The rallies were short and the serves were shaky in the first two sets of the Davis Cup match between James Blake and Stan Wawrinka. But by the third set, Wawrinka had found his groove, and he went about finessing his way to a four-set win over Blake. Wawrinka--whose lovely backhand was all over the place in the first half of the match--got himself under control in the last half, and served twenty aces, just for good measure. Later, his countryman--the spirited Marco Chiuddnelli--did his best against Andy Roddick, but it wasn't enough. The rallies in this match, however, were more entertaining than the rallies in the previous match, and Roddick's dive volley at 4-all in the third was the shot of the day.
We had a great time at this first day of Davis Cup play, and when it was over, we dined at Chez Lulu, one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. Birmingham is lovely at night, with the Vulcan on Red Mountain glowing, and with hundreds of white lights twinkling on trees in and around Five Points.
4 comments:
I heard, rather than saw the last few minutes of the Roddick-Chiudinelli match. Wow! Those rallies, hearing both guys give it all they had...there's nothing like Davis Cup!
It was fun. I knew Chiudinelli was going to give Andy a good match, and he did. He said, in the interview, that the louder the crowd cheered for Andy, the better he (Marco) played. You could see that, too--he got really pumped up from the crowd cheering against him.
The crowd, I should add, was very polite. There were a few cheers for double-faults, but very few. The people in the stands went crazy for the USA, of course (I was the exception; I just can't get into the "country team spirit" thing, plus I like Wawrinka, and...I really do not care for Blake. I'm a Roddick fan, though, so I was cheering for Andy.
D, nice transition to men's tennis. :)
Thanks, U. I didn't know if I should even do it, but how often do you get to see Davis Cup matches?!
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