Andy Roddick finally got a win .. few more pix on FB
Andy served up a win
Jamie Robert Murray with Nadia Petrova vs Elena Sergeevna Vesnina and Leander Adrian Paes, playing at Court 10.
Jamie Murray and Nadia Petrova
Ana Ivanovic and Nenad Zimonjic vs Y Chan and Mariusz Fyrstenberg at Court 11
Ana Ivanović and Nenad Zimonjic
Ivanovic served up a lose
Ana's serving
A dude with little camera. A professional? He certainly looks like one ..
some professional? he looks like one ..
The open era slams have becoming increasingly popular. Serena took $4m in 2014 ($1m for winning the Emirates Airline US Open Series; she took in $3.6m in 2013). Here is when she won her first WTA title, defeating Amélie Mauresmo in France. The singles’ champions were rewarded in 2014:
_______________
The slams I attended:
French Open
Wimbledon
US Open
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Australian Open
James Blake won in 4 sets
someone ..
you go girl
First round match, women singles Petra Martic vs Bardora Zahlavova. Martic looks like a well put together girl, carries herself confidently; on the skinny side thou. She lost first set 5-7. So the third set was contentious. It’s a comfortable win for her, even when she served out the match, see below.
I was split second slow, didn’t catch the famous motion/fuss
The big dude was sitting on the steps when we got to our seat. He yelled, screamed the loudest. Then next set, he sat in front of us and was very quiet. We left when Andrey Golubev was leading in the third set. Golubev has a wonderful single hand backhand, however, he wasn’t able to hold on, lost the match to Raf 6-3, 7-6 (1), 7-5, in 2 hours 49 minutes.
an easy win for Venus
It's Roger Federer's night
how much longer will we be seeing this?
night view of USTA during US Open
night view of USTA during US Open
Tennis in Beijing isn’t just tennis. My friend reserved a court at Yifang Yuan 颐方园体育健康城 in Fangzhuang, that comes with a suite: a living room with flat panel TV, a massage room, steam room and two shower stalls. Coincident with Yao Ming’s press conference, announcing his retirement. So before we headed out to court, we watched the little Chinese giant, flanked by his puny American interpreter, fielding the questions from the reports.
During the play, a girl came with a set of tea and fruit plate. I really loved the tea; could get used to it easily :-). More pix on FB
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Went to play tennis at 北京科技大学 University of Science and Technology Beijing. The courts are old and very slippery, cost 40 yuan an hour. Qing and I lost to a couple, 6-2, 6-2. Overall, the players have decent forms, using old old balls, not sure due to high cost or type of balls.
Few opponents I’ve had recently were Russians. I can’t describe it in words but I could feel it. They just looked the part. The girl I played last night was a Division I player who still looks like a college kid. I told her so and she was very flattered. Did I forget my 老花镜 again? I was bewildered that a young woman wants to look younger. When I was at her age, I wanted to be older!
When I was teen .. I wanted to be 18, thinking how cool
When I was 18, I couldn’t wait to be 20 ..
When I was 20, I thought 30 is it ..
When I was 30, 40 looked delicious ..
Now I’m 50, not sure I wanted to be 60 -:)
..
Back to tennis. The kid served me a bagel. She attended Michigan State because all the good players have gone to Uni of Michigan and the State desperately needed a decent players for its tennis team. So they import talents, as long as US still holds and cloud.
I’m doing much better as the third string: won my first 3.5 doubles match last night, 6-0, 3-6, and 1-0 (10-8). Do people tend to get complacent, or 掉以轻心 lower one’s guard after a easy first set win? I think so because my partner and I quickly found ourselves in the hole in the second set. The double faults decreased drastically and they got everything back, especially overheads. One shouldn’t treat something anything lightly during a match. 
My partner told me that she isn’t used to soft hitting and she began to hit softly. When we were leading 8-5 in the super tie break, there was a lob that gone long. I was at the net and called it out first. Laura was at the baseline by the ball and called it out too. However, our opponents disagreed by asking if it was indeed out and went on to say its looked on the line. I felt lousy to have to deal with this at such late crucial moment, very unfortunate. Otherwise the match was smooth. It’s my serve at 8-5 but I couldn’t close the match. 9-6 we switched. 
The girl in blue top held hers. Then my partner served and was able to closed the match. We were quite an equal partners in the match. Good.
After the match on Court 10, we started to play around. First game was not even over, I got hit pretty hard by the blue top girl. She really has great serves and shots. Thank lord it’s the side of my head and neck, won’t be looking like this but no guarantee that I won’t turn into a crazy lunatic ..
