Fun times at the SAP Open last night. Of course, it could have been a lot more fun if Ernie didn't serve like a moron, but whatever.
Love All and I sat third row courtside, right by the player's entrance. The row in front of us was empty and a number of players came out to watch and sat right in front of us.
We were right behind Canas and Ginepri, and Haas and Querrey also hung around. That was kinda cool.
The matches were drama filled for stupid reasons, primarily related to the poor line calling. Elf went a little nuts on the umpire in the second set, slamming his racquet into the padding by the umpire's chair. He then went off to sulk at the back of the court. Sensing this as my moment, I yelled "Vamos!" pretty loudly (there weren't that many JMDP fans in the arena) . All of a sudden Elf started spouting off in Spanish for a good 15-20 seconds. I have no idea what he said but I'd like to believe that my well-timed "Vamos!" instigated it.
Elf is damn impressive to watch live. The kid is tall and not as lanky as he seems on TV. He's seems sturdier. And boy can he cover the court. I have no idea how he doesn't trip over those legs of his, but it's impressive.
As for Ernie/Andy, it really came down to Ernie just serving like crap. Couldn't get a first serve in to save his life in the first set, and he couldn't get a second serve in a few times, throwing in back to back double faults eary in the first set. Twas a real shame he couldn't make more of a match of it. There were about 4 of us in the crowd rooting for him. Again, I got a lot of weird looks from the people sitting around us whenever I cheered for Ernie.
Andy was Andy. His serve is ridiculous when you're sitting that close. Seriously, you can't see the ball.
The Andy/Ernie match ended on a weird note. Andy served an ace that Ernie thought was out. They had some words at the net and kept glaring at each other while they were packing up their things. During his post-match interview Andy was asked what was said, to which he replied "Pleasantries. You know it's Valentine's Day" or something to that effect. Charming to some I'm sure. Not to me.
You're not as funny as you think you are, Andy. Just sayin'.
Capped off the night with a nice In 'n Out run. Fun times. Hopefully, depending on who makes the semis and final, I'll make it down there again this weekend.
Here are links to the rest of the pics:
http://tinyurl.com/am5fny
http://tinyurl.com/d3vkre
http://tinyurl.com/ajkjdr
I hope they work. Let me know if they don't.
Here were the scores out of San Jose:
[1] A Roddick (USA) d E Gulbis (LAT) 63 76(3)
[2] J Del Potro (ARG) d K Nishikori (JPN) 62 62
[3] J Blake (USA) d F Serra (FRA) 64 63
[5] M Fish (USA) d [WC] J Isner (USA) 62 67(4) 75
[6] S Querrey (USA) d D Gremelmayr (GER) 63 62
[Q] T Widom (USA) d T Dent (USA) 67(5) 63 62
That's a lot of red, white and blue.
