Live from Key Biscayne
First off, I do apologize. I wish I actually had an excuse for why I have not written here in over a month, but the sad fact is I do not…simply a case of being extremely lazy for awhile. However, sitting in the GSTT booth down at the Sony Ericsson watching all the people enjoy an amazing start to the tournament has spurned me on.
Lots has happened since I last visited this space - Sam Querrey won his first ATP event in Las Vegas, a qualifier from Japan (Kei Nikishori) stunned the tennis world by taking out aforementioned Querrey and James Blake to win Delray Beach, Mardy Fish made a run at the Pacific Life Open title (taking down Davydenko, Hewitt, Nalbandian & Federer along the way), Djokovic captured the Pacific Life Open closing the gap between himself and Nadal to under 500 points, and finally Ivanovic continued the Serbian dominance by winning the Women’s title at Indian Wells.
Down here in Key Biscayne, while the Ivanovic and Kuznetsova (Pac Life Finalist) are both still alive and kicking, sadly the same can not be said for Fish and Djokovic. Fish went down to Clement in his first match, and while that is not too surprising given the effort Fish had to put forth last week, what is surprising is that Djokovic lost his first match to upstart South African Kevin Anderson. Kevin has a bright future in this sport, but Djokovic dogged it. At one point he lost something like 12 points in a row…as talented as Djokovic is, if he wants to continue to inch closer to Nadal and Federer, he doesn’t have too much rooms for mishaps like this one.
There is some US prominence here at the Sony Ericsson, with both Williams sisters, Roddick and Blake all still alive (although Roddick provided a nice little scare yesterday barely surviving a 3 setter against Viktor Troiki, yet another Serb). Ok, have to get back to entertaining future clients in the booth. But this mini post is exactly what I needed…I solemnly swear to give some live Sony updates for the next few days before I leave, and I’m sure this will lead to more future posts as the spring clay court season starts up.