US Open 2008 - Day 1

The US Open is probably my favourite tennis grand slam event so I was pretty excited this morning to be heading to the opening day of the tournament. I had a grounds ticket for the day session which meant I could come and go as I pleased around any of the courts except for the Arthur Ashe Stadium. With about 14 courts being used in all, from 11am to whenever the last match finished (usually around 9 or 10pm), the grounds ticket was fantastic value at $46 (€32). I bought up a ticket for the Tuesday and Wednesday day sessions too.

First I went to the Grandstand Court and watched the start of Gael Monfils vs Pablo Cuevas. Monfils would go on to win in straight sets.

Then I moved along to the Armstrong Stadium to watch a set and a bit of David Ferrer vs Martin Vassallo Arguello. Ferrer took the first set on a tiebreak but then won the next two easily.

I was really just biding my time until a particular match that I wanted to see. One of my favourite female players is 19 year old Belarusian, Vika Azarenka, and she was playing in the second match on one of the outside courts so I made my way there. However the first match was still in play on that court - Robin Soderling vs Evgeny Korolev. One line judge gave quite a few bad line calls and had Soderling majorly pissed off.

After Korolev won that match in straight sets, I waited for Victoria Azarenka vs Klara Zakopalova. Vika looked very well in an all blue outfit and had it pretty easy in the match, wrapping up a 6-2 6-1 win in under an hour. Something I hadn’t noticed before when watching her on television was that when she’s receiving serve and starts moving her feet, she does this little hop that she probably doesn’t even realise she’s doing. It’s so cute and adorable!

Next I went back to the Armstrong Stadium and got there for the start of Andy Murray vs Sergio Roitman. Roitman played well and gave him a good game but the Muzza was always too strong and ran away with it in the end. His winning shot on match point was pretty special.

Now I had a choice to make between another two of my favourite women players. Caroline Wozniacki, the young Dane, was starting her match and I knew that Lucie Safarova would be starting soon too. I decided to just catch a couple of games from Caroline Wozniacki vs Ahsha Rolle before moving on to see Lucie. I knew Wozniacki would win and that I could get to see her in full in the next round. With Lucie I wasn’t so sure.

And that’s the way it turned out. Wozniacki won easily while the Lucie Safarova vs Sorana Cirstea match was a very close one which went to three sets but ultimately Sorana was a worthy winner. This was a particularly painful loss for me as Safarova was the fifth and final part of a bet I had put on the night before. The first four had all won easily and I was just waiting for Lucie to finish the job. It was tough to watch, being just a few feet away from her. I felt like hopping over the siderail to give her a few slaps and tell her to get moving. But that probably wouldn’t have been a wise move on my part.

As we moved into the evening I was feeling pretty tired and sunburned so decided to grab one more match before leaving, Tamira Paszek vs Maria Kirilenko. Neither played too well but it was a tight match that in the end went to Paszek, 6-4 in the third.

And that was that. A very enjoyable day all around and I’m looking forward to heading back tomorrow. A few not so good things: 1) mediocre overpriced food, 2) sunburn, 3) me forgetting to charge my camera battery the night before so I only had it working for half the day.

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