[Chloe le Bopper]

I suppose I could blog this, but those confuse me. Besides, I had been using mine just to write random stupid stuff.

If this belongs in the USO forum, somebody is welcome to move it. I put it here so that more people would see it, as per request.

If you are looking for detailed match reports, then you might want to skip this. It's people based and will have random comments about my trip and people I met.

Moving forward...

I arrived in NYC on Monday, but did nontennis blah that day. I stayed at Jazz-on-the-Park hostel at Central Park West. I liked the area, but I wish I had known it was going to be dead by midnight, or I would have arranged to be back much sooner. There are things I would rather do than wander alongside Central Park by myself, with luggage, at night when nobody is around to hear me die a horrible death.

Anyways, so I get up to my room and realize that since it's near the outside lounge where people are drinking, that the light is going to be on and the door left open the entire night. I was too tired to care, but normally this would madden me. Also, there were 6 bunk beds in the smallest room possible, and I had to unpack clothing on my bed and sleep with my bags on my bed since there was nowhere else to put them.

Then I decide I need to shower before bed, since I have to check into my other hostel first thing in the morning before heading to flushing for tennis. So I end up waiting a full hour for the front desk guy to bring my a towel. He seems more interested in chatting me and everybody else up than getting his partner to come downstairs and get me a bloody towel. And it turns out there were towels behind him the entire time. SIGH. I got to bed at 3am.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to stay at Jazz-on-the-Park, only do so if you plan on getting drunk, partying, and then crashing. Very nice staff, but it's loud and messy as Hell.

Okay, tennis on Tuesday will come in the next post

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

And then it was Tuesday. After my nice 4 hour sleep, I wander from 106 to 100 looking for 103rd and Amsterdam, because I'm a bit slow at that time in the morning. Eventually I find my hostel for the rest of the trip, Hostelling International NY, and check my bags. Then it's off to tennis, which is about an hour trip from that area by Central Park.

As has become my tradition at tennis, I plan to meet with people at the Arthur Ashe statue across from Ashe stadium. I didn't meet some until later since their train was late or some blah, but I met Jess (savestheday), whom I already knew from Montreal, and her mother. We go get an order of play and blah, and I make a point of circling everybody that I have to see so that I don't somehow fail to notice them on the sheet later that day.

I would have gotten an order of play on my way in, had I known where to do so. Later in the week they have them as soon as you enter the gates, but the first two days I had to go to the Information booth. This was clearly too obvious for me, and I had to find out from a nice man who was sitting near me that I spoke with before meeting Jess. Around this time I also spotted my first player of the USO - Adam Chadaj! No, really! He was! His blonde 'fro ran right by me a few times. It was impossible not to recognize him.

It seems that the first match we went to was Harel Levy vs Dusan Vemic. This was Jess' idea, because she likes to stalk people and hope they might show up at their countrymen's matches I didn't stick it out long, and wandered off to find Tipsarevic practicing a couple courts over. I alerted Jess, who joined me watching him. Not without arguing that it didn't look like Tipsarevic, though. Granted, he was one court over from where we were viewing, but come on! Who else looks like that, Jess?

Then it appears that I saw Clement practice. Somebody likes him that I chat with *cough*Deb*cough* so I took some pictures. Actually, I took pictures of everybody I have mentioned so far. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't remember I saw them

For some reason I watched the last set of Pless-Karanusic. I think Pless was injured. He didn't call for the trainer, but he was lying on the ground and stretching is back on changeovers. Karanusic was bouncing his racquet all over the place and not playing particularly well. He wasn't smashing it violently, he was just making it bounce so that he could then catch it. He did this over and over and over again until he finally got a code violation for it, at which point he finally just chucked it at his chair, knocking the chair a bit. I liked Roko, he was expressive Eventually he lost, and he didn't seem to take it too hard. I suppose that he could have, but he and Pless exchanged some kind words at the net (judging by their body language) and then he sat with his coach on the bench by the court for a while, and a short while later I spotted them eating in the food court.

After that I watched some of Gilles Simon and Ivan Miranda. I wasn't there for too long, since I only really went to take photos of Simon for somebody who insisted upon it, even though said person didn't take any photos of Mahut for me when he caught him practicing nekkid in Washington. *cough*KarolBeckFan*cough* Simon looks awfully young.

