By Heidi Kim, TW Contributing Writer
Hi TW! I'm not back in Chicago yet, but at least back in the country from some more European travels. Let's cut to the important stuff: I queued for Wimbledon on Monday and had a great time in the evening, watching some doubles and then finished off the evening crowded onto Henman Hill (which it will always be to me, regardless of how often they call it Murray Mount) to watch Murray-Gasquet. Great atmosphere in the fading light, hill packed like you wouldn't believe.
I will have a full tale of my queuing experience next week, but this week I wanted to mention those unsung doubles matches, the saviors of the late-entering ground pass holders. I got to see Bob Bryan and Samantha Stosur take out Kerr/Bondarenko in the second round of mixed doubles, looking very sharp and great on the teamwork. Stosur had a lot of fans in the crowd, shouting "Sam!" in between points and snapping photos incessantly (of which I have some myself but can't post right now, sorry).
Afterwards, Verdasco/Lopez gave the walkover after their epic singles battles to Bjorkman/Ullyett, so we got the ladies' doubles of Sania Mirza and Bethanie Mattek against Akgul Amanmuradova and Darya Kustova, who I freely admit I had never heard of before. Amanmuradova is a very tall, muscular girl, while her partner looks relatively small and slender -- but no smaller than Mirza and Mattek, who are almost perfectly matched in size and visors. The match was delayed briefly when Amanmuradova was sent off to change her shirt; the collared shirt she had come on wearing had a huge 77 or something of the kind splashed over one shoulder in black, and apparently it was not good enough for the 'predominantly white' rule.
Mirza and Mattek really did not play well to begin; actually, Mattek impressed me much more than Mirza, who got very negative about some (as she thought) questionable line calls, including one chair overrule on the sideline, and wasn't hitting particularly well. Still, they were gaining momentum in the third set, and I thought they would win. Amanmuradova, who had been getting medical treatment on her back, had to pull out, however, so they got the win that way. Mirza was the fan favorite in this match, with a large number of ethnic Indians (from Britain or elsewhere, don't know) in the audience cheering her on or peering through the barriers to snap photos.
They went down to the Williams sisters, so they're out now, and Bryan/Stosur will have played their match today by the time this post goes up. It was great to get to see some doubles, because it's so hard when you've grown up watching tennis on TV to know just how skilled these players are and how different doubles can be as a sport. I also kept a vigilant eye on the scoreboard across the way, where Safin took down Wawrinka, and listened to the cheers coming from Henman Hill (which told me every time Murray took a set).
Court 18, by the way, is easily accessible by foot as opposed to helicopter, and it's not recreational-park style; there is a TV booth, as the Wimbledon organizers have protested vigorously. Pretty good stands on one baseline and risers on each sideline -- but it doesn't compare to the big courts, of course.
Hope you're all enjoying the tournament! Don't forget to keep sending me news and photos.