Olympics: Beijing 2008

[francienolan]

I know they needed the rain in Beijing but I was hopeful to catch some matches before the chaos of the school year, which starts tomorrow.

[ilsabing]

I love that they list the chair umpire for each match.

I'm having the hardest time keeping track. So frustrating. I hope it gets better as they get further into the draw.

[roseha]

Aug 10, 2008 23:30:23 GMT francienolan said:

I know they needed the rain in Beijing but I was hopeful to catch some matches before the chaos of the school year, which starts tomorrow.

Why can't every major tournament build a retractable roof over their show courts...? Wimbledon finally saw the light but the USO hasn't and clearly Beijing didn't either - or if that was too much money, at least install lights so they could play at night? It appears they don't have those either judging by the results times ending when they did. I can't see any lights in the pictures of that beautiful tennis court.

[whyistherumgone]

Nadal and Starace are 1 set-all. Starace is playing well, but Rafa cruised in that first set and lost the plot a bit in the 2nd. He looks tired to me. Not as tired as he did in Cincy, but I think all the conditions aren't allowing him to be fully there. Sucks for him, but I don't really care about this tournament for him nearly as much as the US Open. If he loses early here, at least he'll have more time to get fully rested for that.

[skyz]

Serena won and now it's Roger coming out. Looks like Tipsy is winning too. I wish they'd show some of this on tv.

[roseha]

I just watched the video feed of Roger's match on the NBCOlympics.com site. He looked great - I haven't seen him play that beautifully since last year. 6-4 6-2. The audience was loving it.

I also loved that there was no audio commentary but there was an option to pull up a text commentary you could read. I don't know who they were but at one point they wrote "officially vintage."

Got to go to bed now!

[lpatrice]

Does anybody know if NBC is actually going to show any tennis on television?? There coverage has been piss poor so far. As for Roger, I am glad he is through and I want him to win sooo bad. I can't even imagine what he is feeling. Perhaps in a weird sort of way some of the pressure is off and he can relax and play like vintage Roger and win!!!!!

[lt]

And Gonzalez looked so cute with his outfit and the Chilean flag.

Didn't he just? I only watched the opening ceremonies (on fast forward thanks to TiVo) because I wanted to see Gonzo and Roger. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many of the tennis players--and that Bob Costas could read off his notes fast enough to say who they all were! I have to agree with this:

I can't even hate on Beaker, because he looked ridiculously excited.

Still hope he loses--although maybe I hope he goes far, gets tired and then loses before the medal rounds. Although, I also agree about the air quality affecting him, and I cannot wish for that on anyone. That haze is alarming! I hope the rain helps--especially before the marathon and other track events--but I think that might be people just crossing their fingers at this point.

No matter my moral objections to Beijing, I'm still watching a disgusting amount of coverage.

Right there with you, apocalipstick. Everything in my life is viewed through a political filter (thanks, first-professor-of-Women Studies-at-Rutgers Mom!) and I was dreading this Olympics. NBC might not be pleased with cranky Bob Costas (I don't know that they aren't, I'm just guessing his political commentary might not be what they were looking for) but I've been adoring his comments during his anchoring.

USA was showing the Rafa/Potito match when I was leaving this morning. I don't know how long they stayed on it (work won) but that was the first I saw of any tennis--and I watched almost everything this weekend.

[apocalipstick]

Tennis early rounds are much more likely to be on MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen and USA than on regular NBC.

This schedule of play is insane. Rafa played at 1030am Beijing time (singles) and is playing again now at close to 10pm (doubles).

The doubles looked much smoother than the singles and Soderling is out, so I'm happy.

Llodra took out the Worm!!!

[prettyvacant]

I can't believe they are still playing. I guess they have to catch up the best they can. I'm so happy Roger's first round match went well and yay for Zheng winning.

I am such an Olympics junkie. I don't know that anything could get me to stop watching.

[minty]

Hewitt and Guccione are still playing doubles against Calleri and Monaco - it's 15-16 in the third set! When will it end?

Edit: Well it ended 18-16 to Hewitt/Guccione. God I bet they're tired.

[falafaclese]

yay for Zheng winning

Li Na won too. I thought since she hasn't played regularly in a while that Kuzie would make short work of her, but it seems like the converse was true.

Everything in my life is viewed through a political filter

It's so funny watching the Olympics now for that reason. I haven't been much into them since I was pretty much a kid and was pretty oblivious to most of the subtext. Now as I'm watching the opening parade, in addition to China, I've got these other things swirling in my head when I see Iraq, Iran, Serbia, Russia, even Cyprus. Hell, my head started to spin when I heard Bush had made some sort of statement disagreeing with Russia's strikes on Georgia because they were invading a sovereign nation. Not that I agree with Russia's response, but don't even get me started on the irony of that one.

[apocalipstick]

Andy Murray is out.

[minty]

But luckily him and Jamie came back from a set down against Nestor/Niemeyer to go through in the doubles.

[Jer2002]

I'm watching the video of the Li/ Kuz match and as much as I'm happy for Li, the crowd is quite distracting for Kuz I'd think. They're cheering DURING points! Shhh!