Picky and Healthy

I don’t even know where to start with Thursday. These days watching tennis are just so completely overwhelming. My friend brought up a good point today, whenever you watch any other sport you go to the game, it lasts for a few hours, and then you go home. When you go to watch tennis you go in the morning and, if you don’t want to leave early, you stay until late into the night.

It’s freaking amazing, but it’s also freaking exhausting. Which is why I can’t write words. So pictures it is!

We started the day off with a Fernando Verdasco practice session.

It was kind of mundane until Maria Sharapova came out. Turns out Maria had the court booked for the same time. You know what that means? FIGHT!

Guess who won?

Then it was over to the ESPN booth to see Chris Fowler in person. What? I love him.

These are Chris’s pants.

Unfortunately his bottom half was covered.

(Just kidding.)

Then it was time for Rafael Nadal vs. Fernando Verdasco.

This was a match I was excited about. Until it started and I remembered that Rafa wasn’t playing well and that all Verdasco does is choke. The hour and fifteen or so minutes that I spent watching this first set were seriously the worst time of my days at tennis. It was complete torture. I still maintain that the best decision I made all week was leaving that game.

I made it over for the end of Sam Stosur and Li Na.

I know this isn’t a very good picture, but for some reason I just love it.

After the women came Mardy Fish vs. Richard Gasquet. I love, love, love Gasquet. I could watch him play tennis all day and the fact that he’s never really excelled makes me sad.

#backhandidie

During the Fish/Gasquet match I saw that the Tomas Berdych vs. Nicolas Almagro match was almost over and I knew I wanted to swing by and see Nico so I headed over there.

Sadly Nico was less than stellar and was easily defeated.

On my way back to Fish/Gasquet I grabbed a burrito.

It was terrible. Do not get a black bean veggie burrito from Hot Heads at Cincy Tennis. Also, it was $10. That’s more expensive than a burrito at the US Open. And the one at the US Open is good. And it comes with chips. Just saying.

While I was watching the end of the match I missed two calls from a Cincinnati number. I called them back when I could and it turns out that I won the chance the do the coin toss before the David Ferrer/Giles Simon match. You might remember that my friend won last year. How crazy is that?

If you would have asked me how tall David Ferrer was before we did this I would have said 5’8. If you would have asked me how tall he was after we did this I would have said 5’5. If you ask me now, after seeing this picture and comparing him to me (5’3), I say 5’9. So weird.

After we did the coin toss we got to sit courtside.

I think that last one might be the best tennis photo I’ve ever taken.

It was a great match to sit courtside for. It went three sets, it was really competitive, and we got to see fun people in the stands. Like Gasquet and former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Once Simon won we headed over to catch the Nadal and Lopez doubles match.

They lost almost right after we got there, but it was nice to finally see Nadal play doubles. Even though I was pretty disgusted with Rafa from earlier.

Then it was time for the night session which featured the skip-able Federer/Blake on Center Court so we checked out Francesca Schiavone and Jelena Jankovic on the Grandstand.

After the first set there I went over to see Gael Monfils and Philip Kohlschrbeiber.

That ended up being a mistake since Monfils won easily fairly soon after I got there and by the time I wanted to go back to Schiavone/Jankovic that match had picked up and was packed so I had to stand along the top of the stadium.

But it was a fun match that Jankovic won, even though I was convinced until she actually won that she was going to lose. Because that’s how she is.

After that match ended we headed over to Graeter’s where I got the blackberry chip.

Which was a-mazing. Then we went to Applebee’s which was vomit-inducing. Can’t win them all.