RG2011 Day 6 (by PJ): Spectacular, Spectacular

You know that Roger Federer is playing his own special brand of Jesus!Fed tennis when a non-tennis watcher – one who has constantly and continually mocked me for my obsession with yellow fuzzy balls and Federer’s non fuzzy nor frizzy chocolate brown curls – proclaimed that she would join me on my future tennis outings for a chance to stalk his pants.

To summarise my own thoughts about the match: ROGER FEDERER, I AM ETERNALLY INSTALLED IN YOUR PANTS.

My earlier frazzling/worrying about the match proved to be in vain as Rog came out firing from point one – ripping beautiful backhands, fantastic forehands and put on a show of spectacular serving. When he is in this sort of mood, the person across the net could pretty much do nothing but try to survive the walloping, which was what happened to Janko Tipsarevic.

The first set was over in less than 20 minutes, as Tipsarevic was broken twice due to his own errors and Federer’s genius. In the next two sets, Tipsarevic tried his best to keep up, even managing to earn himself a break point when Roger developed an obsession with failed drop-shots but TMF pretty much just served himself out of trouble. He secured one break in the second set, and broke the Other Serbian twice in the final set to clinch victory in slight over 90 minutes.

Federer is looking very very good, after three matches. I have to admit, it has been very lovely and refreshing to see him play so freely and prettily. If he keeps up this level of play…I won’t say it, but I know all of us are THINKING IT (ANTIJINX).

To the Tennis Gods, my offer of first born and blood still stands if…you know.

Anyway, have some pretty.

A couple of days ago, I wished I was a towel. Now I wish I’m a drink bottle. Roger Federer, he makes you wish that you are an inanimate object.

In other matches – the blockbuster match-up of the day between Del Potro and Djokovic was halted after two sets due to darkness. I actually stayed up until the ungodly hour of 330AM to catch the match, and although I was half dead throughout, I can see that there wasn’t much separating the two. It wasn’t a cracking, breathtakingly exciting match, but it was competitive throughout the two sets. Djokovic’s first set victory didn’t come easy, and neither did Delpo’s second set victory.

The two will continue to battle today on Lenglen, in what turns out to be a best-of-3 affair. It’s anyone’s guess, as to who will triumph, although I know I want WHO to triumph.

As for the other guys in the field:

1)      Good day for the Frenchies, as they make it two out of three, with Gael Monfils dumping Steve Darcis, ending his giant-killing run – and Reeshie Gasquet finally overcoming a determined Thomaz Belluci in four sets.

2)      It was nearly a perfect 3 out of 3 for France though – if Jo-Wills Tsonga had not blown a two-set lead against Ewok the Other Swiss. He was even up a break in the 3^rd, but allowed Stan to fight back spectacularly. For the final two sets, it was all about Stan being the Man as he breezed through against the tiring Tsonga, showing that McFed not the only Swiss that can put on a spectacular show. Great comeback by Stanley, and he earned himself a chance to play His Friend Roge in the 4^th round.

3)      Is anyone frazzling about Lord F yet? Initially I was quite okay with having him in Roger’s quarter, brick wall and all. But he’s been sweeping through his matches with deadly ease – destroying Sergiy Stakhovsky in only allowing 5 games – and certainly enjoying the flight under the radar. Coupled with a great run in Melbourne and a solid clay season…urm, I’m starting to wish he stayed out of Roger’s quarter.

4)       Mikhail Youzhny lost tamely to Albert Montanes – eating two breadsticks. He staged a great comeback in the second set to take it to a tiebreaker after being down a break, but totally brain-farted in the tiebreak, only taking one point. I need to get off the Headsmashy Bandwagon – but I really did think he’ll have another career surge after making the semis of USO last year. Ah well.

5)      Fab Fog beat Garcia-Lopez to earn himself a spot in the fourth round. One quarterfinal this year WILL feature Fog OR Montanes…that made my brain stopped working for two seconds.

On the ladies’ side – the Aussie flag took a HUGE tumble, with Sammy Stosur crashing out to Gisela Dulko, who had her giant-killing pants on yesterday. It’s really disappointing for Sammy – for I think as far as Slams go, her best bet is the French because she’s got a better game on clay. The thing with Sam is, I felt like she’s just not at a place where she is 100% confident with her game, and with herself. She was up a break in the third set after a solid performance in the second set, but couldn’t keep that break, and was broken again with Dulko triumphing.

Good news is, she moves onto the grass to start training for Wimbledon. Bad news is, I don’t think she’ll get very far there.

Oh Sammy – you make my heart and my head hurt.

The shocker of the day though – or perhaps not so shocking when you consider the innate shot-making ability of Daniela Hantuchova – saw top seed Kangaroo Woz tumbling out of the tournament in straights. She was no match for Dani yesterday, who just came out like a woman on a mission, butchering Woz in the first set.

There was a slight wobble in the second that saw Caro break her serve – where I was afraid she might actually lose it, because of the manner she was broken. It looked like a double-bounce on Woz’s side of the court, which would give the point to Hantuchova, but umpire called it good and Woz was like “whut no it didn’t double –bounce” so that was that. But since she was double-break up, she managed to hold on to eventually win the match.

As for Woz – the relevant question was “do you feel the pressure of being a Slamless no.1?” and her relevant quote was “blah blah blah no” and my response was “oh, that’s so relevant.” Honestly? I don’t like the girl, neither do I like her game, but journos have to come up with better questions. If you want to ask the same thing a thousand times over, at least come up with a NEW way of asking it.

This is the first time since 1971 that the top two women’s seeds did not survive the first week of a Slam, and questions were raised again about the depth of the field. To which I say…BRING BACK SERENA WILLIAMS!!! Surely she is the epitome of consistency that the WTA Tour really needs.

Other than that, it was uneventful for the women as all the other seeds got through their matches safely. Marion “high IQ” Bartoli provided some cheer for the French crowd as she overcame Julia Goerges in three sets.

And that’s the wrap, folks.

– PJ

P.S. photos from daylife.com

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