When I headed to bed last night around midnight, The Weather Channel was predicting a 60% chance of rain at the US Open. Well, it looks like it may be awhile before action begins on the grounds as a light drizzle is currently falling on the courts, with the chances of rain at 100% until around 5PM. Rain has been a big part of the last three Grand Slams as inclement weather halted action at Roland Garros a couple of times and cost the AELTC over one million pounds at Wimbledon.
The entire second half of the women’s draw was in action yesterday, and only two top players failed to reach the second round of action. Alicia Molik’s comeback has been disappointing and her performance only got worse yesterday against American hopeful Vania King. Molik received a wildcard into the US Open, after asking that Tennis Australia not make her participate in a wildcard-playoff, and then quickly found herself knocked out of the singles draw by King. The match was played on Court No. 11, just south of the Food Village, and the on-court conditions were hardly to the Australian’s liking according to her press conference after the match.
“They put a concert just behind (the court).
“You feel like you’re in the middle of a circus actually. It doesn’t feel like a tennis tournament, or didn’t today. I felt like I was at the school fair or something. There was Tina Turner going on, you had the court generators, you had the bloke behind us burning hot dogs – I could smell – you had the generators drying next door’s court, you had a clinic going on next door where they were giving each other high-fives, in a big huddle yelling things out.”
(source: The Australian)
The grounds of the US Open are definitely not the sanctum of Wimbledon, but noise and distractions are things the players just have to learn to cope with. For some reason, I have this gut feeling that it was not the burnt hot dogs or Tina Turner that sent Molik packing – I wonder if it had something to do with the twenty-five unforced errors and the 60% first serve percentage?
Anna-Lena Groenefeld cannot attribute her loss to Tina Turner, but instead France’s Aravane Rezai. Rezai is barely inside the top-100 at No. 96, her 2006 results have been far from spectacular, but Aravane appears to save her best performances for Grand Slams. She played her way through the qualifying rounds of Roland Garros, and powered her way through to the third round of the main draw before losing to Nicole Vaidisova in three sets.
Like Vaidisova, her dad is her coach, but Arsalan Rezai is the opposite of Vaidisova’s step father Alex Kodat, who sits in the stands and barely shows an ounce of emotion while watching Nicole play. Arsalan Rezai has drawn headlines in the past with accounts of his fiery temper, alleged fights at Roland Garros, and his ongoing problems with the French Tennis Federation. The New York Times recounts that Aravane is playing in her first tournament without her dad present this week, because her father travels under an Iranian passport, and entrance into the USA on an Iranian passport is difficult at best right now.
Hopefully, the rain will start to slack up soon so that Amelie Mauresmo, Serena Williams, and Maria Sharapova can take to the courts and show us a glimpse of which player of the trio has the best shot at taking the title. Even though Justine was a little sluggish yesterday in her first round match, I am still standing by my pick of the Belgian capturing her sixth Grand Slam title. I am also interested in getting a glimpse of Martina Hingis, to see if she can finally make it past the quarterfinal of a major and become a legitimate threat for the championship.
Be sure to remember that live blogging will start tomorrow!
