Much love to Mrs. Saifn's boss for giving her the afternoon off to go catch her future husband in LA:
- I got to the stadium during the Isner/Baghdatis 2nd set tiebreaker. At 10-all, Isner had a nasty fall and grabbed his leg in pain. Marcos immediately jumped the net and was the first to reach him. After a short timeout, Isner came back on court. He was having trouble putting weight on his left leg, but managed to win the next few points and the match. Marcos shook hands nicely, walked to his chair and smashed his racket.
- For Marat I sat in the first row behind the baseline. At first it was a little embarrassing to do the S-A-F-I-N cheer by myself, but after a few beers it was less about embarrassment and more about "F before I, F before I". Towards the end of the match, a group of people at the top of the stands started using the cheer, which is awesome, unless they were making fun of me.
- I was getting worried that my good luck charm status was used up with the 3 wins in two days, but just after I texted you that Karate Kid was looking too good, Marat came back. In his on-court interview after the match he said he's staying in LA until next Thursday and that his ex-girlfriend is from here ("So is your future wife," I shouted. OK, whispered).
- There were only a few people waiting for him after the match so I stuck around and got him to sign the playing card Love All gave me at IW. I couldn't ask about the monkey because when he looked at me all I could think was, "Did he just recognize me? Does Marat know me?"
- I stayed to watch Tursunov and Gulbis play doubles against some other guys. They were laughing and joking the whole time, and they won easily. Dima got pulled wide on one shot; when the point was over he picked a flower from one of the pots lining the side wall and presented it to Ernie as a gift, who knocked it out of his hand laughing. It was a really funny moment. They are a super-cute doubles team.
