THAILAND OPEN 2004
I later headed out to the tennis venue and happened to be in the same minivan as Feliciano Lopez and his coach, though Feli seemed quite engrossed in his fashion magazine! The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful as I spent most of it sorting out accreditation and didn't see much tennis, which happened to still be mainly the final qualifiying round. That evening, however, I did see a great match between the former Australian Open champion, Thomas Johansson of Sweden and our fashionable friend, Feliciano himself. It started off as a bit of a whitewash, with Johansson swiftly taking the first set 6-1. Clearly, Feli was having trouble matching the Swede in what was the pair's first ever meeting, but the Spaniard soon found his game and, when he fought back to win the second set 6 games to 2, we all knew the pressure was on and we were in for a thrilling third set. And that was what we got. It was as close as it could get, with Johansson finally winning the tie-break 7 points to 5, though only after saving 2 match points. It was disappointing for the Lopez fans, like me, as he was the only Spaniard in the main draw, after the withdrawal of Carlos Moya only a few days before. At the same time, however, it was good to see a class player like Thomas, who has had to work his way back to the top after being sidelined for a year due to injury, is now back in blistering form.
Tuesday night was Opening Ceremony night, with most of the players (with the exception of Andy Roddick) finally in Bangkok after various Davis Cup commitments around the world. The ceremony started off with introductions of several dignitaries, including the Prime Minister of Thailand and tournament ambassador, Vijay Amritraj. This was followed by the appearance of 3 main draw players: the local hero, Paradorn Srichaphan; the ever-popular Russian, Marat Safin; and the defending champion, Taylor Dent, who were led on court by Thai children and presented with flowers. After this was a short display of Thai music and dancing, which showcased beautiful Thai silk costumes, and then a speech by the Prime Minister of Thailand to declare the tournament open. That was all I was able to see, as I then had to rush off to Court 1 to make sure I had a good seat to watch the doubles match between the pairs of Marat Safin and Robin Soderling and Justin Gimelstob and Graydon Oliver. The Safin/Soderling combination started out well, breaking the Americans' serve and establishing a 3-0 lead. However, this quickly diminished, as the experience of Gimelstob/Oliver shone through and they were able to clinch the set 7-5. The second set was over before we knew it, with the Americans taking advantage of Soderling's rattiness to win 6-3. That night, we arrived back at the hotel around 11:30pm and, along the way, we had noticed several cars with flashing lights labelled "Tourism Police" on the freeway. We thought nothing more of it until we realised they too were heading for the hotel and, as it turned out, it was, in fact, Andy Roddick arriving from the airport! He was received in the hotel lobby by many (female) fans, who had obviously done some research and knew when he was arriving! You could have mistaken the whole scene for the arrival of a Hollywood moviestar. There were cameras flashing and flowers handed out, with Roddick finally emerging from one of the cars disguised in a hat and then promptly being ushered away into the elevators by hotel staff. Well, I guess that was one way of ending the day!
Wednesday was the day all the stars came out to play. Firstly, there was the doubles match between the defending champions, Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram of Israel and the Swiss pair of Yves Allegro and world number 1 Roger Federer. It was the Swiss who prevailed, meaning last year's winners were ousted in the first round. Following that match was a first round singles between the Russian, Marat Safin, and Noam Okun. Fresh from his tournament win in Beijing and some great performances in the Davis Cup in Moscow, Marat was in super form and was never really challenged by his Israeli friend, winning the match 6-2 6-3. I was lucky enough to have a pass that gave me access to the players' lounge and, shortly after the match, Marat was there celebrating his win by happily munching on chicken satay and having the odd sip of beer! After indulging in some of the delicious chicken satay myself, it was time to head to the Centre Court again to see the local favourite, Paradorn Srichaphan's first round match against Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland. The arena was packed and you can imagine the roar that erupted when Paradorn made his appearance. It turned out to be an exciting match with the Thai player pushed all the way. He won the closely-contested first set 6-4 but it was the second set tie-break in particular that had everyone on the edge of their seats. It went in favour of the local 7 points to 3, and thus the match was decided. However, contrary to what one would expect, this did not spark a mass exodus from the arena, as following this match was the one everyone had been waiting for: the one, the only...Andy Roddick. Somewhat reminiscent of his red-carpet Hollywood-like arrival at the hotel the night before, the young American star made his way onto Centre Court to the sounds of "Start me up" by the Rolling Stones. Although obviously jet-lagged and jaded from his long journey from the United States, Roddick was still able to put on a great show of speed serving and power hitting to overcome the lesser-experienced Brit, Arvind Parmar, 6-1 6-4. And so ended Day 3 of the Thailand Open.
Day 4 promised to be just as fun-filled as all the others. When I got to the tournament venue, Marat was practising on Centre Court with a local, young Thai player, so I watched that for a while before settling down to watch Marat's second round match against the Czech, Jiri Vanek, about an hour later. The modest crowd was treated to some great rallies and the match proved to be a bit more difficult for Marat than his first round had been. Nevertheless, the giant Russian was never in danger of losing and closed it out 6-3 6-4. It was a good result for him, as well as for all the Safin fans (myself included), and I was even more delighted to be able to take a photo with Marat soon after the match! I had then decided to go and watch the all-Swiss doubles match on Court 1 between the pair of Allegro/Federer and Ivo Heuberger and Marco Chiudinelli but, unfortunately, it had to be cancelled due to the withdrawal of Heuberger, who was suffering from a toothache. The night match between the 2 Americans, Jeff Morrison and Andy Roddick, proved to be a thriller. Much like the match I had seen between Johansson and Lopez on the first night, the first set was rather routine, with Roddick winning it 6-2. However, the tide certainly turned in the second when Morrison seemed to lift his game and take advantage of Roddick's lingering weariness. In the end, it went to a tie-break, which Morrison won 7-4. So we were in to a final set. No one had expected Roddick to be pushed like this and there was definitely an air of excitement in the arena. This, too, was a closely contested set however, towards the business end, Roddick noticeably shifted his game up a notch and Morrison was unable to respond. The world number 2 won the match 6-4 in the third, but Morrison was by no means disgraced - it had been an awesome match. This was to be followed by another second round match, this time between Alex Bogomolov Jr, another young American, and Paradorn Srichaphan. The first set was a one-way street all in favour of the Thai, who didn't allow Bogomolov to get on the board, winning it 6-0. However, the second set saw a swing in momentum as Bogomolov got the measure of Srichaphan and was able to hold his own and force a tie-break. By this time, the crowd were really getting involved and, combined with some superb play by Srichaphan himself, were able to get their man over the line and into the quarterfinals, as he won the tie-break 7-4. It was now pretty late and it was time to head back to the hotel and call it a day.
