Mariano Zabaleta Fan Page « Bastad 2007 report » Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register. Sept 2, 2010, 10:56pm

This message board is connected with the www.sportfiles.com/zabaleta fan page - enjoy! Louise@sportfiles.com

World Time Zones and Time Differences

Mariano Zabaleta Fan Page :: General :: General Board :: Bastad 2007 report Author Topic: Bastad 2007 report (Read 625 times) corina2605 New Member member is offline Joined: Mar 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 15 Bastad 2007 report « Thread Started on Jul 16, 2007, 11:05pm » Ok, here comes a my report about Birte and my trip to Bastad and of course about Mariano’s matches. This was my first travel to Sweden and to Bastad. I knew some places of Bastad already (thanks to tenispro videos) and discovering those places for real was really exciting. The village is tiny, but really nice, especially the colourful houses are beautiful. But the best thing is that the stadium is directly at the beach, which is wonderful. It’s a great small tournament and its very obvious why it was voted as best tournament for several years . We didn’t see very much tennis on Saturday as it was raining and very cold. Sunday morning was not much better. When we arrived at the tennis, Carlos Moya was practicing and was complaining loudly about the rain, wind and music, lol. Luis Lobo was freezing and wearing a towel around his head (We did see players wearing woolen caps while watching other players matches during the week. One looked especially cute - Juan Monaco ). However right in time when the opening ceremony was about to start, the sky over Bastad cleared up and it got a bit warmer. It was the tournament’s 60th anniversary this year, so there were lots of Swedish tennis legens taking part in the show . Retired tennisplayers like Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg or Guillermo Vilas entertained the crowd with a fun exhibition doubles. But for us the highlight was definitely the doubles matches with the active players taking part. The players teamed up with Swedish junior players. One girl declared Mariano as her favourite player, that’s when Mariano was called on centre court. He received a big applause, he is really loved in Bastad. He played with the girl against Söderling and a male junior. It was a fun match, everybody had a great time. The other active players taking part were Thomas Jonansson and Tommy Robredo, which made Birte happy. Seeing both of our favourite players taking part in the exhibition was a great start of the week Mariano was seen practicing later in the afternoon with Gilles Simon for an hour. He was not that happy about his performance in that practice session, but still very nice to us after the on court work has been done (Thank you !!). He was wearing that very nice pink-white striped Lacoste sweatshirt, so we thought it was the right moment for a photo session, too . So, Monday was the day Mariano and Juan Monaco played doubles against Behrend/Kas. Weather was much better, the sun was shining. The two Tandilense played on court 2, a small court very close to the harbour. It was a good match. The first set was very, very close. Unfortunately Mariano and Juan lost in the tiebreak. Once Pico hit a very lucky shot and Mariano just run to him and gave him a big hug. Everyone was laughing, it was so cute (picture should appear here too, soon). In the second set the Germans were a bit more solid and they won. It was an entertaining match I was really grateful I had the opportunity to see two of my absolute favourite players play doubles together (hasn’t happened too often). The sad result of today (for Birte especially) was Tommy Robredo’s early loss. We would have loved to have him around for a bit more days, but sadly he left Bastad very fast. On Tuesday we had an early start, as both, Mariano and Juan Monaco were playing the first matches (I hated the schedule!!!). Mariano played on court 1, while Juan played on centre court. For the first time it was t-shirt weather, yay ! Mariano’s match against Russian Schukin started pretty badly. Mariano made too many errors and lost the first set 1-6. In the second set Mariano was struggling to hold his first service game, but when he held everything went suddenly much better. Mariano played well, hit winners and outplayed the Russian guy (who I don’t like as he never apologized when hitting lucky shots...). Third set started well, too, as M managed to break. However unfortunately Mariano got a re-break immediately and got broken again. The Russian was up 5-3, serving for the match. Mariano did fight like a lion and had all the crowd behind him. He broke back. At 5-6 he saved matchpoints, but in the end couldn’t win the game. There were lots of close linecalls at the end of the match. Mariano was not happy with he umpire’s decisions at all. It was a close match that was decided on very few points and Mariano lost it very unluckily. M was quite frustrated, which was understandable. The only consolation for me today was that Pico managed to win his match so that we could at least see him again in his second round match. On Tuesday night there was an openair concert at the beach. The whole village was FULL of party people, it was crazy. I have never been to an openair beach concert, so this was a very nice experience On Wednesday the weather got colder again. We watched some nice matches (Volandri loves to walk proudly on the court wearing his sweatshirt with the Italian flag on it, lol) and practices. Mariano practiced from 5 to 6 (seems to be is favourite hour to practice ) Mariano and coach had some long talks and discussions. I thought Mariano played well. He was having fun on the court, entertaining the very few people watching. If Mariano is in a good mood, he ALWAYS makes sure his practices are enjoyable to watch After the practice I was very brave and approached him. M did tell me that he was not very happy about yesterday’s match performance and that he plays much better in practice (which is true, he plays really well in practice). He was very nice and friendly to his fan Thursday was the worst day weather-wise. Matches only started at 4pm due to rain. The tournament organizers decided to play the matches on three courts at the same time, so poor Juan Monaco had to play on the very small court. There was really loud party music in the background and I can imagine that it was not very easy to focus on the match. Juan wasn’t very motivated to play today and lost in straight sets to Gilles Simon. Mariano was practicing on the court next to him and used his breaks to follow the match. M practiced very hard that day, two hours, and beat Horna in a match tie-break. Mariano is in a good form and very motivated to play tennis. I am sure the hard work will pay off very soon, also in matches. Friday was kind of a sad day, as lots of our favourite players (Mariano, Pico, Fernando Verdasco, etc.) left Bastad. However there were still some nice matches to watch. The one player that impressed us most was David Ferrer. He has been playing really well all week and we were not surprised at all that he won the tournament on Sunday in a very convincing way. Birte and I both think David is a good winner for this very special tournament. As I was surrounded by fans of the Swedish players, I also got to know the Swedish players a bit better. Most of them are really nice and have lovely families. I wish them all the best best for the DC semifinals against the US Last week was very nice despite some not very happy results and the cold and rainy weather. I loved the tournament very much and have lots of very nice memories of this week. Thank you to Birte for organizing everything and for sharing this week with me And thanks of course to Mariano for having made this week special Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Louise Lewis-Price Administrator member is offline Joined: Sept 2004 Posts: 354 Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #1 on Jul 17, 2007, 12:50am » thank you for your report Corina Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged corina2605 New Member member is offline Joined: Mar 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 15 Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #2 on Jul 17, 2007, 7:48am » You are welcome I sent you pics, but they couldn't be delivered Will try to send them again to your hotmail. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Birte Guest Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #3 on Jul 17, 2007, 11:39am » Thank you so much for this lovely report, Corinne It brings back so many nice memories from last week, but some bad memories also Like early first round looses I also enjoyed the week so much It feels so sad to be back at work, but the good thing is that it is only for one week Btw, I am shocked about what happened to Mariano in Båstad...somebody stole his laptop Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged louiselp New Member member is offline Joined: Oct 2007 Posts: 1 Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #4 on Jul 17, 2007, 12:17pm » Hi Birte I heard about that too - and I nearly removed your comment - as its a bit personal... you know what I am like but then again I thought you never know, the Idiot that did it may have a friend with a concience - which I doubt very much... - so I have left it in.... I felt really bad when I heard this too - someone must know who is doing the stealing. It is happening at every ATP event! « Last Edit: Jul 17, 2007, 12:23pm by Louise Lewis-Price » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Birte Guest Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #5 on Jul 17, 2007, 12:29pm » Louise, I know what you mean and I have thought a long time about posting it here, but then I thought thas this is quite a "familiar" forum, so I thought it would be okay to post it here. I would never have posted this on MTF!!! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Louise Lewis-Price Administrator member is offline Joined: Sept 2004 Posts: 354 Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #6 on Jul 17, 2007, 12:30pm » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged corina2605 New Member member is offline Joined: Mar 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 15 Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #7 on Jul 17, 2007, 12:39pm » Oh no, poor Mariano, his laptop means so much to him I really hope this idiot will be caught! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged egg Guest Re: Bastad 2007 report « Reply #8 on Jul 17, 2007, 9:38pm » Lovely report, indeed! Gracias, amiga! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Forum Jump--------------------» Home--------------------» General--------------------- General Board