Yeah, it was pretty ugly.
Nole needs to talk to Serena. Because clearly he doesn't subscribe to the "You have to show up, so why not play well?" philosophy on life. Not once throughout the match did he show a flicker of intensity. I'll be honest, it was pathetic. It's one thing to play like crap but keep working your way through the match and at least show that you care. It's quite another to play like crap, realize you're playing like crap, and just want to throw in the towel and get off the court. It was a sorry display of non-competitiveness.
After the match, Nole blamed it on rust. Bullshit. Rust explains the poor movement and failure of execution. But heart and competitiveness don't get rusty. It doesn't matter if it's a Grand Slam final or a practice match. An elite athlete hates to lose. At everything and anything.
He also blamed his new racquet apparently. Does this guy know what it means to SUPPORT YOUR SPONSORS? Word is they paid him $4.5M. Say something nice, idiot.
Not to take anything away from Ernie. He played a pretty contained match. Except for a few rough patches he wasn't going for everything on every shot. It wasn't a flashy style of play, but it showed better match sense of when to be aggressive and when to construct points. I was impressed.
Men's Scores:
E Gulbis (LAT) d [1] N Djokovic (SRB) 64 64
[5] T Berdych (CZE) d [WC] B Klein (AUS) 60 64
F Serra (FRA) d J Ferrero (ESP) 63 76(3)
M Ancic (CRO) d [Q] A Delic (USA) 76(2) 67(4) 76(6)
K Nishikori (JPN) d [Q] B Reynolds (USA) 63 62
P Mathieu (FRA) d [Q] T Gabashvili (RUS) 63 63
As for the ladies, #2 seed Vika survived a valiant challenge by Jarmila Gajdosova but not before making my shit list. The kid was just plain annoying today, mouthing off at the umpire, crying, and generally acting like a petulant child, which I would forgive except that I realized that she's 19 now. She was the victim of a number of bad line calls and at one point accused the Aussie umpire of favoritism for Gajdosova, who has strong ties to the country. For whatever reason though, that wasn't what bugged me. At one point during a changeover she complained to the umpire that Gajdosova was taking too long between serves. In the game immediately after that she held up Gajdosova's serve (and continued to do so later in the match) so that she could catch her breath. What is that?
Oh yeah, and once the crowd started getting on her for her antics she muttered "Fuck you people." She really is taking this whole "The Next Sharapova" thing a little too seriously.
Gajdosova's one to watch this season, though. She hits the ball hard and flat but she could get fitter to improve her movement and ability to rally, and she needs to have better match intelligence. She had her chances but chose the wrong times to go for broke and made some really stupid errors at key break point chances.
Ladies' Scores:
(2) Victoria Azarenka (BLR) d. Jarmila Gajdosova (SVK) 76(4) 75
(3) Marion Bartoli (FRA) d. (Q) Melinda Czink (HUN) 57 63 61
Tathiana Garbin (ITA) d. Alisa Kleybanova (RUS) 46 64 62
