tennis, life and a few things in between

Pete Sampras with Nadal and Wawrinka atAustralian   Open

According to this stats, Sampras has better winning percentage at final than Roger Federer: 14/18 78% v 17/24 73%

• Nadal is still hurt
• Rafa’s thong
• The old timers
• The Chinese ads
• Serena is out

Martina Higgins/Martina Navratilova vs Iva Majoli/Barbara Schett.

• Majoli upset Martina Hingis to win the women’s singles title at the French Open in 1997.
• Martina Higgins took her first name after Martina Navratilova.

An empty stadium (which ever it is). The camera work is shoddy: one camera only, I think because the angle never changed. Higgins has very soft hand. It’s a pity that she retired early. Martina Navratilova has developed a huge behind now she walks like James Blake.  The format is no ad scoring.

Good time to learn.

The Club has been in business for 8 years (yesterday was the day, 2014-01-21). A little nostalgia. A pleasant place to go and the staff are very courteous. A few of them know me by my name: I knew it, I always end up on their black list. Just don’t know what did I do wrong this time -:).

I asked the membership lady if she’s been here for eight years. She said oh yes, from the start. I hope she isn’t reading this bec my friend calls her ‘lao taitai” 老太太 respectful but it means old lady. I don’t find her any older than I am, wink wink.

We’ve about 8 inches of snow from yesterday late morning. The parking lot is still busy. I wish they don’t court more new members. But also hope they make enough profit to stay in biz. Don’t know if they’re the most profitable branch in the system. I know for sure the Chase bank on Grace Avenue is.

There are couple of commercials at the Australian Open.

S. Wawrinka’s box erupted in cheers upon his win over N. Djokovic in their Quarterfinals

The official Aussie Open has Chinese version. Gee. Thursday Li Na will take on the Canadian teen Eugenie Bouchard who took out the Ana Ivanovic. Victoria Azarenka was beaten by Agnieszka Radwanska. It’s Li’s time to win. It’s her tourney now to lose.

Jim Courier’s interview isn’t as long as the one he did with Roger Federer.

The commentators who covered the match: Chris Fowler and Darren Cahill.

Oh boy, my pick is out early. She’s injured unfortunately. -:( Love you girl, go get them in Paris.

Last night I played really well, for the first two sets. We (7.5) almost bagel’ed a 8.5 team. My new serve was working.

There were a couple of bad line calls. One was a deep shot to the baseline by my partner. I thought was well within. My partner asked me if it was in. I said yes it was then regretted. I’ve mixed feeling about confirming a bad line call. Wondering if it was the right thing to do because he hit a super hard shot the next point to vent his little annoyance. During my serve I had an ace: I saw it landed on the T and heard the ball hitting the tape. The receiver called it out even the partner started to move to the baseline for my serve. Obviously the partner thought it was an ace, so did my partner. However, the receiver insisted that it was the receiver’s call and it was called out. I confirmed with my partner who said it was good. I was asking myself: was it the right thing to do – asking my partner to confirm a call when he has no right of calling? In my case, I just wanted to know if it’s good and didn’t really care the call. But in a real match, would knowing a wrong call fuels my frustration or even anger? Which won’t be good during a match.

Oh I’m repeating myself here. Anyway, the points standing as of this morning and this afternoon when it finally being updated:

A few careless matches we’re down to #2. I lost three matches in a row. OMG. With two more matches to go for all top three teams in our division, the current points are:

1. 67.5
2. 63
3. 61

#3 and we have identical two teams to play against, in the same order. #1 is playing #3 tonight for the 9th match and their 10th match is against us.

The last three matches, we lost 1-2. A few pix on FB.

We opted to serve after the warm up. Michael started.

1-0
1-3
2-4
2-5
5-5
5-7
0-1
0-2
2-2
4-3
4-4 … then time’s up. A timed match.

At the last game point we had the advantage (the girl was serving). Michael hit a deep shot to the baseline that forced her to react. It’s a pop up
above the net. It didn’t look that it would cross the net. I yelled out ‘bounce’ because Michael has charged the net – at the net. The next thing I knew was our opponents said Mike has crossed the net so it’s their point. I was a little surprised but what they said surprised me even more as Michael was explaining to them that he did not strike the ball:
“Let’s not let this to ruin this match .. This match has been a good one .. ”
Did they jump to pacify us too quickly?

The 8th match at Randall’s Island. More on FB

Jan 8