Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Murray's on the Move

8:35 PM

Jamie Murray and Leizel Huber have just defeated Nenad Zimonjic and Zi Yan in the second round of the mixed doubles. This makes a double victory for the MurraySerbia’s Viktor Troicki. family today, with Andy’s earlier win in the men’s singles, over

The 23 year old Serb, tried his best to blast shots past Murray, but Andy, unimpressed, closed out the match in 96 minutes. Next up for the Scot is nineteenth seed, Stanislas Wawrinka whose best singles performance here was the fourth round last year.

The big winner today however, was Melanie Oudin, the seventeen year old American qualifier from Atlanta Georga. Although it would seem that 6th seed Jankovic would come out the victor pretty clearly in this match, people forget that Oudin is on a roll, she’s won 19 out of her last 21 matches, and came into this with nothing to loose.

It must be noted however, that at one point, Jankovic called for the trainer, and actually looked as though she was in tears. Play was stopped for at least ten minutes while she was treated for heat exhaustion.

Oudin at 5’6” tall said that her role model is Justine Henin because “she’s proven that that you don’t have to be six feet tall to be No.1 in the world and win so many Grand Slams.” Right now it looks as though height isn’t going to stop this young woman whose goal since she started tennis was to be a top professional.

Other winners today include Andy Roddick who made it into the final sixteen defeating Austrian Jurgen Melzer for the 10th time in 10 meetings.

Arod’s press conferences are always fun and packed with reporters and this one was no different. He generally comes in carrying the match stats readout. He said he uses it to study his first-serve percentage, and the number of points he wins on receiving second serves.

He has a quick wit, and I’m sure will be a great commentator one day. He’s admitted that unlike a lot of players who dread the post match interview, he has a “pretty good time” with the media, and enjoys the back and forth banter. That’s on a good day. On a bad day he doesn’t hesitate to let you know his feelings.

Tommy “hottie” Haas, finally won his five set marathon over Marin Cilic. The match which started yesterday afternoon was suspended because of darkness at six all in the fifth last night. Haas finally wound it up this afternoon, with a 10-8 win over the Croatian.

Now, for the beginning of my day. Since I’ve been working SOOO hard, I decided I deserved a little shopping break so got on the underground this morning and went to Covent Garden. This is one of my favorite shopping, dining, and hanging out venues in London. This former fruit and vegetable market which was designed in 1632 is now one of London’s most popular tourist destinations. Yes, I said tourist.. And yes it is touristy, but face it .. I’m a tourist.

The plaza is filled with musicians, jugglers, and various entertainments. Shops and restaurants line the arcades which reside under a large glass roof. I especially wanted to go today because of the Apple Market, which is a very nice craft fair held on Saturday and Sunday year round.

11:15 PM

There is only one other photographer left here .. It’s dead quiet and I think it’s time for me to wrap this u

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