I asked him about his knee before the match, I know he must be so sick of that question, but he explained in detail why he keeps playing, etc. It's a real headache. :-/ He was very, very nice!
He looks much better in person than in pics. Nice eyes, great smile too.
It looked like he was alone in Hamburg. I would only recognize the father, don't know how the brothers look like, but he was alone before his match and he didn't seem to look at anybody in particular during the match. I hope I'm wrong and there was somebody to cheer him up after his match because he seemed so down.
Brunken is a hardhitter, the kind of players who bore me to tears. But I have to say he played a good match. It was driving Adrian insane because Brunken kept painting the lines. Every close shot of Brunken was in, every close shot of Adrian was out, it really was quite insane! On MP again - Adrian had a little bitter, disillusioned smile then.
At the beginning I thought Adrian had a problem with his shoulder, he gave Brunken a 4-0 lead ^^ and kept touching his shoulder after each serve. But he stopped doing that after a while, so I guess/hope the shoulder is fine.
Actually, his serve was the only thing working in his game afterwards. I so badly wanted to cheer his winners, but there weren't any. :-/ So I was cheering his service winners!
I don't remember if he even played one of his gorgeous dropshots. He let Brunken totally dominate the rallies at times, it was painful to watch.
Still, I'm very glad to have seen the match because of his antics, he's quite a character on the court! He really made me laugh, even though it wasn't funny.
When he was broken again at 3-2 (?) in the 2nd set, he was just frustrated from then on and started to soliloquize for the rest of the match. He was whining that he's been so unlucky this year ("je suis tellement poissard, moi, cette année!"), etc.
He didn't even go to his chair for the last changeover, went over to the other side of the court and waited for Brunken.
He was still talking to himself when leaving the court, I couldn't hear what he said because it was too far from me, but I heard him shout the scoreline of his match, he was so mad!
Sorry for the long match report, but I'm so glad to have seen him in person, even if the match was a complete mess. Terrible match and fight from him, obviously, but he was touching.
His whiny antics reminded me a bit of Coria too (it's positive coming from me, I found Coria highly entertaining).