US Open '10: Point by Point Coverage

[breezybee]

Pam was indeed wearing her pearls.

[mooncreek]

Given the state of the ladies' game, I'm stunned that every seed won today (shame as I was pulling for Dinara).

Though the lone upset on the men's side certainly brought the crazy. With Mathieu blowing so many leads, it's a shame that Hewitt's tank was on empty in the fifth or else he would have won.

[roseha]

I missed a lot of the USO live today due to my afternoon-evening schedule though I have my DVR-d coverage of the night session to watch later. So Venus played well? Glad Roger got through in 3- I just saw about the last hour.

I was really hoping Safina would do better. Too bad.

I don't know if anyone else here has a computer-less job (I'm a proofreader and we work on hard copy) but I can follow the scores up to the minute on m.usopen.org. It works on my Cliq XT fine, and it only has Android 1.5. I just wish there was a tennis site that would update like this for all the tournaments. It's so annoying when ESPN or Yahoo don't update matches for 20 or 30 minutes.

[harry24]

Is this ESPN's first US Open, or did they do it last year too? I can't remember. At any rate, I thought the coverage was very, very good today. It was basically non-stop from 11 am through 'til 11 pm, with double coverage from 1-7.

There are certain announcers/hosts I really dislike: Connors, Storm, Shriver and, to a lesser extent, Robinson and, it pains me to say it, Carillo (I used to think she was awesome), but the majority are really quite good (Macafee, P.Mac, JMac, Morariu, Gilbert, Gimelstob (who I maintain can be truly informative, if occasionally douchy), and excellent (Fowler, Cliffie, Mary Jo, Navratilova (great comments, but talks too much), and Cahill).

And it's bliss being free of Trautwig and Barkan (sp?).

Pam was indeed wearing her pearls.

And not just pearls, but pearls with a mousy floral top with crochet trim! She interviewed Anna Wintour wearing that appalling combination. Ha! Looking at PS you could almost literally smell that unfortunate, sour elderly lady smell.

[lt]

First, some observations:
-When you do something once a year, every year, for 21 years it feels like you've never stopped doing it when it rolls around again. I think my car can drive itself to Flushing Meadows. And there was certainly no orienting myself when I hit the grounds. I felt like I had been there last week.
-Does anything feel as good as a shower after a day in the sun? Watching/playing tennis, spending a day at the shore, a pool, canoeing, hiking, whatever. That shower could not feel better. 95 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. . . I was wiping away salt by the end of the day. And I look like a partially boiled lobster--not because I'm not bright pink, but because parts of my body are bright pink--left cheek/ear/neck, spot on my chest, part of one calf, part of one thigh, nice sock lines going (argh). I look ridiculous.

On to the tennis:

I did notice though that he has very short hair which I've never seen before.

I didn't get to see Gonzo at all! I was watching Davydenko win and I wanted to stay for a little of Dinara/Dani (Dinara was trying hard but there was no way she was going to win that match--I left after five games--but she looks so svelte! Although the dark ponytail/blond rest of hair looks a bit bizarre) and Gonzo's court had a line around the back by the time I got over there. The court schedulers are so stupid--they should walk the grounds the previous year and see who draws the big crowds and put those players on bigger courts. Gonzo was on the smallest of the side-kinda show courts and he always draws a huge crowd. They could have put him on a bigger side court and that would have been smarter. Instead, they put women on the bigger side courts and no one goes to a woman's first round match unless, like Dinara and Dani, it looks like there could be a good match.

But it's okay that I didn't get to see Gonzo because I sat myself down at a real side court to watch what I knew would be a thriller of a match--O. Rochus vs. Tipsy. Once again, the court schedulers were stupid. Rochus always draws a big crowd because his play is so exciting to watch but this court only had a few row of bleachers on either side. I'm not a fan of Tipsy's and yesterday did not change my mind. He's a big, pissy baby. He was cranky because the crowd was firmly rooting for Olivier (sound like another Serb we know?) and proceeded to whine his way through the first set--complaining to the chair ump because he thought she had made fun of him (which she totally did--but he deserved it, not knowing the "T," c'mon) and whining over to his people (pretty much the only people rooting for him in the beginning) about the line calls. Tipsy won in four and Olivier totally should have won--he had loads of opportunities but he let them all slip away. But the shot making! Wow! Ollie's shots skim the net like bullets and Tipsy has this forehand shot that looks like he's bending all the way to the ground. Ollie is perfectly willing to come to the net on these crazy approach shots and it was something else. So much that:

o that she can clutch them when people do something she doesn't like.

