Australian Open '12: Point By Point Coverage

[falafaclese]

I'm up for a new #1 too, and there are plenty possibilities to choose from. Unfortunately, I don't think Na is one of them (how kooky and fantastic would she be as a #1? I can hardly stand to think about it). She has too many points to defend from this tournament last year, but the upside of her post-Aussie slump last year is that she has relatively few points to defend between next week and the French, so if she goes on a tear, who knows? Realistically speaking, it will probably be Kvitova before anyone else, but after that, Na and Serena have a lot of the aforementioned upside. Azarenka's well positioned, but if she doesn't go way deep this fortnight, she has a decent amount of points to defend over the spring hardcourt season.

I remember hearing from one of the commentators last fall that Stan and his wife were attempting to reconcile, but I never heard the outcome.

[printwhore2012]

Thanks again guys: you rock and I'm always happy to give the goss where I can find it. Also, Carlos Vamos Ramos was wandering around the tram station before I left and I wanted to run out and grab his autograph! But that would have been weird.

I decided to get a Tennis Australia AO membership because I've decided that I am doing this again next year. It's FUN. Melbourne is such a sleepy little town so the AO is a nice change of pace.

I'm watching the Quarters on the 24th and the 25th and I got a three day pass I will put to good use this weekend: for stalking, natch! Maybe I will go stalk Rafa, he is a good kid: when I saw him in KL, the first thing he did after winning his exo was run over to the ball kids and shake all of their hands. This was back in 07 and I skipped out on Fed/Sampras then to eyeball Nadal. The court was maybe two thirds full then? Saw it with some, ah, women of a certain age (my mother and aunt included) and every single older woman in the crowd wanted to do nasty things to that boy. This was when he had only won three slams: the next year he went on that massive tear.

Federer still practices with juniors: the lefty was a young blond Aussie. Tsonga has a devoted following of groupies: all Aussie. They start yelling out stuff like ALLEZ in really thick Aussie accents and the whole crowd goes into stitches. Funny stuff.

I'll be back after the weekend with more pics and gossip, although I am not expecting to get as close to the players as I did the other day. Have pics of Azarenka and The Kooze as well somewhere around here, as well as video. Azarenka is not that loud on practice courts but maybe she gets worse at match time.

[acre]

Joining in. I have nothing against Woz, but nothing fo- he- eithe-. And if I want to root fo- a sunshiney sweethea-t well, Kim is the nicest of the nice and also has an awesome game. So I'm good thanks.

Thanks fo- the onsite pw, always lots of fun.

[francienolan]

Yes,LT a little too much manufactured twee from Caro for me.And this is coming from someone who has ben nicknamed Smiley...
Was it just 2 years ago that Tomics dad said a night session was past his bedtime?Now hes speding around in an orange BMW with "atomic kittens" time flies!

[falafaclese]

Jan 18, 2012 3:39:53 GMT roseha said:

fala, when I have a lot of recording to do from the AO I just record it from the Standard Def channel, not in HD. It's the only way my DVR will contain it. Would that help?

I haven't run into a space problem, so much as a picking the right channel at the right time problem. It's my own stupidity. Does anyone know if there's a way to download something onto a hard drive once you record it? I have Comcast.

Thanks for the pics, printwhore! I'm sorry to hear that reality is getting in the way of your tennis viewing. Damn reality!

[oopssorry]

Serena must have heard the livestream commentators not giving her much of a chance. How long did that take?

One day perhaps I will watch tennis on TV again. So weird...

[lizm]

Watching Raonic/Pezschner (wow that's too many consonants for 2 syllables).

R being Canadian and so far not a dick, I have to root for him, but his return game needs to get better before I can cheer for him wholeheartedly.

I AM however enjoying the absence of Brad Gilbert - it's so much more relaxing when someone isn't trying to coin phrases throughout the match.

[acre]

Absence of Brad Gilbe-t? What, when, what is this beautiful dream? God, he is the most annoying of all the annoying. And I also don't like him any bette- since Agassi's book, not one bit. What an ass, both pe-sonally and p-ofessionally(tennis and commenta-y, hey 2 fo- 1!).

I wish I gave a shit about ea-ly Slam tennis, but I just don't. Once I did, but the only people I ca-e about now don't lose ea-ly, thankfully. Well, not yet. My passion ebbs and flows, and I'm af-aid I'm going into a down era. I like lots of men, admi-e even mo-e, but I am incapable of actually ca-ing about anyone else until Fed reti-es. I just can't. He has my whole heart.

Fed's in? I'm in. Not? Nope. I've been he-e befo-e, and no-one else can compete, doesn't matte- if they beat him, he's still and always the one. Sad times actually until I can balance myself out and like the game mo-e than the playe-, which now, I don't.

