Week 5 - first half - Tennis Anyone?

   I have to divide this week in half, too, as I want to leave room for photos and we saw SO much tennis.
   The weather first - sunny every single day!  The weather has been perfect for tennis as it has not been too hot, nor too cold at night, although we do go prepared.  We have been packing our dinners....mostly because we are cheap.  We have been taking hot tomato soup in our themoses, plus an occasional sandwich...one night we had sushi.
   One of the nice things about getting multiple nights in the same seats is getting to know the people around you.  We have two women next to us who are very nice.  One is from Colorado; the other from California.  Behind us are a very nice, older couple, Steve and Rosie, who are very humorous and keep up a running commentary.
   We went to see another movie in the first half of the week - "Hugo".  We enjoyed it on several levels - the acting, the cinematography, the history of Georges Melies, an innovative early movie director who was responsible for many film techniques.  So, now we have managed to see 2 of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture.
   Onto tennis:
We have night tickets which means we usually arrive around 4:00 - 4:30 at the tennis garden and try to catch some of the day matches in the outer stadiums, then go into Stadium 1, where we have seats (Section 165, Row M for our further reference) and there, we get to see 2 matches.
   On Wednesday, we started in Stadium 2, close to courtside, where we saw two former number 1 women's players play doubles together - Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva.  They lost to Baczinsky and Brianti.  The next set on the same court, was between an upcoming Canadian player, Vacek Pospicle taking on Nicolas Mahut, who won the match.  In Stadium 1, we saw Betthanie Mattek-Sands lose to Ekaterina Makarova.
    In other action in the first half of the week:
We saw Vania King beat Anastasia Pavlochenkova in straight sets  and an upset as Pavlochenkova was seeded #13.  Unfortunately, King withdrew in the next round, falling victim to what is being called Coachella Virus which has hit many of the players and coaches.
   We saw Gael Monfils and Philip Kohlshreiber in an exciting doubles match against two Polish players, Fyrstenbert and Matkowski.  It was entertaining and the Poles won.
    In the main stadium, we got to see a very entertaining doubles match where Rafa and Mark Garcia-Lopez took on the 3rd seeded doubles team of Llodra and Zimonjic.  (6-4, 6-4).
    We saw a huge upset in the main stadium:  Andy Murray, seeded 4th,  went out in the second round to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in two sets.  It was a shocker; Murray just couldn't seem to get started and Garcia-Lopez was on fire.
    Also in the main stadium, we saw Petra Kvitova, the number 3 seed, beat Barbora Zahlovova-Strychova.
    On Saturday, we saw a match on Court 7, between Maria Kirilenko, seeded 20, against Irina Begu, a 21 year old from Romania.  Kirolenko won, but not easily.
    In the main stadium we saw Maria Sharapova, seeded 2nd, beat Gisela Dulko with ease.