Day 1 report.
New Haven, Connecticut.
Sunday August 18th 2013
First of all, here are the scores:
Singles - First round
[7] SABINE LISICKI (GER) D KRISTINA MLADENOVIC (FRA) | 7 - 5 | 6 - 1 |
Singles - Qualifying - Final round
ALISON RISKE (USA) D [9] YANINA WICKMAYER (BEL) | 6 - 4 | 6 - 2 |
[7] AYUMI MORITA (JPN) D MARIANA DUQUE-MARINO (COL) | 6 - 2 | 6 - 1 |
[5] STEFANIE VOEGELE (SUI) D YAROSLAVA SHVEDOVA (KAZ) | 6 - 3 | 3 - 6 | 2 - 1 | RET
[6] MONICA PUIG (PUR) D CAROLINE GARCIA (FRA) | 6 - 2 | 6 - 4 |
[10] KARIN KNAPP (ITA) D [4] ANNIKA BECK (GER) | 7 - 6 (4) | 4 - 6 | 6 - 2 |
ANNA SCHMIEDLOVA (SVK) D [3] ELINA SVITOLINA (UKR) | 7 - 6 (4) | 6 - 2 |
So Here I am, reporting to all of you, I spent about 7 hours walking the grounds, taking pictures, covering practice session, matches and so much more.
It was fun to say the least as I got more than I expected.
My main goal was to take pictures of as many ladies as possible, so in my mind I was thinking of covering the matches mainly to accomplish that fact, but these were qualifying round matches, how many stars do qualifying? I knew the first day only included one first round match, which was at the end of the day.
I was not even thinking about the practice sessions beforehand, boy did that come as a surprise to me, where else was I going to find "Pocket Rocket" hitting balls against Sara Errani?
Coming into the grounds early has it's advantages, early on I saw a host of players going through their practice sessions, this list includes Daniela, Dominika, Roberta, Makarova..so many ladies, so little time!! There was so much action that I had difficulty covering everything! I look at the clock and ooops I missed Sloane's practice session, I go back to cover the final of one match but it's too late, the match was finished due to retirement.... you get the picture? It was obviously too much for one person to cover and I just had to do as much as one person could accomplish.
But I did it!! It was so much fun to boot...
Starting with the last match first, this was the match I was almost able to cover fully. I saw the end of the first set and the whole second set(which was interrupted by rain twice). Boom Boom against Kristina was the only first round match of the day..I took about 75-100 pictures of this match.
It was a close first set, Sabine was ahead but then Kristina came back, It ended 7-5 in Sabine's favor, The second set was not as close, at one point Sabine was on the verge of going up 5 to love.It was great seeing Sabine live in action,oh did I mention I love her serve!! It's a bullet!
I saw Morita's one sided Victory, she really shouldn't have to do qualifying, she is that good, shows you the level of competition here.
I saw the end of Riske vs. Wickmayer, Wickmayer was not happy, didn't shake the umpire's hand and quickly left the court.
All in all I took a huge amount of images, covered about 5-6 practice sessions, 4-5 matches and then some. I also saw three of the qualifying matches, two of these featured young American Ladies, in both cases they were victorious, namely Puig and Riske. Both Ladies seem to be on the uprise, they won today and made the main draw, I was most impressed with Alison, she has a bright future, me thinks.
The day ended with more rain sprinkle that stopped Caro's practice session, which was 5-6:30 pm, that didn't stop me from getting a bunch of her pictures. BTW, this rumor of Caro changing coach is total non-sense, she was being coached by Daddy all of today, I tell you she is a great listener....And she LOVES her DAD!!
I am not done yet, stay tuned folks!!
I will be back in the Connecticut Tennis center tomorrow to continue my coverage. I have secured session 2 and session 3 tickets, charged my batteries and will be there for at least 8 hours tomorrow, I don't think I'll stay for Petra's match because I have to drive 6 hours tomorrow night...I am planning on capturing 1500 more images though!!
BTW, stay tuned for images, they will be up on this very same thread in a couple of days. That's when I am back in town.
Kiu
Tennis Frontier Correspondent.
