may, 12th
a hot and sunny monday
Once again it's time for my traditional blog from hamburg. It's my third day on the tennis grounds today, but due to Daniel and Nenads great performance in Rome the two didn't arrive before this afternoon. To tell you the truth, I haven't even seen them yet, but there were other great matches going on and as most of you probably know, I'm having a good contact to Daniels former doubles partner - Mark Knowles - as well and had therefore also some fun at two practise sessions.
So while waiting for Daniel and Nenad to arrive I watched Mardy Fish and James Blake win with a great performance on sunday against Youzhny/Andreev 6:1 6:4, I had a look at the match Melo/Sa vs. Mahut/Mahieu which was rather boring even though the guys went into a match tiebtreak and I watched another great doubles match with Leander Paes showing real fine hands at the net.
And not to forget as mentioned: I also were able to join two nice little practise matches today and on sunday. First of all Bhupathi/Knowles vs. Hanley/Moodie, a practise match where the guys showed their best doubles skills and which even brought the little crowd to spend some applause and today a match of Bhupathi/Knowles vs. Erlich/Ram which wasn't too boring either.
Now the first match is set for Daniel and Nenad tomorrow. They will face the german duo Schuettler/Waske. The order of play is nuts as usual since Schuettler has to play his singles match as the fourth match on Center Court. That means that the double will probably not be played before eight or nine p.m.. Nobody knows why they didn't give the poor guy an earlier singles match and why they aren't finishing the R32 of doubles before starting with the R16. But over the years we became used to this funny kind of planning here in hamburg. Sometimes it looks like officials are not really thinking about what they are doing...
I do hope now, that waiting for a TBA-match won't be to nerv wracking for our two guys. I'll cross my fingers for the match and do my best with the cheering.
Talk to you after the match tomorrow.
Betty
may, 13th
chaos is ruling a tournament
Here we go again, today with a story about an organization that lacks on all ends. The day started of with our visit to the ticket counter. Mark was so generous to leave us tickets at the front desk, but when we arrived somebody else had allready picked them up instead of us. :( Big deal, but finally the guys at the front desk got us some new ones arranged... But the story continued. After Mark unfortunately lost his match, the infoboard announced Daniel and Nenads match to be next up, so told us the security lady at the gate.
But Schuettler didn't play any singles yet (?!) and as we could see from the stands, Daniel was warming up on one of the practise courts. Total confusion about match now or later, yes or no or what?! So I decided why not walk over to the practise courts and ask Daniel. At least he should know. And so we did...
So finally down at the practise courts to meet Daniel, he told us that they wouldn't be playing at all today! The deal was, that if the german double won on monday, they wouldn't be playing before wednesday and the concrete day would than be depending on Schuettler winning his singles or not (if so the double would be set to be played on thursday). You still can follow? Well... Schuettler lost his single which would mean: Right, the double should be played tomorrow. But guess what: It is not on the schedule!!!
I guess I'll be happy if they play their double some time after all without me missing it because no one is informed.... Anyhow, therefore nothing about any match after all. Maybe I can catch up on some practise from Daniel and Nenad tomorrow. And who knows, maybe tomorrow, maybe on thursday we finally get to see Daniel and Nenad play against Rainer Schuettler and Alexander Waske. I'm allready looking forward to it. :)
After all we of course got also some more doubles action to see today and had a look at a show match and some practise.More action is hopefully coming up tomorrow.
So stay tuned to some more confusing stories from Hamburg
Betty
may, 14th
lets have some fun!
It's wednesday allready, time is going by so fast... Anyhow, we started our day once again at the ticket desk. This time they had our envelope on an extra pile!! I guess they were afraid of getting into trouble with us again.;)
After entering the gates the first thing we heard was the announcement, that Daniel and Nenad were to give an autograph session at the nearby champagne box. So we headed in their direction to start our day with lots of tennisplayer fun. While Daniel and Nenad were signing autographs we had a little chat with them talking about weather, the Masters in Rome, the website and who knows what else and joked around for a while, before the guys finally headed to the locker room to get their stuff for practise. We meanwhile walked over to the nearby court to watch the Bryans play their first doubles match.
After watching the first set - with the Bryans winning it 7:6 - we decided to rather have a look at Daniels and Nenads practise, since we had watched them a while from the stands on our court playing together with Goran Ivanisevic. As we arrived, there were a lot of laughters allready. Daniel and Nenad were fooling around and obviously had some fun playing points. Believe me, they didn't have much champagne at their autograph session, but they acted as if they drank a little more of it.;) But hey, that's how we like our guys!
We finally left the scene when Nenad was allready gone and Daniel was giving some private tennis lessons. First we went up to see Fyrstenberg/Matkowski loose to Damm/Vizner, followed by Bjoerkman/Ullyett who lost against Benneteau/Llodra and finally to watch the match Erlich/Ram vs. Paes/Robredo.
Maybe Paes and Robredo had some champagne too, because they were joking around on their bench through nearly the whole match. Robredo even ordered some cookies which he happily ate during changeovers and it was amazing that nevertheless they were playing big tennis. At the end they even won, finishing off the match 6:3 4:6 10:2.
