I was kinda kidding about the whole "NO ONE WANTS TO GO TO YOUR STUPID MOOSE TOURNAMENT, CANADA" thing, but now I'm starting to wonder.
Numero Uno crashed out in straight sets to Robert Vinci, somehow blowing a 5-1 lead in the second set to lose 64 75 in some, to be fair, pretty horrible conditions. The wind was swirling and Caro was clearly showing some rust, shanking the ball left and right and generally getting perturbed with the whole shebang. And so she blew a lead and lost to a player who was, prior to today, 0-17 against top five players. Said Roberta after the match: "This is the happiest day of my life." So, you know, it was kind of a big deal.
While Caro may have just failed to show up, Rafa's problem was that Ivan Dodig TOTALLY SHOWED UP and then some. Rafa, hampered by a cold, also showed signs of rust. But to completely tag Rafa with the loss would be horribly unfair to Dodig. The man played 110% red-line tennis for two sets. He took it to Rafa, serving big and getting to the net as much as possible, slicing and dicing volley winners left and right. That he was able to keep up that level over two sets was shocking, even more so because Rafa would get up a break twice in the third set, only to have the fearless Ivan storm back and seemingly break back out of nowhere. Every journeyman dreams of having one of these matches in him. Ivan Dodig chose today to find it. All credit to him.
(Pics: Getty, Reuters)
