Saved by Michelle
After 12 hours of watching tennis, all was well that ended well. The day began great when Xavier Malisse destroyed Oscar Hernandez 6-1, 6-1 but went down hill quickly from there. Academy students Jesse Levine and Kei Nishikori both blew leads and lost their matches. Levine was up a break in the first set against Juan Martin Del Potro, but couldn’t hold on as he lost 7-5, 6-1. Del Potro overpowered Levine, and caused him to hit a good deal of unforced errors from his forehand side.
Nishikori was up 5-2 in the first set against Albert Montanes, before the Spainard rattled off seven straight games to go up 7-5, 2-0. Montanes simply got in a groove and couldn’t miss. He kept Nishikori pinned deep behind the baseline and it didn’t help that Kei struggled getting his first serve in. Tough loss for Kei, but he is going to be good. Very good. He has what it takes to be a top player, and in the next couple of years, WATCH OUT!
Nick also spent some time working with both Nicole Vaidisova and Sabine Lisicki today. Vaidisova won’t play until the weekend, but Lisicki plays tomorrow against CoCo Vandeweghe.
We also got some bad news that Tommy Haas had to pull out of the tournament. Another bad break for Haas…
After getting that news, we headed over to see Michelle Larcher de Brito play her first round match against Ekaterina Makarova. We were hoping for a win considering the previous results of the day. After about 10 minutes of the match, it didn’t appear that was going to happen. Makarova dominated the match and was frustrating the heck out of Michelle. Like Kei, Michelle couldn’t get a first serve in and her penetrating groundstrokes weren’t hurting Makarova. Michelle is only 15 years old, but she needs to add some variety to her game. She can pound the ball with the best of them, but adding a drop shot and a slice is a must. This will keep her opponents off guard and also change the pace of the rallies. Back to the match…Makarova won the first set 6-3 and went up 5-1 in the second set. We were packing our bags and preparing for another loss when something clicked in Michelle’s head. She went off! She saved two match points at 5-2 and stormed back to take the lead 6-5. Then, in the tiebreaker she went down 3-0. The crowd was going nuts, but the young girl kept her composure taking the breaker 7-3. The third set was all Michelle as Makarova tried to slow the match down by taking a bathroom break and calling for the trainer. It wasn’t going to stop Michelle though, as she won the match 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-3. It was an amazing win, and it made the wait well worth it. Everyone was all smiles at the end! Congrats to Michelle on a great win, and we hope you continue it in the second round.
Check out the photos from the day by clicking on the Flikr link on the right hand side, or by clicking here.
Also, follow along LIVE tomorrow via Twitter. You can see the Twitter blog in the right hand side, or by clicking here!
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