Magic Jewball

Hi, remember me? Your intrepid US open reporter, coming to you from under five layers of sunblock. And one layer of sunburn. Whoops. This post is going to involve a lot of imagination on your part. You guessed correctly, I forgot my camera. Today was my first full day at the Open, reminding me why I both love the day session and hate the day session. I love it, of course, because I can dash from match to match on a whim and I hate it because I bake like a Toll House cookie. There was not one cloud in the sky today, I swear. Beautiful! And tortuous! But enough about the weird pattern that now covers my cleavage (sexy!), let’s get to the tennis.

As you’ll recall, today was Alfa’s day to listen to Becca mutter under her breath at highly-paid tennis players. We started in one of my favorite places, Louis Armstrong Stadium, and saw Marat “Temperamental” Safin play Canadian no-name, Frank Dancevic. Oh wait, that’s a name. Never mind. We hoped for explosions from Marat but sadly, he seemed to have taken his Prozac today. Still, it was a closely contested match, and a lovely way to begin the day before sunstroke kicked in. Then I went for my usual healthful ice cream lunch (I got a sundae – it had two scoops – if you read yesterday’s post you will know why I found this curious) while Alfa went with the more traditional hot dog meal. Then we went back to the US Open store so that I could get a third opinion on what shirt to get. I notated Alfa’s vote and bought a bucket hat. People who know me know I have a weird thing about bucket hats (folks have told me I look cute in them and who am I to disagree?). People who don’t know me can just note that my ears are happily less sunburned than the rest of me. A good investment all in all.

Then it was back to Armstrong to see Gentleman Tim Henman play Dimitry “I’m a blogger too” Tursonov. We misjudged the time, though and saw the last set of Justine “just use my maiden name” Henin. But then on came Tim and, well, Dimitry was pretty much finished as far as crowd support. Why do all the Americans love the Brits? I don’t really know, but when Tim’s playing, it’s as if Princess Di were playing. Only more alive and good at tennis. This is apparently his last year but we could only take so much broiling so after one set we set out for the shadier confines of the Grandstand to watch the end of Mardy Fish. I mean, the end of his match. His actual end will probably come in the second round, if history means anything. Also, if history means anything, I’ll be eating some form of ice cream and muttering under my breath while it happens.

We stuck around for a bit to see how the next match would go. Answer: poorly! I’m not sure I have ever seen two such mediocre players face each other across the net. It was Ahsha Rolle (unfortunately dressed in a clingy white number not quite meant for her particular physique) and Karin “you don’t need an Italian name to be Italian” Knapp. It was like they were both too awful to beat the other one. One game went to like six deuces because no one could find a way to win. We gave up counting the unforced errors and began playing “can you guess the airline” with the planes flying over from JFK. Ahsha Rolle “Polle” won but I just found that out now because at a certain point we just couldn’t stand it anymore and left. Alfa went home (it was nearly seven!) and I went on to watch our former Picture of the Day winners, Nathalie “I’m the French one” Dechy and Andy “I’m the Israeli one” Ram. I sat in a big throng of Israelis and a fun time was had by all since Dechy-Ram demolished the glum Russian team 6-1, 6-0. That was the moment I most wished I had my camera as Dechy and Ram were perhaps the smiliest mixed doubles team ever! They looked like they were going to dissolve into giggles the whole match. Plus it was on tiny Court 15 and so I was pretty much standing right next to them. As are many of the other tiny courts, which meant I got to hear all the “Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le” chants despite the decided lack of any Chileans in my match.

But just because it was 8pm and I had been there nine hours didn’t mean the day was over! No, I went back to the Grandstand to see more mixed doubles with Bob “you can’t tell me from my twin brother Mike” Bryan and Tatiana “sexpot” Golovin play Amer “nice guy” Delic and Corina “nice girl” Morariu. This was hard because I really love three out of four of these players. Bob Bryan is part of the Bryan brothers doubles team and he and his twin are so enthusiastic and energetic, you have to love them! If you don’t you should just be shot. Amer Delic is someone I’ve followed since early in his career when he got a wild card into the Open and impressed Brother2 and I by playing with all his heart despite being almost totally exhausted. Corina Morariu survived cancer and came all the way back to play again. Tatiana Golovin, eh, I could take or leave her. But so it was hard to root! So I didn’t. But it was fun anyway and finally it was time to haul my ice cream filled self home again.

And now for tomorrow’s preview: I was wrong when I said Nalby plays, apparently he will play Friday. Here are some possibles:

Donald “young American guy” Young v. Richard “young French guy” Gasquet
Andy “everyone loves a Brit” Murray v. Jonas “can’t think of a nickname” Bjorkman
Feleciano “hot guy” Lopez v. Igor “half the glum Russian team” Andreev
Bethanie “I don’t know who she is” Mattek v. Shahar “Brother2’s favorite Israeli” Peer

and more!

Naturally, ice cream and sunburn commentary is a given.

~Becca “too tired to think of a song” Jewball