And the-e's not a woman I ca-e about. I could love Kim, but she doesn't play, so how can I? I could love Aza if she'd stop sc-eaming at me, and that's not gonna happen. I do love Venus, and she's ill and I've also been the-e with the a-i disease, and they don't get much bette-, she's not coming back to the top. I wish she would, but I don't believe it at all.

I'm sorry to be such a d-ag, and omg if I was pw and actually attending I'd be going nuts with love and excitement and total th-ill, I do love the game and most of the players. Maybe it's the 3am that's getting me down. Ugh, I like to get some sleep.

But hey, I love tennis, and if goddamn Djok is gonna be such a beast then go on with you- bad self, you have always played awesome tennis, I like to watch you play tennis. Kim, win? Ok, Kvitova and Na a-e acceptable. O- some f-eak who b-eaks it all wide open, men/women.

Oh! I just saw the tape of Baghdatis smashing all 4 -ackets, and I'm so--y, but that was fucking hila-ious. Wasteful, entitled, obnoxious, not to me. Funny. Oh I do love tennis, even at low tide.

[lizm]

I have to agree, I'm finding it hard to love the women's side - there's a real lack of excitement there for me. The men's side is so lucky to have Rafa/Fed/Djok ... ESP Djok who is becoming my beloved villain a la Justine Henin. Don't ever improve your personality Djok! Hee.

[acre]

I know! I've neve- been able to hate Djok, even at his most immatu-e obnoxious moments (which have passed), because he is a fucking beast. The guy can play tennis, in a ve-y majo- way. Like, I'm awed, and now he seems to be an okay guy. Mom, I will always hate, him I don't. But he's good as the "Villain", he plays it well. I can neve- be mad at him fo- winning because he fucking ea-ns it. But of cou-se I'd still like Fed to win, any which way at all. Whole heart.

[lizm]

Yay, Raonic made it through. He has beautiful long limbs by the way /shallow

So changing the channel to Murray, I'm immediately greeted by the dulcet tones of BG. Maybe it's time to go to bed before I hear all about the "kiss-slice" or some such nonsense.

Lendl looks like "old Spock" out there in the coach's box.

[mooncreek]

So I made a point to wake up for Hewitt/Roddick... just in time to get depressed. I figured it'd be Hewitt hobbling into the sunset.

There are a lot of Frenchmen in this half of the draw still alive: Tsonga, Monfils, Llodra, Gasquet, Mahut (which, Awesome!), plus the Simon/Benneteau match now in the fifth set. None of them will be facing each other in the third round.

ETA: Lendl is totally "Old Spock".

[falafaclese]

I just watched the end of the Monfils/Bellucci match, and that crowd sounded fantastic. The were so loud, but then completely respectful during the points. At one point they started chanting Monfils' name over and over again. It sounded pretty electric.

[lt]

When I said I didn't want to see Roddick/Williams as a mixed doubles team I certainly didn't want it not to happen because of an injury. Poor Roddick. It's just going to keep getting harder and harder for him to do anything anymore and this just doesn't help.

falafaclese, this might not help you at all but I am able to move my shows from my DVR (TiVo) to my computer with Toast (the converting/copying/burning application that comes with Macs). Maybe Comcast is partnered with a software that could let you do that too? I have to say, it is brilliant so if you find a software that does that but you have to pay for it--it would be worth it. I pretty much watch all my TV shows on my iTouch (without paying itunes for the privilege) and when I have a flight coming up I just move the shows over to the laptop and watch them on the plane.

Hmmmm, to the schedule today. ESPN2 isn't airing until 11pm again tonight but since Feli/Isner is third on Hisense maybe that will work out nicely--except then I stay up far too late. Dolgo/Tomic is the first night match and, even for Dolgo, I'm not waking up at 3am for a third round match. I really should have scheduled my hip surgery a little better--this is my first week back at work and if I was still working from home this wouldn't be such an issue. . .

[mooncreek]

Nadal and Federer day ticket Rod Laver double? Wow. I hope Federer's match either last long or really short to allow the Jankovic/McHale match to move to Laver because there's otherwise no way I'm going to make it to Tomic/Dolgopolov.

As I suspected, Isner is the last American man standing. It won't be long before he's, even briefly, the #1 American. John didn't play well the first few months of last year and, combined with Fish's lousy attitude to start the year, sets up the possibility nicely. I hope he wins today because he has a real shot against Rafa whereas Lopez does not.

I realize La Monf is Gael's actual nickname but it sounds made-up and otherwise stupid when coming out of Brad Gilbert's mouth.