Cincinnati: Day 2 Qualies and Night 1 Main Draw

After a scorching and amazing day at Cincy, I was eager to go back. This time, my brother Kevin joined me for the trip. Again, I spent the majority of the day at the practice court area. I watched Jelena Jankovic practice when I first got there and I was lucky enough to get a quick autograph. She was moving really well, so it’ll be interesting to see how her ankle holds up throughout the summer, and throughout the year. I saw Danielle (Mills) practice a little bit before her delayed 1st round qualifying match against Sorana Cirstea. Sorana was coming from Denmark and they finally scheduled the match for Sunday after originally being last on Saturday.

I caught the end of the Dushevina-Krajicek match. Michaella dictated a lot of rallies, but Vera had an answer for everything. Michaella did win 3 games in a row before Vera won 7-6,6-3. That was on Grandstand, which was where the only full match I saw was Danielle and Sorana. Danielle, who is playing the best tennis she has ever played, went up 2-0 and I was so happy for her. Cirstea’s level quickly picked up, especially on her forehand. The forehand of Cirstea was the biggest weapon in that match. Danielle put up an amazing fight against a worthy opponent, who reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal at the French Open in 2009. Cirstea won the match 6-3,6-2.

After that, I went to go pick up my ticket for the Night 1 Session of Ivanovic-Azarenka. My friend Steven, whose a volunteer generously gave me a ticket (his Cincy blog is steventabrizi.wordpress.com). Then, Kevin and I did a little more practice court hopping and decided to go home.

Night 1

I was so stoked for the Victoria Azarenka-Ana Ivanovic match. Monday night was originally supposed to be Maria Sharapova’s Cincinnati debut, but since she was set to face Svetlana Kuznetsova, who won San Diego the night before, they scheduled it to Tuesday to acclimate Kuznetsova. Speaking of, I got Svetlana’s autograph at her practice before Ana and Victoria took the court. There was a nice showing of the crowd and they all seemed pro-Ivanovic.

Victoria quickly won the first set 6-2 with booming winners off both sides and a strong serve. Ana made a bit too many errors and that really did hurt her. A funny note is that on her first toss, Ana caught it. I wanted a good match and by the looks of it after the first set, I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Victoria then went up 4-2 in the 2nd and everybody thought that was it. Suddenly, Ana started playing better, showing signs of her former #1 days. Finally some adje’s and fist pumps were in order, which Victoria mocked. Victoria then couldn’t pull any first serves in play, which really hindered her play. Play continued into a tiebreak, which Ana went up 6-2 I believe, but she choked, but clinched it 8-6. I was on my feet, as well as the crowd. Ana simply was playing outstanding tennis, which was a great sight to see, especially live. In the 3rd set, Ana kept her great play while Victoria went into an erratic mode and her first serve still wasn’t finding the range she wanted. Ana mixed up the pace and hit the ball out of Victoria’s strike zone. The match was decided on a challenge which Ana correctly overturned and the crowd went berserk. She then thanked the crowd for helping her and she signed as many autographs as possible.

I saw the first set of (6)Makarova/Kleybanova vs. (WC)Gullickson/Gullickson before leaving to go and try and get Ana’s autograph outside the players lounge. I was happy to see the sisters pull off the huge upset 3-6,6-1,[10-8]. After waiting for about 45-50 minutes, the ushers said they were locking all the gates in 5 minutes. About 10 seconds after that, Ana came out and about 20 people got autographs or pictures (about 100 were there after the match , but it dwindled down by the time midnight was approaching. I got an autograph and a picture, and Kevin got one too, but the one of me was blurry, so I ran back right before she left and she said she would take another one, which was too dark, but I edited it. She was so nice and gracious and she is on my top 5 favorties.