Tennis - DAY AND NIGHT! 3/16 - Day 34

Wow. We had day and night tickets for today....talk about overdosing! We were skeptical about doing the day pass as the weather forecast predicted it would be in the high 80's. So, we were well prepared with frozen water bottles.

We caught the end of a match where #5 seed Agnes Radwanska beat #11 seed Marion Bartoli. (6-3, 6-2.) Then, we saw Feliciano Lopez, seeded 28, beaten by #6 seed Robin Soderling from Sweden. The first set went to a tiebreak and the second set went 6-4. It was a good match with lots of hard hitting.

The next set was a real treat! It featured Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the ninth seed, versus Albert Montanes. These two really battled with lots of hard hitting and angles. Tsonga prevailed in the end. [4-6, 6-3, 6-3]

Then, we went back to the timeshare for a break and to change into warmer clothing. We saw another thriller on Stadium #2 between James Blake and Nicolas Almagro, both of whom are unseeded. They both really wanted to win and battled every point. Naturally, the crowd backed Blake. But, eventually Almagro won in 3 sets.

We actually left the Blake match before it was finished because we wanted to watch Roger Federer, seeded #1, take on Marcos Baghdatis, seeded 27. We never want to miss a chance to watch Federer as he is such an artist on the court. The match was unexpectedly competitive and lasted almost 2 and a half hours. The battle was on from the first serve. We really like Marcos Baghdatis as he has such heart and personality, but...we also admire Federer for so many things. So, we wanted to see a close match with a Federer win. It was a real nail biter. The first set went to Federer 7-5 with just one break of serve. The second set was the same, but taken by Baghdatis the same way, with one break of serve. The third set, unbelievably, went to a tie break as Federer had been up TWO break with a 4-1 lead. However, the fighter, Baghdatis, did not give up and tied it up. And, Baghdatis won. The crowd was stunned. Federer looked stunned and Baghdatis was ecstatic.

It was well past 10 o'clock and poor Alisa Kleybanova came out on the court for another late night match. The stadium emptied and we got to move down to court side. We stayed for the first set which was won by 21-year old Carla Suarez-Navarro. Shortly into the second set, we left as it was late. We found out that Kleybanova battled back and took the next two sets.