There was one point where I totally clutched my pearls (but I wasn't wearing any). Completely unconsciously I grabbed my neck after a crazy point and I realized I am a pearl clutcher (even if I don't wear them).

That was the only match I watched beginning to end. Besides Davydenko and Dinara/Dani I saw the last two sets of JCF vs. Klizan. I have never heard of him but he was not pleased that the Mosquito was beating him so handily. He pretty much gave up at the end. Saw a little of Andreev/Zeballos (another Argentine who needs a haircut) but it was not a thrilling match so I didn't stick around. It was too hot to go to the completely packed courts (Monfils/Kendrick, Soderling/Haider-Maurer) so I missed those thrillers. I went to Hewitt/Mathieu (and the chair ump was cracking me up--in two sets he pronounced Mathieu's name a different way every time he said it) but the break fast that was the 2nd set was getting a little annoying so I headed home to my beautiful, wonderful, shower and, like skyz, watch The Closer (the end kind of freaked me out, right?).

I'll upload my pictures a little later today and I'll post a link. I don't think I got anything too thrilling--I was sitting directly behind Rochus so it didn't feel right to take his shirtless pictures (although, man, what a cutie! And that BL-FR accented English! Yum.) so only JCF for the shirtless.

I don't know if anyone else here has a computer-less job (I'm a proofreader and we work on hard copy) but I can follow the scores up to the minute on m.usopen.org.

Can you do apps? the US Open app updates scores every 30 seconds. I don't have an iPhone, but I do have an iTouch. Very spotty WiFi service on the Open grounds but I was able to figure out what was going on pretty constantly.

eta: Oh, one interesting scheduling note. I don't know if it is because of the storm we're supposed to get at the end of the week (Daniel, is that the one?) but the court schedulers filled up every court yesterday. Usually, they leave the back side courts and Court 4 (until 4 pm) empty for players to practice on but not yesterday. Which sucked for me because I like to spend a few minutes watching the practice but they had to stick to the actual practice courts and those are a madhouse because you can only watch from the side of one of them. (Think of five or six courts laid out side to side in one fenced-in area [surrounded by hedges] with one open area at the very bottom of the last court.) And there is no way I'm getting to the grounds before 11am so I'm not going to see the players practice early. Although the USTA/ESPN was smart this year. They put a camera stand up at the top side of the practice courts so they'll be able to broadcast some of the practice sessions. They were also smart by opening a hole in the back of the camera stand at Court 11 (where Monfils/Kendrick were) so the camera could swing around and catch some action behind that court. I noticed it swing around to film the 2nd set tiebreak between Rochus and Tipsy. Sadly, that tiebreak sucked and Ollie lost it 0-7. Anyone just watching that tiebreak would have no clue how exciting the match was.

eta2: roseha, do you do book proofreading? I used to work at a book publisher (St. Martin's Press) and I remember our proofreaders worked from printed-out manuscripts and not computer layouts.

[vallegirl]

Aug 31, 2010 6:49:57 GMT harry24 said:

There are certain announcers/hosts I really dislike: Connors, Storm, Shriver and, to a lesser extent, Robinson and, it pains me to say it, Carillo (I used to think she was awesome), but the majority are really quite good (Macafee, P.Mac, JMac, Morariu, Gilbert, Gimelstob (who I maintain can be truly informative, if occasionally douchy), and excellent (Fowler, Cliffie, Mary Jo, Navratilova (great comments, but talks too much), and Cahill).

I can agree with all your opinions of the announcers except Martina. She always makes it about how the others compare to her and how she would have done something and the power and the glory and the awesomeness that is Martina Navratilova. I was a huge fan of hers when she was a player, but I find her humorless and obnoxious. She's not in the Shriver category, but she's definitely in the Carillo universe for me.

