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a little later this year than usual: was there last Mon and Tues (days 1 and 2), then back to work then out to the left coast for a wedding, just now going through my notes which I can't even read and the program to recreate what I saw, now with the Open 99% done.

the great thing about going the first couple of days is the chance to get up close and personal, first row, on the service line, seats for great tennis involving often ranked players or up and coming youngsters. got a lot of that on both days. and I also lucked out with two beautiful days weather wise.

first match I saw was vania king (99) v. anastasia pavyluchenkova (85). no idea who they were, I was really only there to get a good seat to the next match, featuring #10 Stanislas Wawrenka v. Simone Bolelli. Wawrenka was Federer's doubles partner at the Olympics, where they won gold. Wawrenka dismantled the other guy.

got front row seats to watch Andrei Golubev take apart american Brendan Evans. I'd never heard of Evans, looked him up and still can't figure out why he got a wild card into the tournament, he is ranked 196 but has not won an ATP match this year. He pouted and whined and argued a lot, and did something I've only ever seen Jeff Tarango do: ask the crowd at courtside if a ball was out, then ask the chair umpire to overrule like it's american idol or something. At least Tarango was entertaining and a decent doubles player. Golubev is from Kazakhstan, ranked in the 160's.

the highlight of day 1 was seeing Juan Martin del Potro, 19 year old Argentine phenom, ranked 17, winner of four straight tournaments this summer leading up to the Open, play his wily countryman Guillermo Canas, on the Armstrong court, last day session match of the day, started after 7 pm. Del Potro started the match with a 132 mph serve, drawing oohs and ahs from the crowd, and steamrolled to an easy first set win, seemed to take his foot off the gas a little and Canas made a match of it. Many long rallies well worthy of a late second week match. the kid prevailed in four, and I think he is the real deal (he did make it to the second week eventually). Despite the big beginning, he doesn't really win a lot of points off his serve, relying on big groundstrokes and solid tactics. If he makes his serve into a real weapon, he will be a top ten player or better, soon.

before that, saw the only real "upset" of day 1, as Ekaterina Makarova beat Anna Chakvetadze.

Day 2: went to court 10, first row, right behind the baseline, to watch Mikhail Youhzny (21) in action. Except, that wasn't Youzhny there, it was a lucky loser named Flavio Cipolla, who got an entry when Youzhny came up sick at the last minute. the opposition was Jan Hernych, ranked around 120. I watched an entertaining first set anyway, but decided to go off in search of higher-ranked players. Turns out, Cipolla won that match in 5 sets, and won another round too. lucky loser indeed. If I'd stayed I would have been there half the day, however, and there were other people I wanted to see, like Scoville Jenkins going up against Jarkko Niemenen (37). A big crowd was there, especially african americans wanting to see Jenkins, but the kid is just too inconsistent. For every big play he'd make, he'd make an unforced error. If it wasn't for his serve, he might not have won any games at all; whenever he'd get into long rallies, it seemed that recognizing he wasn't going to win on groundstrokes alone, he either overhit a ball six feet out, or go into the net down the line, or come up embarrassingly short on a drop shot.

saw another young russian, igo andreev (23), beat marc gicquel. actually left after two sets, the third was more of the same. saw nicolas devilder beat pablo andujar. yawn. although devilder did win at least another round.
had my usual lobster roll and fries for lunch.

finished off the day watching Mardy Fish beat aussie Robert Sweets on the Armstrong court. some really great tennis here, and it wasn't surprising that Fish made it to the quarters where he lost to Federer. I took the photo below during the fourth set of this match, shortly before it ended, climbing to the very top of what's left of Armstrong court (they took the top layer down when they put up the Ashe court). for photo aficionados: camera was Fuji F30, ISO set at 400, f. 5.6, 1/50. no phtoshopping, editing or cropping of any kind done. and the night wasn't over: after a burger and a brew for dinner, saw Andy Murray win a doubles match, his opponents were a pair of identical twins from Thailand. Murray's doubles skill is apparent when watching his singles game, you can tell from his returns and his net play, and it will be interesting to see how he does under the bright lights against Federer tomorrow. why they are starting at 5 pm instead of prime time is beyond me.
when this day was over for me it was after 10 pm. like I said, can't beat first week at the Open.