A full day AND night of tennis, March 14

 We had day and night tickets for tennis today and started out bright and early so that we could get shaded seats in Stadium 2 where we had decided to begin our day. We knew we had to pace ourselves, get up and walk around when possible, keep hydrated.
   We got to the car park around 9 a.m. and got the 3rd spot in the handicapped parking....so, amazingly early and a parking spot like we will never have again.
     We waited in several lines (bag check, body scanner, opening gates) for about an hour, but it was well worth it as we bee-lined for Stadium 2 and got really good seats in section 126, only 8 rows back in that section. (To remember for later visits.) We sat in the hot sun from around 10:00 - 12:30, but then the shade came and stayed. While we were in the sun we took turns getting up and walked around as the matches did not begin until 11.
      The first match was a wonderful match with hard-fought points and changes of lead. The up and coming young Swiss player Belinda Bencic, seeded 7, was defeated by the 27 year old Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova. 6-4, 3-6, 3-6 in a match that took just over 2 hours.

Belinda Bencic, age 19

     

Magdalena Rybarikova

Rybarikova, note the wonderful shadow

The second match was between two seeded men: Canadian Milos Raonic, seeded 12 versus Australian Bernard Tomic, seeded 17. They took to the court as the shade got to our area which made it so very pleasant to sit there. We were surrounded by nice people, too. But, the match was less competitive fairly quickly in. Raonic's serve is amazing and he hit several at over 140 mph. Tomic did not have the answer and was overpowered. Not long into the first set, it appeared that Tomic was hurt and took a medical time out. He lost the set 2-6. In the second set, Tomic retired, citing a hurt wrist, no surprise with trying to return Raonic's serve.

Bernard Tomic

Milos Raonic. Note the ball in the air as he served

     As our seats were so great, we opted to stay in Stadium 2. Mark checked out our seats in Stadium 1 and said they were in full sun. So, we skipped watching Andy Murray, seeded 2 versus unseeded Argentinian Federico Delbonis as we have seen Murray before. So we watched an entertaining match between 8th seeded Richard Gasquet and the 26th seed, Alexandr Dolgopolov. While Gasquet won, the score does not reveal how competitive some of the rallies were and Dolgopolov gave Gasquet a work out, especially at the beginning as the Ukranian took the first set  6-2, quite surprising the crowd and Gasquet. But then the tide turned and Gasquet took control taking the next two sets, 6-2, 6-1.

Alexandr Dolgopolov

Gasquet and Dolgopolov at the net at the end of their match

     Meanwhile, those around us were following the Murray match which Murray, surprisingly, lost.
     At that point, it being around 4 o'clock and a bit less hot, we went to our seats in the main stadium. Section 115, Row V. We got there for another competitive match, this time between the 22 year old Canadian, Eugenie Bouchard who is unseeded due to her unsuccessful season last year. She took on 12th seed Swiss Timea Bacsinszky, age 26.  The crowd was behind Bouchard who struggled despite brilliant spurts. It took almost 2 and a half hours, only partly because of two medical time outs taken in the first set when Bacsinszky took a nasty fall and had to be bandaged on both arms and both legs. Both women fought hard, but the Swiss woman won eventually 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.

Eugenie Bouchard serving

Timea Bacsinszky serving

   By this point, the schedule was way behind. Still on the day ticket, we saw a match between the 6th seed, Tomas Berdych and 19 year old Croatian, Berna Coric. It was already early evening. It looked like the schedule might have had some catch up as Berdych clobbered Coric in the first set,  (6-1) in  about half an hour. The crowd became very sympathetic toward the younger man who was clearly frustrated and unable to do anything. But, in the second set, Coric did much better and the crowd fed off the possibility of an unlikely upset. There were many exciting points and Coric broke Berdych at least three times, but was unable to do much with his own service games. At any rate, Coric gave Berdych a match in the second set which went to a tie-break that Berdych won. It was nice to see Coric leave feeling like he had done respectably and the crowd gave him a rousing exit.

Tomas Berdych serving

Borna Coric

Borna Coric

     Because it was now around 8:30 and the officials moved the Wawrinka match to Stadium 2 so that the matches would finish before midnight. This was disappointing to us as we've never seen Wawrinka, but we also wanted to stay in our seats to see Victoria Azarenka, which is what we ended up doing. She began around 8:45, the first of the official night matches. We saw the 13th seeded, 26 year old Belorussian who had an injury-plagued year last year, take on Zhang Shuai, age 27,  of China. Azarenka beat Zhang 6-4, 6-3 in about an hour and a half. The score masks how much trouble Zhang posed for Azarenka at points during the match.

Victoria Azarenka (Who went on to win the tournament in the final versus Serena Williams)

  

Zhang Shuai

We left the Tennis Garden around 10:30. We could have tried to catch the end of the Wawrinka-Kuznetsov match, but we had had enough tennis and found out later that the 3rd seed Wawrinka won in 2 sets.