australian open - conclusion

the first hour, i loathed federer. the 2nd, i love him. it's difficult to hate him isn't it?

at first i was cursing him for making those mistakes. baghdatis was too good - in retrieving back all those amazing shots from federer's racket. for any other players, those shots would be lethal but baghdatis managed to get back almost all of it. he won his previous matches simply because he could retrieve balls and have few good winners too.

it was either baghdatis has learned how to serve like federer or federer simply getting old and have difficulty reading baghdatis' serve, but he simply couldn't get close on breaking baghdatis on the first 2 sets - even though he did break baghdatis twice after baghdatis breaks him.

but undeniable baghdatis play pretty good in the first two sets. he keeps on hitting winners on federer's 2nd serve. federer didn't really serve well too. he used to have difficult angle even on his 2nd serve but he was untypically serve to the hitting zone of baghdatis most of the time on the first 2 sets - seems like inviting baghdatis to hit every winner out of his 2nd serve. i couldn't stop cursing so that he can serve wide out so that baghdatis would not take the ball on the rise and get another point out of it.

Baghdatis suffered a fall in game two of the fourth set and immediately called the trainer but the damage was already done. from bbc sports

i don't think bbc sports and us are watching the same match! hey, that wasn't a fall and obviously baghdatis was suffering from cramp. when the journalist writes that baghdatis "fall", it kinda like saying "yeah, baghdatis injured. that's why federer can beat him..."

and what the hell was the band coming out to sing a song right after federer/baghdatis came out from their locker room? isn't that weird? shouldn't any kind of entertainment should be performed before the players set foot on the court? even if they wanna perform, i thought it should be the national anthem instead of just another band trying to sell more record and get their name on the international tv. when i saw the band performing, i was cursing the organiser for having such an arrangement. please do not do that again next year!

will baghdatis here to stay? we'll see after this. he could be just another martin verkerk... who's martin verkerk? exactly! he's the runner up for ferrero in 2003's french open. where is he now? i wouldn't know and nobody's bothered!

Q. You said that you were going to be going home to Cyprus in the next couple of days. The Victorian government said the other day they'd love you to take out Australian citizenship. Would you ever really consider doing something like that?
MARCOS BAGHDATIS: Really, tell you the truth, that's not what's in my mind for the moment. I mean, my dream is to win Davis Cup for my country. I think my country is Cyprus, and I want to do it with them.

from baghdatis' post final match conference interview

it's funny how australia so desperate for someone (of their own) to win their open after so long and simply make everyone their citizen. and i must laught at jelena dokic, their adopted and failure daughter. now, stop making me laught.

yeah, i was crying too after the final. i remember someone or the media criticising federer for being too sensitive to become a champion when he won his first wimbledon in 2003. after winning his 7th, i wonder what those people gonna say about this? :-)

Q. Could you say how difficult it is when day in, day out, you're having to spend an entire day waiting around. It's likely to happen more and more because No. 1 seeds at US Open and here, there's more night sessions coming along. It's going to become a trend. How difficult is it to spend all day waiting to play, two days really?
ROGER FEDERER: Also the rhythm is just really difficult, you know, because the average going to bed was about 4 o'clock in the morning, you know, the last few nights, waking up at 12 to 2 in the afternoon. So it's a really weird schedule, you know, I'm going through. I wake up and all I do is rest and hit a little bit. If I feel like I need, you know, to do some extra stuff, I'll do it, but I didn't have to do it this time because I thought I was ‑‑ I had to save myself.

I think especially before the big matches, like maybe Kiefer and now Baghdatis, it's hard, waiting in the room all day. So actually nice to get out here and get the first hit, take a shower, get ready, you know, sort of eat something and being active. Just sitting in the room, it makes it hard, but you don't want to lose energy either.

So makes it hard, but I think once you get used to it, it's easier.

federer's post final match press conference interview

last year's us open, the no.1 seed was playing first in the day session. we all fans never know how difficult it was for a player to sit around and wait for their night session match. personally i enjoy the night match simply because i could watch it live on tv (aussie is only 3 hours ahead while us is exactly 12 hours behind malaysia. wimbledon is 8 hours behind but since the center court do not have lights, they don't play until too late. while the local tv station do not broadcast french except from q-final to final but since they play in the afternoon and 8 hours behind, i have chance to watch it)

last us open, i compiled a list of my favourite quotes from those genius (or stupid, it doesn't matter coz it's only between a thin fine line!). this time around, there's a list compiled by aussie open website.