NASDAQ 100 + Volunteer Report: Day 3 [Part One]

Saturday, March 25 - Another day with a few upsets - I actually avoided the main court matches for the most part. I did swing through to take some pictures, but I wasn't the only one skipping out - the vast majority of the seats were empty. Tim Henman was able to shake off Lleyton Hewitt and the Kim Clijsters most of us are used to seeing was essentially a no-show against Jill Craybas. Craybas is starting to build on her reputation of taking out formidable players early in major tournaments. At this point, you could hear a lot of talk among the crowds about how the NASDAQ wasn't shaping up to be quite as interesting as some had hoped - but I did talk to a few people who found the elimination of top players to be very exciting.

The weather was again great, so I spent most of my time doing some photography and catching a few matches here and there. One of the major highlights for me was the schedule on court 2 for the morning - matches involving Maria Kirilenko, Tatiana Golovin, and Michaella Krajicek were planned, along with the doubles match of Kuznetsova/Mauresmo v. Dechy/Golovin. Yeah, I said Court 2 - to me, these were easily Court 1 matches. :) For me, Golovin was the most interesting to watch - Krajicek still seemed to be getting her game together, and Kirilenko is still pretty much a new face to me. Golovin has gotten a little more press coverage as one to watch (although both other women are quickly catching up), but so far hasn't been able to deliver on that. She has a lot of time left though.

I wandered over to the practice courts and managed to catch Amelie Mauresmo hitting some balls. [photo]

Based on the people I had talked to, I knew the James Blake (v. Carlos Berlocq) was high up on everyone's list to see for that day, so I wandered on over to get a seat early. Boxholders are ale to get into specific seating areas in the Grandstand, so if you have a boxholder ticket, make sure you use it! I did hear something about the seating arrangements being different than previous years...

Feliciano Lopez and Sebastien Grosjean were still playing at this point, although waiting in line outside you could see it likely was close to over because of the number of people lined up with their giant autograph tennis balls. [photo]

I also nabbed some photos of Kim Clijsters (Kim lovers, rejoice - I know you are out there) - every now and then I could capture some of that fighting spirit that just could not pull her through today. [photo]

Blake didn't seem to be quite as on top of his game at the start.

to be continued...world of warcraft calls...