I watched the end of Dancevic and Mlynarik. Mlynarik's cheering squad was tiny, but they sure were loud. And he.... really shouldn't have lost that match. He served for it once that I saw, and possibly again before that. But when it came to the tb, Frank just stepped it up and served his brains out, was very agressive, and it paid off for him. I was rooting for Frank and good on him for pulling this match out, but I felt a bit for Mlynarik - and his camp!

Then it was time for the Adam Chadaj show. I wish that I could say more about Adam than his hair is awesome and who I assume is his gf is very good looking... but I really can't He was not having a good day. He doesn't seem to have one great shot, so I imagine that his keys are his speed and consistency off the ground... and he was sadly lacking consistency this day. He tried to mix it up a few times by throwing in a lob or drop shot, but they usually missed. The drop shots would bounce off the net back at him and the lobs would go long or wide. Like, he has to be better than this some days or he would not be ranked in the top 500 Anyways, so that is how Parmar kicked his butt. His hair still rules though. I took a picture of his gf too, when she wasn't looking. I think she was glaring at me for talking too much, but it could have been my imagination.

After that I watched some of Roger-Vasselin and Pavel Snobel. I like, had to leave though, because Richard Gasquet was sitting right across court from me and I kept staring at his hair. Okay, I admit it. I really was doing this. I was having a fight with myself. It went something like this: "Wow, Richard has great hair! Give him a couple years and it will be as nice as Paul Henri's! Ew, Rebecca. STOP THAT. But, Richard has great hair! EW! STOP THAT!" It was really retarded and I couldn't handle it anymore, so I ran away. I have all these photos of R-V though, because I could have sworn that somebody asked me to take some. Now I'm thinking I imagined that. Most didn't turn out anyways.

I saw Schuettler practicing on court 5. Nobody cared, so it was easy to take pictures of him...but they kind of suck. Oh well.

Then I stopped and took a couple pictures of De Chaunac as I was walking by, and I really don't know why I did that. Probably because he beat Coria this year and now I know what he looks like.

Then I met up with Jess again - I saw her gawking from the bleachers on court 4 over the practice courts and realized that she was either seeing Djokovic or somebody else that rawks. So I follow her up there and we proceed to stare at Mario and Djokovic for the next hour. Well, I wasn't really paying attention to Mario, but I like him too so I probably should have been. I took lame pictures from up there, and they suck. Delic was playing Bogomolov on the court we were standing at, but who cared? And Delic is kind of hot to boot.

I saw some of Del Potro and Delgado. I left after the start of the second set. Did Del Potro call the trainer? Anyways, he's very raw and inconsistent. He would play a brilliant couple of points followed by several awful ones. But he's young - and TALL. I'll keep an eye on him. Delgado was basically cruising while I was there.

That's pretty much Tuesday. I will put the pyhotos up and now and link to them ASAP. I might have time to write up Wednesday after that.

I also saw some of the women, but I'm leaving them out of the reports.

 

[El Legenda]

can i get a summry of that..i cant read that book :lol:

 

[silverwhite]

After that I watched some of Roger-Vasselin and Pavel Snobel. I like, had to leave though, because Richard Gasquet was sitting right across court from me and I kept staring at his hair. Okay, I admit it. I really was doing this. I was having a fight with myself. It went something like this: "Wow, Richard has great hair! Give him a couple years and it will be as nice as Paul Henri's! Ew, Rebecca. STOP THAT. But, Richard has great hair! EW! STOP THAT!" It was really retarded and I couldn't handle it anymore, so I ran away. I have all these photos of R-V though, because I could have sworn that somebody asked me to take some. Now I'm thinking I imagined that. Most didn't turn out anyways.

:lol: Did he recognise you as the one who took those photos of him at Montreal?

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

The summary can be found in the photos, ici: http://www.menstennisforums.com/photos/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/4/ppuser/144/sortby/d/way/desc

I didn't realize until after i had uploaded them that I could have put them in an album seperate from my Montreal ones. I see no way for me to move them now, and if there is one I imagine it's a gigantic pain in the ass. So, the USO photos hsould start on page one and are in order by day, then reverse alphabetically. They should start at page 1 and go till page 4.

Some of them blow, but I kept them anyways so that I could remember who I had seen. If I didn't take picture of your favourite or whatever, sorry, but you should have asked when I said I was going

 

[Lee]

Thanks Chloe!

I saw Schuettler practicing on court 5. Nobody cared, so it was easy to take pictures of him...but they kind of suck. Oh well.

Pix that suck are still better than nothing

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

:lol: Did he recognise you as the one who took those photos of him at Montreal?

