Cincinnati: Day & Night 2 of Main Draw
After an extremely long night in Cincinnati, I woke up early again, about 8ish or 9, I really don’t remember, but I did oversleep. Kevin and I picked up our friend Alex at his hotel and we arrived at the tennis center about 45 minutes before the first match, which was Christina McHale vs. Nadia Petrova. The schedule had 3 friends of mine back-to-back-to-back. Following McHale, was Melanie Oudin vs. Elena Vesnina and then CoCo Vandeweghe vs. Andrea Petkovic. I went to the practice courts and saw Caroline Wozniacki and Na Li practicing. There was a nice amount of people watching, but nothing compares to what the Sharapova-Azarenka practice session was like. I was able to get both of their autographs and Li was the better of the 2 in that practice session.
The match between McHale and Petrova was a lengthly battle in the Midwest heat. Christina broke and served for the set at 5-4, but then quickly got broken. It went into a tiebreak and Christina surprised the crowd and won it 7 points to 4. When on serve halfway through the set, Petrova called for the trainer and was quickly iced down by the trainer and her pulse was taken by the doctor. She was suffering in the heat and although it didn’t show during play, it did on the changeover. At 5-3 in Christina’s favor, Nadia retired. It would have been nice to give away that last game, but if she couldn’t handle it, then she had to do what is necessary. I know Christina’s mom from Cleveland and we were so stoked for her. I gave Christina a high five as she left the court and we left the court for a few minutes to cool down.
The next match between Melanie and Vesnina in my opinion would be a close encounter. That wasn’t the case. Elena came out on FIRE and went up 5-0. She was playing as if she was a top 15 player. Melanie tried her hardest, but Elena was just too strong. Elena had so many winners, especially off her backhand wig. Her serve was phenomenal and she kept Melanie guessing. Elena went into the 2nd round with a 6-2,6-3 win.
Lastly was the CoCo-Andrea matchup. I remember when Andrea won her first 10k in Turkey. I have been following her results for years and I have been friends with CoCo for about 3 years now, before she pretty much got her ranking. It was a close battle with pretty much long games and deuces. At like 4-2, CoCo went to her chair and sat down and called the trainer. The heat had gotten to her. After a lengthly time out with her drinking a few bottles of Powerade and being iced down, CoCo went back on court. The battle resumed and it went to a tiebreak, where CoCo simply withered to the heat and lost it 7 points to 1. We left as I was hungry and getting some heat illness. While getting lunch, we found out CoCo lost the 2nd set 6-1. I was glad to see she didn’t retire, but the heat has been getting to numerous players.
The night match between Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova was really enticing. Sharapova was the runner-up 2 weeks ago at Stanford and Kuznetsova won San Diego just a few days earlier. Sharapova, ranked 15th and seeded 10th was liked by the crowd more than 14th ranked and unseeded (you read that right) Kuznetsova. Maria was in control and won the first set 6-4. Her serve was booming and she was dictating all of her shots. In the 2nd set, Svetlana just stormed out of the gates and didn’t look back and just pushed Maria off the court and won the set 6-1. The heat rule went into effect. Yes, at like 8pm. Maria’s coach followed her into the locker room and Svetlana followed by herself. After the 10 minutes, Maria returned to her first set domination and came out on top 6-4,1-6,6-2. It was a nice match.
The Jankovic-Dushevina match followed after but we decided to wait for Maria’s autograph instead. It also didn’t help that we got caught sneaking down and the seats were small for me, to be honest. We didn’t wait as long as we did for Ivanoivc, but I finally got Maria’s autograph, 3 days after I was snubbed. She seemed really nice and she is gorgeous in person. I will make sure to put more pictures and videos up.
That was it for Cincinnati. My blog is more popular then ever and I am more devoted to keeping this up.
-Joey
