Your Call (Queen's, Day 4)

By Rosangel Valenti, TW Contributing Editor

Good morning. This is the Tribe's regular post for match-calling and discussing the day's tennis. You can also go off-topic here.

I again spent the day yesterday sitting beside Centre Court at Queen's Club. No upsets in sight - though Robby Ginepri took defending champion Andy Roddick to three sets by winning the first in a tiebreak. Roddick won the next two fairly easily. Rafael Nadal efficiently dispatched Jonas Bjorkman, and Novak Djokovic faced something of a battle against Croatian Roko Karanusic, who came very close to taking their match into a decider when he broke Djokovic as he was serving for the match.

The match between David Nalbandian and Viktor Troicki was fun to watch, and I thought both players were striking the ball very well. I could see no sign of Nalbandian's movement being hampered, after the unfortunate injury that helped him out of the French Open two weks back. Troicki appeared to have a few issues finding his footing on the grass (perhaps still a little slippery) and came close to doing the splits more than once. During the second set, he sustained a nasty fall that had him grimacing. Nalbandian was the first person to ask if he was OK, and, after asking the umpire if he could cross to the other side of the court, went to see if he could help him up.

The trainer was called for Trocki, who received treatment to his leg. It was getting cold by that stage, and treatment took some while. It's always tough for the opponent - Nalbandian sat looking on anxiously, wrapped tightly in his towel. I think he had cooled off a little by the time play restarted, while Troicki was probably trying to end points faster. In the end, Nalbandian came through convincingly, though his next match, against defending finalist Nicolas Mahut, may prove more of a challenge. If I have time, I'll try to head over to Court 1 to se some of that match.

The day on Centre Court always ends with doubles - and because it was getting dark, and was quite chilly even before 8 p.m., I left. There's a threat of rain today - let's hope that it doesn't happen.