I was going to take some of THOSE photos again, but there was less of a crowd so I felt silly Mind you, I have one with his coach and half of him in the background, but that was by accident and I didn't notice it until I was cropping R-V.

I did catch Gasquet practicing another day, and will post those when I get to it.

 

[silverwhite]

I was going to take some of THOSE photos again, but there was less of a crowd so I felt silly Mind you, I have one with his coach and half of him in the background, but that was by accident and I didn't notice it until I was cropping R-V.

I did catch Gasquet practicing another day, and will post those when I get to it.

Enough of his coach, please. THOSE photos of his coach still bring back nightmares. :scared:

 

[TennisLurker]

is this melzer?

http://www.menstennisforums.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/13705/cat/500/ppuser/144/sortby/d/way/desc

 

[Lee]

Chloe, who's Rainer practiced with?

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

Chloe, who's Rainer practiced with?

Just his coach, I think.

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

is this melzer?

http://www.menstennisforums.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/13705/cat/500/ppuser/144/sortby/d/way/desc

That's Djokovic. I have better pictures of him that will be up in the next hour. I dweebed out and took that from a distance, so it blows.

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

Enough of his coach, please. THOSE photos of his coach still bring back nightmares. :scared:

LOL

Well, he is in plain sight in the R-V photo that I cropped him out of, but he had clothes on this time. I just had to make it smaller. Do you want me to send the whole thing your way?

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

Wednesday photos are going up now, but are taking a while since there are 100 of them I may have gotten a bit carried away over Mahut and Djokovic. Oh, and anybody who is going to question my taste is to leave this thread instantly

Again, the photos will be in order with the newest ones up first and in alphabetic order by name for each day. Or something along that lines. Basically, I will have at least one photo of everybody mentionedi n the reports. If you can't find something you arel ooking for, let me know.

 

[savesthedizzle]

This was Jess' idea, because she likes to stalk people and hope they might show up at their countrymen's matches

Hey... it was a good idea. Janko showed up, just not the Serb I wanted.

I didn't stick it out long, and wandered off to find Tipsarevic practicing a couple courts over. I alerted Jess, who joined me watching him. Not without arguing that it didn't look like Tipsarevic, though. Granted, he was one court over from where we were viewing, but come on! Who else looks like that, Jess?

Dude. I swear it didn't really look like him because I saw no tattoos! It wasn't until he was close enough for me to see the piercing that I was convinced!

Then I met up with Jess again - I saw her gawking from the bleachers on court 4 over the practice courts and realized that she was either seeing Djokovic or somebody else that rawks. So I follow her up there and we proceed to stare at Mario and Djokovic for the next hour.

The sad thing is that I had been watching Djokovic practice for about an hour before you even got there and it was my third time seeing him that day. :shrug: Some people run around searching for Nadal or Federer, meh, give me Djokovic anyday. I like how scared of me he is.

Now to look at the pics. Mine are all in my gallery now btw.

 

[Action Jackson]

Thanks in advance for that Chloe, your photos are much better than anything I attempt to take.

 

[silverwhite]

LOL

Well, he is in plain sight in the R-V photo that I cropped him out of, but he had clothes on this time. I just had to make it smaller. Do you want me to send the whole thing your way?

It's OK. I will just view them from your photo gallery.

BTW, did you watch him practise? I heard Lleyton and Marat approached him and he had to turn down Rusedski. :lol: How is he playing? His coach told the media that he is experiencing the first symptoms of tennis elbow.

 

[delsa]

Thank you very much for the reports, Chloe! :worship:
I'm going to check the photo gallery now.
And eric is seen to much on photos... :lol: As i already said, he should find a good dietetician, and esthetician, and dentist, and hair dresser, and dermatologist, and a time machine and...(actually only the dietetician...i'm too mean... ) if he wants not to scare ppl when he's on pictures (especially when he cracks the shirtless pose... ).

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

It's OK. I will just view them from your photo gallery.

BTW, did you watch him practise? I heard Lleyton and Marat approached him and he had to turn down Rusedski. :lol: How is he playing? His coach told the media that he is experiencing the first symptoms of tennis elbow.

Are you asking about Richard? I didn't watch his whole practice, just a few minutes. I was the only one taking pictures, and felt sort of weird since I felt like I was stalking him or something He was practicing with Mayer when I saw him. That was Friday, and those will be up tomorrow or Monday. I put Wedneday photos up already, and will write that day up shortly.... but then I'm done for the night. I just cropped 100 photos and I'm tired

 

[Chloe le Bopper]

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.