Updates and whatnot

Posted by Bess: Last night offered some uncomfortable viewing at the AO. Did Mardy Fish and Marcos Baghdatis make a negativity pact? I'm not used to seeing them in such prolonged states of anger, frustration and grousing, showing such negative emotions and emitting such clear profanities (ahem, Mardy).

Those matches aren't fun to watch (especially when they're the guys you're rooting for), which is why I've never really enjoyed watching Andy Murray (although he was much less negative in his first round match, which the commentators attribute to having Ivan Lendl as his coach/in his box.)

But I'm guessing those matches are even less fun if you're one of Marcos's racquets, which took quite a beating! I believe he was down to just two racquets toward the end; the other four lying mangled, still in their plastic wraps from the stringer. They never even had a chance to fulfill their destiny.

All that negativity paid off for their opponents. Alejandro Falla and Stan Wawrinka rode it all the way to the third round.

In other news:

• Way to go, Christina McHale!


• Nadal's freak knee injury happened while he was sitting in a chair!? Okaaaay. This seems like something that happens to me now that I'm 40. Not to a professional athlete in the prime of his life! Regardless, he seemed great out there last night and won in straight sets.


• I read somewhere that Ryan Harrison admitted to faking exhaustion in the third set of his match with Verdasco, betting that Verdasco would feel he had the match in the bag and let up. Which is exactly what happened. Harrison came from two sets down to beat Verdasco.
  
  Sort of colors Harrison's win in my mind. And I'm sure Verdasco is none too pleased to hear that, as well. I mean, gamesmanship is a part of many matches, but... rarely does it seem to be so openly admitted. Odd.


• On opening day I witnessed an exchange by many of the ESPN2 commentators, killing time before the tournament began by making bold predictions for the year. I enjoyed their exchange and was hoping to find a clip online. There may be a video clip, but I was also happy to see the exchange appear in Bruce Jenkins's column.
  
  Fun stuff. We can add those to the lists of predictions Dave and I made and tally up the winners at the end of the year.

That's it for now. But we MUST discuss tonight's match up between Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick. That's a four alarm match, for sure! (Meaning, of course, that I will have to set four alarms to make sure I wake up for it at whatever late hour it will be on.)