Wimbledon 2009 Day 6: JJ v Oudin (Pfft)

So... having beaten a lot of the folks I know over on am.com to a ticket - I was a bit miffed to have such a rough night's sleep with my throat playing up - and waking up so sniffly... but armed with a trusty pack of tissues (I know they'd come with the JJ sniff of approval!) I set off early this time to try and make sure I got a good seat on Court 3... but I was worried. I remembered when I queued up on Tuesday (the good "old-fashioned" way) that they'd brought us through security and had us inside the grounds, but cordoned off in good time. At the gates for the ticket holders, there was still security to get through once through the gates.

We did have an amusing interlude with some woman and her son who had proper tickets to the grounds and refused point-blank to join the back of the queue of all the OTHER ticket holders coming through Gate 5. So much so that the curmudgeonly Honorary Steward told everyone to refuse to let her in! Heh! We British and our queues eh!
Sky Sports News were buzzing about the Internet Ticket Queue wanting to get sound bites for people wanting to see Murray so I avoided them... got stuck behind a school party of posh kids and their teacher, and while little Quentin Fortescue-Smythe was having his bag checked I was pretty much hopping up and down on one leg DESPERATE to get through and try and get to court 3 (remember, WALK don't RUN!).

I got to the end of the queue and then decided to gamble on which side of the court JJ would be and ran to the other side to see if I had a better chance of getting on.

It was predictably packed - but I spotted some seats 2 rows up from the front as I was heading down my original row, so some nimble hurdling footwork and literally parachuted in beside some people! Score!

God. It. Was. HOT! I was hoping that it would actually burn off this cold, and I wasn't feeling too bad initially... about an hour to wait or so... and lots of chatting with the people around - so far so good.

12pm rolled around... and out they came





Eva Azderaki chairing his time... I never realised how much the umps reinforce their linesjudges... every time there was a call - she was swift to ensure that the players knew that she agreed with the call, and then she'd turn and smile/nod to the judges and tell them they were doing OK... it's something I guess you don't see unless you're up close ...



Warm up ...











The first set... and what's immediately obvious is that Melanie is an AWESOME returner. There wasn't as many free points off JJ's improved kung-fu serve, and because she scurries about the court constantly getting EVERYTHING back - it really was like watching JJ vs Mini-JJ. The rallies were long and in that heat, with next to no breeze, they were gruelling. Melanie has the basic building blocks of what she needs ... come on, y'all of COURSE she does, she wouldn't have made it this far without. What she currently lacks is consistency on stringing them all together competently and sometimes had the total yips on her serve - probably when the pressure was too much...
JJ had to work hard to take that TB and was getting quite snappy - I read that she'd said something like "leave me alone" to her mom! Sneki was constantly shouting "Come on JJ, Come on"... I must admit - Eva was flinging suspicious looks towards Marko and Sanchez whenever JJ was at that side...







I was the wrong side of the chair to see the first Med Timeout - Alex texted me to say that she was crying, and I thought I could see a stethoscope around the trainer at one stage.

The 2nd set - it was pretty clear JJ wasn't feeling tip-top... although through the points she'd be moving and trying - at the end of a point she'd be closing her eyes and looking fairly knackered... and we knew this was going to be a close affair - more of the same from the first set - and again it was SOOOOOOO hot. Towards the end of the set, though, JJ flicked the passive switch and Melanie took it 7-5.





Ball kids were coming in from some stick - you can tell when she's getting ratty!!



By now... it was just getting hotter and I was beginning to feel
a) increasingly rough
b) increasingly hungry!

Third set... breakfest... and Passive passive PASSIVE!
JJ was doing one of her trademark retrievals and then turning back on herself JUST to get things into play - and push-tennis was the order of the day - Melanie was growing in confidence as she began to believe she might be able to do it... although there was one funny moment where Melanie played a shot that she quite obviously thought had been long, and when JJ won the point, Melanie just hollered "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!" which earned a smile from JJ at our side of the court... but that smile was short lived. JJ seemed more concerned about trying to shorten the points and whilst she occasionally got some success on her serve - Melanie was just on a roll.

JJ reverted to the same passive nonsense we see... and to be honest it was all a bit of a forgone conclusion...



Match point against JJ :sad:





I have to admit - throughout most of the last set I was texting Cilla and Alex just begging for it to be over one way or the other so I could get food, drink and get out of the sun.

Bye bye goat... until next year....