It was strange to go back to Hamburg after a few years. It was the first tournament I ever went to in 2007 and I immediately became addicted to see Roger playing live thereafter
On Monday I came in time to see Roger practicing with Juan Monaco. It's really a bonus if you can attend Roger's practices (it's probably Halle's only disadvantage that you can't see Roger practicing over there).
I didn't went to any match on Monday even though I had a really good ticket but sometimes it's just more fun to chat with other fans.
We heard that Roger would practice with Tommy later on (these 2 don't seem to get enough of each other lately :lol: ) and it was on the same court as the practice with Monaco in the morning.
It was a really long practice in the burning sun with T-Shirt changes from Tommy who afterwards could have wetted the court with his sweat
We stood at the side fence and hoped that Roger and Tommy would come over but just as in the morning after the practice with Monaco Davydenko appeared on the court again and so only Tommy went into the corner to sign for a few fans before he and Roger left.
On Tuesday Roger practiced with Youzhny and afterwards he greeted us when he finished signing.
We were very surprised by the way when Stakhovsky came to the practice court and had a very long chat with Roger.
We saw him a few times these days and were all thinking about what happened in Wimbledon and apparently had much more problems with him than Roger
It was another day without having watched a match on CC as we were just busy chatting.
On Wednesday Roger practiced in the midday sun again, this time it was just some light hitting with Severin. As warm-up he played a bit football with Stephané and Severin. (The ball had the Swiss flag on it
)
It was time to see a bit of tennis and so I went in to see Tommy's match. I had a very good seat in the box and could hear every curse of Tommy :lol:
Then it was Roger time and I was already nervous before this match considering the fact that Brands was near to go 2:0 sets up against Rafa in RG.
I guess you can all imagine my thoughts after the 1st set. I had just bought the tickets for the rest of the week in the morning and now Roger was down a set against a tricky opponent.
It was interesting to see and hear the support from Severin who was sitting just a few metres away.
Fortunately Roger could turn around the match but I was already dreading his next match.
I supposed it to be against Gulbis before I saw the surprising result of his loss against Hajek.
On Thursday Roger practiced on court #2 with a junior player (we later on found out that it was Daniel Valent from Switzerland). Afterwards I went to the barrier and got my bag signed and wished him good luck for the match.
A Belgian fan asked me to come down to her and another fan to row 1 behind the umpire's chair so that we could sit together.
Luckily Roger had the bench in front of us
That made the concentration on the match a bit difficult :angel:
I got really annoyed because there were kids sitting many beside me with their big tennisballs they wanted to get signed. I don't know why they were allowed to sit there as they most probably didn't have a ticket for this category.
They were chatting the whole time and I said a few times they should be quiet but of course they didn't listen
Roger needed 6 MPs to close out the match and got a warning for hitting one of the balls out of the Stadium.
Once the match was over all kids moved forewards and other people pushed. It was a nightmare for us 3 fans because we were directly in the middle of this. The other 2 got pushed over the bench and my head was stuck. I feared that my glasses would get broken
The security was totally helpless against this madness and Roger also looked very annoyed. He told the people not to push.
We were forced in our positions though and glad when everything was over.
On Friday Roger had a light hitting with Severin again. He had to be patient until he could play his match because of the very long match between Verdasco and Delbonis and then the Haas-Fognini match thereafter.
It was already quite cold when Roger and Florian Mayer came to the court.
Even though I knew that the German player could be tricky I wasn't prepared for such a match.
It took probably 10 years out of me :lol:
It was great to see the support from the box again, especially from Gavin.
I was fortunate to catch Roger's wristband after the match :angel:
(No, ladies, there wasn't any special fragrance notable :angel
Later on Severin crossed my way and I said "What a tight match" and he answered "Yes, too tight for my liking" :lol:
On Saturday I saw Roger by chance before going to practice, he smiled and greeted me and I wished him good luck for the match.
He practiced with a left-handed Germany player who I saw quite a few times in the days in Hamburg but I didn't knew his name.
We were sitting in row 1 with a few fans which makes it always more special to be together in a group.
Afterwards I had a long chat with a fan and Stephané came to get the bags which they had forgotten.
Well, what can I say about the match? Even though Roger doesn't like to play against left-handers and even in his dominant times often struggled against players he has never played before I didn't thought he would lose this match, especially not when he was up a break in the 1st set.
TBs are often a lottery and it's bad luck that Roger wasted the MB.
I hoped he could turn around the match in the 2nd set especially considering that Delbonis had to get tired at a point due to the fact that he already played several matches in the week and had the long QF against Verdasco but he just played without any fear and was hitting the lines.
I thought that the crowd was not that much behind Roger as you would expect. I had people around me who were clearly cheering for the underdog.
Roger was really into the match and Severin did his best to cheer him on but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be
I regret that I didn't went to the players entrance to say good-bye to him but I'm sure he knows how we all felt who were there to support him these days.
Even though the week came to a shocking end it was a great week in general as we got to see 4 matches and some practices.
Instead of going to the final I decided to travel home very early this morning but I'm missing the livetennis already :awww: