I saw the recap of that incident. I’ve never heard of that happening, but I guess some air was trapped between two levels of the court, so they drilled some holes to let the air out and then jumped up and down on that spot a little bit to force it all out. The Australian Open uses a material called Plexicushion, which is “blend of latex, rubber, and plastic particles.” Here’s what the company says the layers look like.
Haase did challenge Roddick and won the first set, but Roddick won the second - he said he thought the moment got to Haase - and won the third and fourth sets pretty easily. Kuznetsova beat Henin in two close sets. Federer beat Malisse without too much trouble. It wasn’t Federer’s best game but it’s the kind of win he must’ve wanted after that slog with Simon. After going down 1-3 in the second set, Federer won 10 games in a row. That’s more like what he needs to do. Sharapova lost the first set to Goerges, a German player, but she’s fought back and just won the third set 6-4. The (over)night matches are Wawrinka-Monfils, Venus-Petkovic, and Verdasco-Nishikori. We’ll see if Venus can keep fighting through that muscle injury.
PunditLisa, Rafa’s shirt is nowhere near “neon pink” as it mimics the red of the Spanish flag. Here, see for yourself – note the subtle pattern on it as well:
The colors must be wrong on my television set because the shirt in your link is much redder than the hot pink color of the shirt that Rafa was wearing on my t.v.
Funny that someone with your user name should pick up on that, though.
Wozaniacki is getting raves for this press conference. I’m looking for video but I haven’t found it yet. She says she has heard some commentators find her boring, so she starts of by spouting the usual press conference cliches before anybody asks her any questions. With that stuff out of the way, she gets asked about other things.
My user name is the nick for Spain’s football NT – though they (press, Spanish Football Fed) away with the “fury” part as it’s no longer descriptive of our playing style – so in Spain it’s simply “La Roja.” Still, the traditionalist in me (read: old fart) refuses to budge.
Anyway, worked the men’s fashion industry for many years thus it’s sort of instinctive for me to appraise the outfits of my fav players, so yeah, I am well acquainted with Nike’s season line-up for Fedal (Federer/Nadal). Don’t watch the WTA though I did get to see Venus’ lattice abomination – that was simply embarrassing; she ought to hire me as her image consultant.
If I play bad, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2, no?
Lot’s of tennis to be played but I like his draw all the way to the quarters (Isner/Cilic winner might be a test) where he could/should meet Ferrer. Even if he has a dominant H2H against him (as he does against just about anyone else not named Davydenko), Ferru is a grinder and has already beaten him in a Major. Though to be fair it was three years ago at the US Open and Rafa’s game on hard courts has improved tenfold since. After that, if things stay true to form, either Soderling or Murray, both extremely tough, but having to face each other to get to Rafa should work to the latter’s advantage.
Certainly don’t want to jinx him, but methinks the Rafa Slam is a very real possibility. Whether it’s a repeat of this year’s US Open or the '09 AO final.
Man! I love the AO. Being a night owl few things beat staying up all night watching a Grand Slam!
No kidding! Way to make an attracative 20 something tennis player look like a frumpy old man with his pants pulled up to his nipples!!
Watched Fed sleepwalk his way past Malisse. I love Fed, but I was really feeling sorry for Malisse. I don’t think Fed even broke a sweat. It looked more like he was just playing a couple of warm up sets before he was to go out and really play!
I guess it isn’t too unusual as Brad Gilbert guessed that the surface bubbling up was the problem. He even talked about how they sometimes have to poke holes in the bubbles to get them to flatten out. Shortly after he said that, they showed the guys drilling two holes in the surface and pushing the air out.
Very disappointing loss for Tsonga tonight. Youhzny also went down, and the commentators are talking about his opponent, Raonic, as a potential star. He’s 20, had to qualify for the tournament, and he’s about to play Soderling in the fourth round. Before this, he’d only played one match in a major tournament (last year’s U.S. Open). Murray looked terrific today. He really beat the crap out of Garcia-Lopez. he teed off on Garcia-Lopez’s serve over and over again and he hit a bunch of aces himself.
Clijsters was pretty bad tonight, but she managed to beat Cornet. Isner and Cilic are tied in the third set. Cilic hasn’t looked food so far. I guess he’s picked up his game since they cut away from the match.
Cilic was my bet to win this. For an interest I backed Cilic and Victoria Azarenka and took the double before the draws. They were paying $81 and $15. After they both had won their first 2 matches I checked the markets again. Azarenka had firmed to $14 but Cilic was $101, mainly because with his draw even if he beats Isner he then meets Nadal.
Did you get to see any of the match? Did Tsonga just get out played, or did he get beaten by his own head?
Tsonga is one of my favorite players to watch but I just don’t think he is ever going to make it into the top 5. I’m not sure what part of his game is lacking, I suspect it is mostly mental.
ESPN mostly showed the Murray match and didn’t give us Tsonga until near the end of the fifth. Murray is a contender but they stuck with him after it stopped being interesting. Tsonga lost the last two sets 6-1, 6-1, so he really went away. And he almost lost his first-round match, too. I don’t know what happened but he didn’t bring his best tennis at all.
That, and he’s had trouble playing consistently because he keeps getting hurt. I agree he has the physical tools to compete for a spot in the top five. He got up to sixth in late 2008.
Cilic did fight his way past Isner at 9-7 in the fifth. Speaking of guys who should be ranked higher, I forgot Cilic was down to 15. I’m guessing it’s because he lost in the second round in New York after getting to the quarters in 2009. He’ll have a chance to really boost his ranking at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He’s got steady top 10 ability for sure. Oh, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Stosur lost. It’s a shame she keeps playing below her ranking at the majors.
Just watched the Nadal/Tomic match. It was great to see Rafa get a nice challenge – from a homegrown boy to boot. I had glimpses of DelPotro when Tomic was in his zone, but then he let his foot off the gas pedal and the next thing he knew, Nadal was waving to him in the rearview mirror.
Pat Rafter is my favorite player and I was really ticked that Baghdatis bailed on his match, which meant that Rafter couldn’t do his interview. Argh! I wonder if they’ll ever show the Champions doubles match that Rafter left to play in.
