And then it was Wednesday.
I woke up to find somebody sleeping at the foot of the bunk. I looked down at him for a while and wondered if I was too tired to make a flying leap over him. I decided that yes, I probably was. Thankfully, he stirred and looked up, then rolled over so that I had room. Why there were people on my floor, I never entirely understood, but they were there the entire time. I think their friends were in that room and just letting them sleep on the floor for free. If I was a jerk I could have reported them, but I'm not.
So I skip breakfast because I'm a cheapskate, and off to the tennis I go. So, as I always do, I take my order of play and sit at my spot by the Ashe statue. I didn't really have plans to meet up with anybody new today, so I wasn't stressed or anything.
My first stop of the day was Clement and Chen on court 11. I watched the first set and had a good feeling that Clement would run away with it. Chen wasn't bad but he seemed nervous and was making some bad errors as a result of that.
After that I spent time watching women's tennis to take pictures of somebody that a friend of mine happens to like.
Then it was time to check out Strakhovsky, whom somebody from my board had asked that I see. Well, I'm glad that I did! I really liked his game and hope to see more of him in the future. I suck at explaining games, but I'll do what I can here. He has a one handed backhand, is fairly agressive, finishes quite a few points at the net, moves pretty well, etc. There, that's why I don't explain how people play or what their strengths and weaknesses are

Anyways, he sort of gagged when serving for the match against Carraz. He had a sitter at the net and he just dumped it. And the point before that he got fairly passive. If I remember correctly he needed at least a couple match points to close it out. Carraz was pissed when he got broken at 4all in the third, btw. He pouted in his chair and chucked his water bottle on to the court so hard that it busted and the ball people had to towel that part of the court off. Not that I blame him for being upset, I'm just sayin'.
Women's tennis stuff, blah.
I saw Marray play, because for some reason he has a fan thread on my board. So I took photos of him for them. Marray was playing Ascione. I don't think that he actually does, but Ascione kind of looks like he has a beer belly. I think he's just built thick like Nalbandian. I saw Luczak at some point during that time, but not for long. I just walked by and took a picture in case somebody liked him.
I saw Mayer practicing. I'm hard of seeing and wasn't sure it was him at first
And then, the event that made my day

Well, one of two events that made my day. I see a crowd at the covered practice courts and wonder - who is here? So I get closer and see Novak Djokovic practicing and think "YAY" because I like him lots. So I take out my camera and then I get thinking.... erm, why the crowd? I mean, Novak rawks, but most people don't know that yet. So I ask somebody what is going on and they tell me that Federer is on the other side of the court (which I couldn't see from where I was standing). lol! I was not nearly as excited about this as he thought I should be, and continued trying to take pictures of Novak. So the guy is like "no no, that's Federer on the other side". lol! I'm like "yeah, I know". So then no less than half a dozen people over the next little while ask me who Novak is, where he's from, how old, is he any good, etc. Since I mispronounce his name, this kind of blew. But either than that it was fine. I watched this practice for about an hour and then took some photos of Novak on his way out, because I'm creepy like that. He thinks so too, if you look at the look on his face in the last one
I went to Benneteau and Hilton after that, to take some photos of Julien for a friend of mine who loves him *cough*Esther*cough*
I decided to wander at that point and see who was practicing. On the way to the practice courts I came across John Paul Fruttero and Michael Lammer. I wouldn't have stopped, since I wasn't interested in either, but Fruttero had this American flag bandana that amused me. Now, there is nothing wrong with this bandana, but it caught my attention and I'm easily amused. So I took a photo of him and noted that he doesn't curse to himself in English. Did he anglo his name to John Paul, or was he born in the USA? The ATP site tells me nothing, aside from the fact that we share a birthday. This makes him awesome.
Moving on, I saw Gambill and Schuettler practicing. Took one photo of each and took off. The other day when I had seen Gambill somebody asked me if it was indeed he, because they thought as much from his two handed forehad. I said that year, I recognized him because of his torso.
For the second year in a row I watched Vahaly bow out of qualies on court 7. Too bad for him, he seems likable.
Then Paula Garcia and Virginia Ruano-Pascual won the "you play right before Mahut" sweepstake and got to have their pictures taken by moi. I had spent the entire day tracking the progress on court 13, because Mahut was 4th on that court and I lurve him. Anybody who has anything bad to say about him is banned from this thread. That means you, KBF
I watched Mahut's entire match, because I lurve him. I even kept the bad photos where he's like, wiping his face or nose or something, because I'm really quite sad. My favourite is the one where he has a disgusted look on his face and appears to be looking towards the camera. Well, he is sort of, becaue I was sitting two feet over from his coach or trainer or whatever. He glared at him basically the whole match. He played awful. I was sad. He can play much better than that. There were 2 or 3 double faults in the tie break with one of them coming at set point down. That about sums up how the match went. I sulked for a good half hour after this because, in case I failed to mention it, I lurve Mahut. My chance to see him for another two days had been crushed by Amritraj, who played well enough. It pains me to write about this
After sulking for a while like the loser fan girl that I am,... wait, wait, no first I followed him out like the loser fangirl that I am. His coach walked like, 20 meters behind him and Nicolas just went straight for the cars. I found this a bit strange, but I guess he's the sort that you don't go 5 feet from after a loss, which is more or less what I had figured out in Montreal as I watched him almost trample people on his way back to the players area after losing to Rochus. So then I sulked, then it was time for Dudi Sela and Andy Murray.
I really wanted to see Murray, since I've been kidding about him on here for a while to tease da hatas

Also, a couple posters asked me to get Dudi pictures of something, so I did that. It was an enjoyable match, with the best point coming right before the last point of the match. I didn't count but it was more than a dozen strokes with some lobs, drop shots, and finally Murray getting something he couldn't handle at the net and dumping. The Dudi fans went wild
This match was fairly heavily attended, mainly because of the Murray buss I think, but the Israeli players had a good deal of support in qualies, I found. Dudi went off with his coach after the loss and his coach had his arm around him - I was like "aw, Dudi!" Then some of his fans went after him for photos. He was clearly crushed but stopped to take photos for them anyways, which I thought was awfully nice. I wouldn't have blamed him for sulking off (even though he didn't play badly at all, he just had a bad draw). About 5 minutes pass and I walk past court 7 again and see that Andy is still on court with a fairly large crowd of people waiting for photos and autographs as he gives an on camera interview on court. I found this all quite stunning and tried to get some photos of it, lol. The ones I got the next match were a bit better, and Friday was absolutely chaos. The media has made him quite the star, apparently

I mean, I expected buzz, but that exceeded my expections.
Anyways, this youngish guy, a teenger, goes up and talks to Andy after the match. I had been sitting near him and it was clear he was a huge fan. No idea if he posts here, but I decided that he is definitely Andy's number 1 fan, and anybody who claims otherwise is lying

I literally saw him do a fist pump after Andy walked away victorious. It was amazing.
Anyways, Andy haters should beware. He's very good and he is way too conceited to fail :devil:
That's pretty much Wednesday. I will write up the other two days and put photos up from those days tomorrow or Monday.