USO2011 Day 4 (by PJ): Oldies rocking socks.

Hola and hello to all! I hope you’ve been enjoying the lovely LJ’s posts, and now it’s back to yours truly for a bit. I have to admit I’m doing this wrap post without actually watching any tennis – only livescoring (at work – and that is no easy task, trying to maintain a balance between not tearing my hair out and pretending to work).

I, however, did set an alarm at 4AM, just to check the score of Federer/Sela, and he was seemingly cruising and I was definitely half-dead so I crawled back to bed, feeling somewhat assured. From the Twitter timeline and the stats, Pants played a good, solid match – losing only 8 points on serve and a 45% BP conversion (which is quite spectacular for him).

How lovely and also, how very hot of you.

I like the colour of his shirt but Nike, Y U NO give Roger a collar??

I hope he remains hot against his next opponent, Marin Cilic, who, after sucking most of the last two years, chose this tournament to not suck (so far). Cilic dismissed Aussie hopeful Bratnard Tomic, allowing him only three games (thus not repeating their AO2010 five-set snooze-fest). Tomic cited that he wasn’t able to play his game from the word go, but there’s also talk of a stomach ailment. Boy, sickness/injuries are coming fast and furious for this Slam – faster than the tennis balls are travelling, anyway.

It was also a grand ol’ day for the Oldies – besides Roger, three other 30+ year-olds made it through the third round. Tommy Haas put out the Fire in Falla – and I’m so pleased that Haasi made it to the third round of a Slam after his year of injuries and more injuries. Dr.Ivo dumped Reeshard Gasquet in four sets and Juan Carlos Ferrero pulled off the upset of the men’s side so far, beating Gael Monfils (the 7^th seed…I’m still buggered about Monfils being in the top 8, frankly) in spectacular Boss fashion, coming back from 2-sets-to-1.

YAY OLDIES!!! I love this generation, no question about it.

As for the youngies, however – wacky Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov was taken to FIVE sets by Flavio Cipolla. It was a completely bizarre match livescores wise – first, Dolgo BAGELLED the guy in the first set, came back from 2-5 to win the second 7-5. When he went up a break in the third, it seemingly looked like he was on track to a win…and then he somehow went nuts to lose six games in a row. In the fourth, he was up a DOUBLE BREAK, leading 4-1, and then his ponytail twisted itself into some stupid knot to cramp his brain AND he LOST the set 5-7. He was down an early break in the 5^th, and then it seemed to be all over for Dolgo, in what has to be one of the greatest chokes and brain-farts of the tournament. I was ready to punch him, disown him, kick him off my bandwagon when he somehow found some fighting spirit, and grit his teeth to grind out a win.

He lives another day but if he continues to be a flamboyant noodle against Dr.Ivo, he’s gonna get spanked hard, Ivo-style. I hope he wins because I WANT him to do well. Arghhhh. I like Dolgo, I truly do, but like I’ve said previously, he needs to translate his creativity and his “tennis is fun” attitude into some sort of consistency.

Djokovic massacred poor Carlos Berlocq, dishing out two bagels. Berlocq managed two games to avoid a total blackout in the third set, but one should note that the dude never managed to hold serve once for the entire match. Ouch. His minion Tipsarevic also made it through, as well as seeds Mardy Tuna Fish, Big Berd, Baldasco, Granola Bar and Tsonga, while Monaco benefitted from a Worm retirement.

There were no major upsets at the ladies’ side, but my adopted-countrywoman Jarmila Gajdosova lost to Vania King. Kangaroo Woz cruised through, as did Queen Serena, Vika Azarenka and Franny Schiavone. Sveta Kuznetsova and Glitter Gal JJ also made it through, and Petkovic danced through Zheng Jie, leaving Peng Shuai as the only Chinese lady left in draw (allow me a moment to yell LI NA!! WHY!!! WHYYYY!?!?!?!). Sloane Stephens scored the biggest win of her career, beating 23^rd seed Shahar Peer, vying to become the new Mestina Ouhale (or something).

That’s the wrap for the day from moi! Day 5 awaits!

– PJ

P.S. If anyone wants to supply me self-taken porn Federer photos at USO – feel free to buzz it my way.

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