Tennis (way) after dark with Roddick and Wozniacki
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Because many day matches took so long (we’re talking about you, Maria Sharapova) on Stadium 1 court, the final match of Sunday’s BNP Paribas Open session, featuring No. 2-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and 32nd-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, didn’t begin until nearly 10:30 p.m.
And by 10:45 p.m. Wozniacki was ahead of Kirilenko, 5-0. By 10:51 she had won the first set 6-0 and by 11:50 Wozniacki was safely into the third round with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Kirilenko, ending Sunday’s full session.
The Danish teenager, who was a surprise U.S. Open finalist last year, was aggressive with her forehand and moved forward throughout the match. There weren’t more than 1,000 people at the start of the match but they seemed to appreciate Wozniacki’s focus. If you have the night session ticket at least some of you were willing to stay to the last shot. We should have asked for all your names.
Andy Roddick won the first night match, also easily, 6-4, 6-4 over quailifier Yen-Hsun Lu. More interesting than the tennis was Roddick’s take on the apparent tensions displayed between Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras during an exhibition match Friday night, Hit For Haiti.
During a doubles match that featured Sampras and Roger Federer against Agassi and Nadal, Agassi shook out his (empty) pockets and made a suggestion that Sampras is a bad tipper, an idea Agassi had also explored in his autobiography. Sampras was visibly angered and aimed a serve at Agassi soon after.
Roddick said he made a point of checking out the incident on YouTube.
‘I think they would probably both tell you it got away from them a little bit there. I think all the years of kind of intense competition might have come out a little bit....It was a little bit awkward.’
Earlier Sunday, Federer had also described the Sampras-Agassi interplay as ‘awkward.’
We’d love to know what word Sampras and Agassi would use. But neither has been willing to chat since.
-- Diane Pucin