Maybe it's the great weather in hamburg everyone is enjoying, at least it feels like most of the players are more relaxed than usual. We hope it'll stay like this.:)
More from me tomorrow
Betty
may, 15th
scary thursday
Ok, there is not really much to say except of the fact that we tried to cheer for Daniel and Nenad as good as we could and that a relaxing match looks quiet different. ;)
It was actually once again quiet warm, something we are not used to from the years before. You better say it's getting kind of hot if you're sitting in the sun all day long without any shade. So we were allready sweating when the Bryans finished there match and Daniel and Nenad were scheduled to play. Nevertheless I got out the Canada Flag and we prepared to cheer for our guys against the german crowd as good as possible. Even more since we had promised Nenad yesterday that he will hear us for sure! ;)
After the first set I was actually quiet confident since Daniel and Nenad were able to break the germans twice to win it 6:2. The "trouble" started in the second set when the two were allready serving for the match but Nenad unfortunately lost his service game and the guys ended up in a tiebreak. This time the two even got a matchpoint, but an unfortunate ball on the netcord brought the german duo back into the game. Finally in the match tiebreak - where I was actually not only sweating because of the weather conditions - they finally got an early lead (which didn't calm me down at all...) and were finally able to serve the game out to a final 10:3. Wow!
So, after some more great doubles with Blake and Fish coming back from 0:5 against Benneteau/Llodra to win it 7:6 7:6 and Ljubicic/Soederling winning amazingly straight against Paul Hanley and Wesley Moodie 6:4 6:2, I'm now looking forward to nothing else but my bed. :) ...and of course the quaterfinal match tomorrow.
I just hope my nervs won't go all on edge again than. Cross your fingers for Daniel and Nenad. They're to face Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle on Center.
But for now have a good night everyone
Betty
may, 16th
supertiebreaker no. 2
Have you ever tried to write a blog with three gerbils climbing all over you? Well in my case that is what I'm trying to do at the moment, so excuse my eventual mistyping or any other lack in my blog today. :)
Daniel and Nenad were scheduled to play the first match on Center Court today, so by 11.00 a.m. everything was set up in order to cheer for the guys. We had some nice seats in the shade, a little bit higher in the stands but under the roof. So we had a good overview and weren't getting to hot except when it comes to the match itself.
It was actually some kind of a deja vu. Once again Daniel and Nenad won the first set 6:2 - this time against Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle - before the second set became a close number. Right at the beginning of the second set, our guys lost service but were able to get a rebreak to even the score again. So the set went on and on, back and force with winning service games, before unfortunately just at the score of 5:6, Daniel now lost his service which brought them straight into the match tiebreak this time.
But in difference to yesterday, also the matchtiebreak was quiet close going back and force between the two teams. It was such a relieve when finally at the score of 9:8 Nenad served out the second matchball to finally bring him and Daniel into the semifinals.
And it probably won't become less nerv wracking tomorrow. Another Center Court match and again at 11:00 a.m.. This time against Leander Paes and Tommy Robredo. We've seen the guys play during the whole week and Leander is really playing phantastic angels and moves. So this time I'm really a little bit worried , but hope Daniel and Nenad will prove me wrong! :)
So that's once again it from today. You'll find the latest picture from this week in our gallery. Stay tuned for more tomorrow
Betty
may, 18th
Game, Set, Match and Title!
Hi everyone, first of all sorry that I didn't provide you with any blog to this fantastic semifinal match yesterday, but after the match I headed right away to my sister to join her on her birthday party and didn't return home before midnight. So a short update on that semifinal match first before talking about this great day today, which ended with Daniel and Nenad winning their first title of the season.
The semifinal match yesterday was as nerv wracking as usual. As we expected, the guys played a hell of a game and showed some of the best doubles action I have actually seen on hamburgs Center Court during the last couple of years. Both doubles showed some great moves and a whole bunch of exciting ball exchangenges. You can say, that this semifinal match was definitly a great doubles promotion after all. After winning the first set 6:3, Daniel and Nenad struggeld once again at the end of their second set, loosing it 3:6, before they once again picked up their great play again leaving only 2 points in the final match tiebreak to Leander Paes and Tommy Robredo. And so there we were once again, set for a final match here in hamburg.
Today started off a little earlier than the days before and therefore we were able to catch up on the guys at their warming up. They were in an excellent mood, joking around but also working quiet seriously on some of their moves. They even got time for a little chat and we finally moved onto our seats at the Center Court with the feeling, that Daniel and Nenad could maybe make it against the Bryans today if they kept their good spirit.
Once again the guys were able to win the first set, this time 6:4, even though some of the service games got really close. Was this a good or a bad omen? During the last three matches they had always won the first set just to loose the second and go into the match tiebreak... We kept hoping... at least for a little while... until at the score of 5:6 Daniel surprisingly lost his service game even though he had been the slightly better server during the last few days. So here we were again in the match tiebreak, which made it to match tiebreak number four this week.
That was the point were my heart was pounding that hard, that I started to ask myself if this kind of spending your vaccation is still healthy. ;)
I admit, I jumped up in relief when finally the match point at 10:8 was won. I guess it made all our day! The revenge for the Rome final was perfect and I probably don't have to tell you that I love nothing more than Daniel and Nenad smile all over their faces. :)
So with this great news I'll leave the guys to a week off (of course with my best wishes to Nenad for his upcoming wedding) before they're heading to Paris for the French Open.
I hope you enjoyed my daily updates a little.
"Gute Nacht" and see you soon from hamburg.
Betty
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