Sunday, June 29, 2003

7 days to go It was a rest day at Wimbledon today which gives me a chance to catch up with a couple of games I watched yesterday...   Undercover   Colin's Countdown was able to place one of our staff at Wimbledon as a security guard for leading players. Our undercover man can reveal that the Williams sisters are just as funny in real life as when they are on TV. Youngster Andre Agassi beat Younes El Aynaoui in a sporting but competitive contest, including 2 tie-breaks. It was a good game with some great shots but nowhere near as entertaining as the Philippoussis versus Stepanek encounter. This too was extremely competitive, but not so sporting. Philippousis lost his cool and swore a few times - and the intensely competitive Stepanek shopped him to the umpire and tried to get him "booked". Eventually, Philippousis did get a warning and there were a lot of severe stares between the two of them. Stirring stuff! Philippousis won in 4 sets but every point was a battle and I will be looking out for Stepanek and his spoon in future tournaments. Last year a player who I enjoyed watching and decided to look out for in future years was David Nalbandian - and this was before he made it to the final. How could you think I would be so shallow. He played some amazing groundstokes and was an unseeded underdog all the way through. This year he is the number 6 seed and now he plays Tim Henman. Should be an interesting game.  Sweet Sixteen The demise of Dokic, who lost to a 16 year old Russian, means that she will now have more time to tend to her father. Every cloud has a silver lining. 8:56:58 PM    comment []