New Year means of course the Aussie open, and this year the drama and excitement have begun early. The other day I watched Lleyton Hewitt playing Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. In terms of intensity Lleyton never disappoints. It was a hard fought five setter with the momentum swinging between the two players. He's just fascinating to watch with the way he engages the crowd and the atmosphere was electric with all his aussie fans singing the roof off the arena. He came through battling and some of the shots were just great. Plus now he plays Andy Roddick which I think will be a hell of a match in terms of atmosphere with both of them no doubt yelling and glaring up a storm. Then today there was another dramatic five setter featuring the king of dramatic five setters David Nalbandian. I really have a soft spot for good old Dave, partially I think because he's been going quite a while and he's a player I've watched a lot so I've gotten quite attached to him. And he's a very stylish player to watch, he jsut comes up with stunning shots out of nowhere. I'm sure most of you are aware of what happened at the end of the match but to recap John Isner had a serve called as an ace and David wanted to challenge but the umpire decided he couldn't because he had signalled too late. Cue rage. Personally I felt like the poor guy got a raw deal because that essentially blew the rest of his game as it happened at 8-8 and pretty much directly caused him to lose focus and the match. Its kind of ridiculous that he wasn't allowed to challenge as I can't count the amount of times a tennis player has gone to inspect the ball mark on the court before challenging so to say he took too long is not really good enough. So I'm in camp Nalbandian on this one.
PS: (Desperately trying not to jinx it) Sports Wall favourite Feliciano 'Flic' Lopez has progressed to round three. Fingers crossed for tv coverage. Come on Eurosport do us a favour.
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