he did then he lost the initiative and conditions at the time were up and down. He didn't handle them that well, whereas Stebe was just solid played the big points well when he needed to and was a comfortable winner in the end.

Pashanski vs. Ward

Boris is a hardcourt hack, there was no weight on his shots at all. Ward served fairly well, but didn't do anything special.

As for antics Boris was quite calm, though he bitched about being footfaulted and wanted a linesman changed due to lacking vision. Even then he was subdued by his standards.

Other stuff Antonio Veic got footfaulted on the first point of the match and typical Veic style it was a grind, but couldn't get it done.

Robert Farah, the wrist tendonitis impacted on him badly really looked like he didn't want to be there and could tell it was his first match of the year.

Freddie Niemeyer had another kid so he is staying in Montreal to coach the Canadian kids, whereas Frederic Fontang is working with Pospisil.

Saw some Diez and Cervenak. Diez is a fiesty little guy who is always talking to himself in Spanish as for Cervenak the guy had some chances in the 3rd but too chicken shit on the shots to hit them and was too passive. He needs to play Stuttgart to show some good stuff.

That's it for today.