A day at the Pilot Pen
Today I went to watch the first day of the Pilot Pen tennis tournament in New Haven. This tournament is one of the US Open tune-ups for both the men's and women's tour, but very few of the top men were playing in the event this year. There were several high ranking women in the event, but none of the were scheduled to play today.
I saw a match between an aging American player (Vince Spadea) and an up and coming US youngster (19 year-old Ryan Sweeting). I had seen Spadea play over the years on TV, so I thought that he'd cruise past the youngster. However, Sweeting won the match. In my opinion, Spadia was nothing more than a 32-year old punk. He had the whole casual "surfer look", but he spent half the match berating a poor line judge for 1-2 bad calls. He was warned for foul language early in the match after a call did not go his way. When the line judge that was the focus of his tantrums called an obviously long shot 'out', he came over and congratulated the woman for a good call. Sweeting had a sick serve, but was otherwise a very erratic player who was hesitant to attack the net despite inconsistent ground strokes. Spadea tried to expose this by just pushing the ball over the net and playing long rallys, but he was unable to employ this strategy successfully. I found out later than this was just qualifying match and not a first-round match. Given that Spadea was once ranked in the top 20 in the world, I was surprised.
The biggest crowd of the day was on Court 3, where no matches were played. Instead, James Blake's practice session with another player and both coaches (including former tennis great and Michigan native Todd Martin) attracted a huge crowd.
I had never seen professional tennis before. Being able to watch some of the outer court matches from the first row was a very cool experience, even though it was incredibly hot outside this morning. These players are all amazing.
I saw a match between an aging American player (Vince Spadea) and an up and coming US youngster (19 year-old Ryan Sweeting). I had seen Spadea play over the years on TV, so I thought that he'd cruise past the youngster. However, Sweeting won the match. In my opinion, Spadia was nothing more than a 32-year old punk. He had the whole casual "surfer look", but he spent half the match berating a poor line judge for 1-2 bad calls. He was warned for foul language early in the match after a call did not go his way. When the line judge that was the focus of his tantrums called an obviously long shot 'out', he came over and congratulated the woman for a good call. Sweeting had a sick serve, but was otherwise a very erratic player who was hesitant to attack the net despite inconsistent ground strokes. Spadea tried to expose this by just pushing the ball over the net and playing long rallys, but he was unable to employ this strategy successfully. I found out later than this was just qualifying match and not a first-round match. Given that Spadea was once ranked in the top 20 in the world, I was surprised.
The biggest crowd of the day was on Court 3, where no matches were played. Instead, James Blake's practice session with another player and both coaches (including former tennis great and Michigan native Todd Martin) attracted a huge crowd.
I had never seen professional tennis before. Being able to watch some of the outer court matches from the first row was a very cool experience, even though it was incredibly hot outside this morning. These players are all amazing.
posted by GaryGinew at 5:30 PM
1 Comments:
Funny, I was just talking to D$ about James Blake a few minutes ago. I guess his boss played tennis in B10 college and then pro for a few years before continuing to med school. He played James Blake a couple times and got smoked, apparently.
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