Night One of the Rogers Cup always brings out the little boy
in me. The atmosphere is electric the buzz is deafening and the all the other cliché
sayings apply as well.
The walk down the York University road side on a summer
night always builds up the anticipation for “who knows what will happen tonight”.
Weaving and bending down the path until finally the glorious Rexall Centre stands
tall like a giving lake in the middle of a desert. Ah It’s the best summer
night in Toronto and the reason is obvious, The Rogers Cup is centre stage!
A tournament that hasn’t always had such praise and allure.
In fact at one time the post Wimbledon event was openly ripped by
players and skipped all together. Nowadays while some may miss occasionally the
top players in the men’s and women’s game are usually well represented.
Covering the Toronto event, this year I have the women.
Usually the fan appeal is less for the women but that doesn’t allow this great event
to diminish in the least. Always putting their best foot forward Tennis Canada
generates a buzz that seemingly grows louder every year. While that has a lot
to do with emerging stars such as Milos Raonic and Gennie Bouchard, its Tennis
Canada that has worked their butts off to make this an elite tournament in the
sport of tennis and just as importantly, this country.
While I shot plenty of footage that will appear on my video
blog Game Set N’ Blog TV next week I made sure to take in some of the action. I
opted to not go directly to centre court and caught the conclusion of Lucie
Safarova vs Klara Zakopalova. Two Czech ladies battling it out on the
Grandstand. Zakopalova pulled off a three set upset when Safarova just couldn’t
seem to find her range but sure found a lot of net.
Once they were done it was the 18 year old Canadian, Carol
Zhao who came through qualifying to make her first ever main draw appearance.
She would be in tough however against the talented Russian Anastasia
Pavlyuchenkova. Pavlyuchenkova came out flying in this one and quickly showed
the young Canadian that the mutilated pronunciation of her name by the
announcer, was the only thing that wasn’t going work out for the Russian on
this night.
It was a thrill to see Pavlyuchenkova play such a clean,
pretty match and while the result wasn’t what Canadians or Zhao desired there
was a lot to celebrate in the 18 year olds run here at the 2013 Rogers Cup.
Seated just in front of me was "Killer" Darren Cahill who was
taking in some Toronto Tennis. Getting the opportunity to speak with Darren was
a thrill. Darren has read my blogs before and been gracious enough to comment
or retweet me on Twitter. Meeting the former player, current broadcaster and
genius coach was a true honor. I’m better for it. Class personified!
Now my attention turned to Centre Court for the exhibition
event which featured a doubles match with Canada’s own Genie Bouchard and
tennis legend Monica Seles vs the William’s sisters.
All four girls were mic’d up but to be honest for the first
30 min there was hardly any point for it. The match was designed to entertain the fans
with names and not necessarily quality of play. Understandable as the three
active girls have bigger and better to worry about this week. Shockingly
however it was Monica Seles who was taking it, perhaps, a bit too easy out
there. Looking half interested at times and ignoring pleas from her partner Bouchard
to help out more, if it wasn’t for being mic’d up, Monica would have been a
party pooper.
It was great to see such star power out there but it was
quite obvious that they were all at half speed especially Serena who clearly
chose to save her intensity for Wednesday’s singles action and who could blame her?
Three moments that were worth it... When some fan yelled out “Genie
will you marry me” Venus’ quick-witted response was “she’s too young”. Another
moment once again had Venus entertaining the fans in a change over when she got
up and danced her butt off with an odd yet hilarious dancer guy in spandex. Kudos
Venus! And the final moment was when Genie and Serena got in a baseline tilt
that must have been at least 60 shots (no joke) before the idle Venus and Seles
decided to bust out their own ball and play some short balls mid court amidst
the ongoing rally. Classic!
Overall it was a great opening night in Toronto which was
needed after last season’s Olympic ravaged field stumbled in only to be met with major rain delays.
As the week progresses the
atmosphere is heightened and the competition intensifies but at its crux is a
mammoth effort and production put forth by Tennis Canada. The Rogers Cup
will no doubt conclude as it always does, in glorious fashion. It's just something we are used to now.
Hey people please go to You Tube and Subscribe to my GameSet N’ Blog TV channel for more tennis fun! It's a new site that is going to bring some fun to tennis.
Thanks.
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