Rogers Cup-Day 6 Highlights
I’m not what people would particularly call a “tennis person”, but when I walked into work at 9am this morning and my supervisor’s reaction was “Nemi!! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the games?” (Of which, my reply was “uhh..I kinda work here?”), I decided I might as well take advantage of the free tickets, the lovely weather (more on that later), the day off work to chill with a couple of my buddy co-workers and the opportunity to watch ladies in short skirts hit balls over a fence. Seemed as good a day as any, I’ll say.
Being the tennis “neophyte” that I am (or newbie, if you prefer, before somebody gets the wrong definition in their head), it took me a couple minutes to figure out what exactly was going on and how the scoring system works-3 sets of games per match; first to win 6 games per set (unless it’s 5-5, in which case, it’s the first to get to 7), and the first to get more than 40 points a game..something like that. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, I’m still a newbie to tennis afterall.
Anyway, I got to watch three matches..well, two and a half..after the first set of the third game, the heat got to me and I had to leave.
The first game was between Shahar Peer from Israel and Elena Dementieva from Russia. Even though Peer was the more popular choice, Dementieva came through victorious with a 6-1-6 win over Peer’s 1-6-4.
In the first set, Dementieva came strong with a 6-1 advantage over Peer, who eventually made up for it by winning the second set, Dementieva showing visible signs of fatigue.The third set, on the other hand, was intense with Peer and Dementieva going neck to neck at each other from deuce to advantage peer to deuce to advantage Dementieva (and so on and so on..you get my point). In the end, well, Dementieva walked away the winner.
I was going to leave..till I found out that Serena was going to play right afterwards, so I decided to stick around to witness it, afterall, it’s not everyday that you get to watch Serena Williams play.
Conclusion: Serena williams is a beast on the tennis court. Period. I actually felt bad for her opponent, Alona Bondarenko from Ukraine. It’s like she was playing against a wall. Serena simply bullied the poor lady into shameful submission. Okay, maybe that isn’t an all too fair assessment of the game. Serena wasn’t having the best of days..her serves were off point..landing mostly into the net, lending her an air of frustration that was messing with her confidence. Lucky for her, almost everybody in the stands rooted for her. Talk about motivation. In the end, she won, but with her fastest service recorded at 196km/h, who would really want to get between her and the ball she was hitting anyway?
not too long after the game started, it ended, leaving me wondering if her opponent just quit halfway..until I found out that once you win two consecutive sets, the game is up. You learn something new everyday.
The game ended 6-6 Serena, 1-4 Bondarenko.
The third match was between Bondarenko’s sister, Kateryna and Agnieszka Radawanska from Poland. I didn’t stay till the end of that game, but apparently Radwanska won. I guess neither of the Bondarenko sisters’ had a good day. Too bad though, I kinda liked Kateryna..