After ESPN broke up their trio of Cliffie/Fred/Mary, which is still the best announcing team for tennis that I can recall and I still miss Stolle, they finally found a group that works really well together. Fowler is a fantastic anchor because he's really charming and affable and balances the commentary between aficionados and novices and I really love listening to the Macs comment together. That's a 40+ year relationship and they have a great rapport. Johnny Mac's daughter turning 12 all those years ago made him a better and less sexist commentator and he's slowly weaseled his way into being my favorite. Cahill's Cahill and I was a fan of him when he was a player, so I love him as a commentator, but Mary Jo's really grown into the role. She was as weak as Tracy when she first started, but she's studied and learned and gotten so much better.

[falafaclese]

Great recap lt. What did you mean when you said that Dinara was never going to win that match? She seemed like she was playing okay, but not consistently, and she seemed to be relatively positive through most of the match that I saw. Was it just that she was never able to seize control? It was kind of an interesting match to watch given Dinara's struggles to get back, and their recent match history.

[roseha]

eta2: roseha, do you do book proofreading? I used to work at a book publisher (St. Martin's Press) and I remember our proofreaders worked from printed-out manuscripts and not computer layouts.

I'm a legal proofreader, lt, and on a busy day I may not make it to a computer at all (usually only for entering our charges, and downtime). We always work on printed copy. I don't have an iphone or ipod touch, so the mobile page I'm accessing on the XT is probably the best option for now. It does seem to update fast though. I've tried to check twitter feeds from the BBC, but they mainly seem to tweet about the British players.

Hope you continue to have fun! Must be hot and dehydrating out there (as usual).

[lt]

She seemed like she was playing okay, but not consistently, and she seemed to be relatively positive through most of the match that I saw. Was it just that she was never able to seize control?

Yes. You're right, and it is what made the match kind of sad to watch, she was playing okay and didn't seem down on herself or anything. Her ready position (which is how I judge if the player looks into the match or not) was pretty mobile and alert (on her toes, not heels, etc.) but she just couldn't seem to put everything together to give Dani any real fits. I wish Dinara had played someone who she could have out hit for her first round to shake the rust off. It does crack me up that Dinara looks exactly like Marat when she walks. I walk exactly like my dad (we bounce on the balls of our feet) so I guess genetic walking style is actually a thing.

Must be hot and dehydrating out there (as usual).

That is one of the things the US Open does very right--you can bring in your own water and there are a lot of water fountains for refills on your water bottle. So you aren't stuck buying bottle after bottle of ridiculously expensive and salty-tasting Evian. So no dehydration for me. YEAH! Speaking of Evian, I always wonder how the players suck down so much of that vile stuff--I would have to dump it out and refill with Poland Spring or something. (Or, for old-school East Coasters--Deer Park, that's good water!)

[falafaclese]

Bizarre scoreline in the Mardy Fish/Jan Hajek match- 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1. Did anyone see it?

[lt]

I noticed that on Live Scores. What was going on?

Also, Beaker is down two sets and a break in the fourth. The heat is probably too much for him.

eta: I knew as soon as I said he was down-n-out that he'd come back, and now Beaker has break points to get back on serve.

[falafaclese]

Yeah, I'm watching. I knew Troicki would piss it away. When he had chances for a second break, and was totally passive and let it go, I had a feeling he was going to come back and serve a loose game right after.

[lt]

And Fer is looking awful--losing the first set 1-6 to Fognini.

[falafaclese]

Geez, Troicki is really pissing me off. He's choking this away in the most lethargic way possible.

[breezybee]

Bizarre scoreline in the Mardy Fish/Jan Hajek match- 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1. Did anyone see it?

Saw the parts that TSN deemed to show me. It was just as weird as it sounds.


ETA - I wish they would show us some of the Verdasco match. I'd like to see what is going on. Also, Polansky is up two sets and a break on Monaco. I really like Monaco but Polansky is Canadian so ...go Canada!