Towel Heads > Focussing on Tennis

Wowza, hi guys. So I know what you may be thinking; WHO IS THIS GIRL AND WHERE IS ESTELLE?! Well Estelle couldn’t blog today, and so asked for my input instead. So here I am! My name is Frankie (@gamesetfrankie on Twitter) and I am pleased to bring you news of the goings on in the world of fluffy yellow balls.

This week marks the last opportunity for players to practice and earn some points before the Australian Open, in the form of the Heineken Open in Auckland, the Moorilla Hobart International in Hobart, and the Medibank International in Sydney.

In Auckland, an ATP only event, we find the seeds dominated by Spanish players, with Tommy Robredo leading the pack as the top seed, and David Ferrer as 2nd. With no real upsets yet in the singles draw, and, to be perfectly honest with you, me not exactly paying much attention to the tournament in general, thus far all seems to be pretty straightforward for the seeds, and there’s not really much else to comment on. You can blame Jeremy Chardy for me totally not caring about any of it, bar the Spaniards. But just for the record: TEAM FERRERO FTW <3.

vamos juanqui~ ;D!

In Hobart, the WTA-exclusive event, Anabel Medina leads the way as top seed. So far, all of the seeds are safely through, with, again, no major upsets to speak of. And, again, Frankie being a massive failure and not paying any attention to the tournament… yeah I know, whatever, shut up.

In Sydney, the only combined event of the week, and the only one I’ve really been paying much attention to at all, we see a rather intriguing draw for both the ATP and WTA players… or maybe it’s just me being blinded by Richard Gasquet. Tomas Berdych is the top seed of the tournament, with Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, on-form and runner up at Chennai last week, at number two, and looking like a real contender for the title. Also in the fray we see Australia’s own Lleyton Hewitt, and more importantly Richard Gasquet, fresh for the 2010 season and looking near-perfect, with only mere moments of headcasery in his first round match again Spain’s Feliciano Lopez. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the wonder that is Mr Gasquet, shall we?

He’s even pretty when he’s making silly faces, amirite? <3

I’m sorry but I’m just so insanely fangirlish glad that he’s back and fighting this year. We won’t discuss the INSANELY UNFAIR goings involving Richard last year, as I’m sure it’s been done to death by now, but I, and I hope many of you, agree that’s it’s lovely to see him putting it all behind him and not letting it affect him this year. Did I mention I love him? You go Richie Coco~

As far as upsets go, 7th seed Igor Andreev was ousted in the first round by qualifier Leonardo Mayer in three sets on Monday, and 5th seed Sam Querrey, fresh from falling through a glass table (only Sam, only Sam…) lost to Evgeny Korolev of Russia, also in straight sets, on Tuesday.

In the woman’s draw, our top seed is Serena Williams, with Dinara Safina as 2nd, and other seeds include Elena Dementieva and Victoria Azarenka. The tournament thus far has been disastrous for the top players, with nearly half of the top eight being ousted in the first and second rounds, with 8th seed Vera Zvonareva retiring from her match against Elena Vesnina in the first set, Caroline Wozniacki falling to Na Li in three sets, and Jelena Jankovic losing to qualifier Agnes Szavay, again, in straight sets on Monday. Also on Monday we see Italy’s Flavia Pennetta defeating Australia’s Sam Stosur in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, much to the disappointment of the home crowd, but pleasing Frankie considerably. On Tuesday, while Serena and Dinara advanced comfortably in straight sets, along with 5th seed Dementieva and 6th seed Azarenka, another seed fell, when Dominika Cibulkova defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova in straight sets.

Away from these tournaments, the exhibition in Kooyong, the AAMI Classic, gets underway today, where eight ATP players battle it out to become champion. Each player plays three matches over four days for their chance to be crowned winner at the end, and this year, the players competing are Ivan Ljubicic, Fernando Gonzalez, Novak Djokovic, Fednando Verdasco, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robin Soderling, Tommy Haas and Juan Martin del Potro. Aside from getting in some practice before the Australian Open, this exhibition will be interesting to see how contenders Djokovic and del Potro play, as this will be their first matches of the season, and, with competition for the AO title looking fierce, they will want to make sure they are nothing less than perfect. The event kicks off with del Potro vs. Ljubicic today, and is sure to be an interesting tournament to watch.

lookin’ good, boys, lookin’ good <3.

In other, rather important, news, this week sees a change in the top 5 players on the ATP tour, with Argentine Juan Martin del Potro taking over from British Andy Murray as world #4, a career high, and, an extremely important change, seeing as next week is the Australian Open. While del Potro only leads Murray by a mere 5 points, this change means that the draw for the Australian Open will be extremely interesting. It means, depending on how you want to look at it, that Andy Murray may have to beat at least 3 of the world’s best to win the title, or, that one of the other top five will have to beat him in order to advance past the quarter finals. But whatever way you look at it, whether you’re Team Mandy or not, it certainly means that the Australian Open just got that bit more interesting.

Juan Martin del Adorable is as his name suggests <3.

Aside from all of this proper tournament stuff, have you ever wondered who the best looking man and woman in tennis are?

I agree.

Well, this has been fun! I’d like to thank Estelle for asking me to do this for her while she’s away, and I hope I’ve done well with your blog. I leave you with a little reminder of why I like tennis so much. Ciao guys~ :3.