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On Tuesday's day session I was on the Roger's Court, section 118 seat CC3 which gave me this view of the tennis:
You can see the sky above the scoreboard is grey and not blue:
The second match at Rogers Court that day was between Elise Mertens from Germany and Russia's Daria Kasatkina, here is Daria:
Elise seemed to be the crowd favourite, but Daria ended up winning:The cloud cover had broken up by this point:Since those first two matches went pretty quickly, there was a gap before the next match, so I exited the stadium and bought a Combo #2 which was two hot dogs, a poutine and a can of Pepsi at a cost of 33$. The hotdogs were quite significantly sized, so in a future trip I could probably go simply with the hotdogs or simply the poutine.
Next was another round 1 match, between Beatriz Haddad Maia from Brazil against Magdalena Frech from Poland. It wasn't clear who was being favoured here, by now the stadium had mostly emptied as people left for lunch or wanted to get out of the sun, or, had had enough tennis after the first two matches. I figure since I paid to go and watch tennis, I will watch every match I can.
Beatriz is left handed and so she didn't face me when serving and when on my side of the court:
Beatriz won pretty handily:The final match of the day session that day was between Marketa Vondrousova from Czechia and Mayar Sherif from Egypt. Mayar had spent many years in the US playing NCAA tennis, but still was simply overpowered by Vondrousova. By this time it was only light and sparse clouds but by about 16h22 the section I sit in, is put into the shade due to the higher stands behind. Vondrousova is also left handed and so a photo of her only shows here from the back. Here is Mayar:
I had brought with me a book to help pass the time between matches, and between the day and night session, I was reading Krull by Alan Dean Foster. During this break between sessions I bought an ice cream, 9$.
On Tuesday's night session I was on the Center Court, section 329 seat A3 which gave me this view of the tennis:
The first match was a big one with Canadian Bianca Andreescu playing against qualifier Camila Giorgi from Italy. Of course the whole crowd was keenly behind Bianca, who had moments of brilliance but nowhere near the consistency of her opponent. My Google Pixel 7 primary camera has a 5x optical zoom and a 30x digital zoom, making use of this, here is Bianca:There was still daylight at the very start of the match:Sadly for all of us there, this was not the comeback that we are hoping for for Bianca:Elena Rybakina was a Russian player who was not getting enough support and funding from the Russian tennis association, so she switched over to Kazakhstan who agreed to pay her well and take her on since they didn't have any women players of that caliber. So Kazakhstani Elena Rybakina played against American Jennifer Brady for the second of the evening matches. I moved down from the 300 section to the 100 section as many people left the stadium after the first match.
I have followed Rybakina closely since she has come into the tennis scene - she is within the top 5 of world class players and is very stoic. She has a great serve and due to her tall stature can have really strong hits on the ball with a simple movement. Here she is:
As the rain cut this match short, there was no problem for me to transit home with respect to a risk of it being too late to catch the last bus.
On Wednesday's day session I was on the Roger's Court, section 117 seat E11 which gave me this view of the tennis:
The forecast for the day was hot and sunny with a few clouds, 27c feeling as 35c with humidity. I had seen people on the previous day use umbrellas as shade tools, so I brought that with me, as well as sun screen that I applied twice, at around 11h and then at 14h.
The first match was a 2nd round one between the UK's Katie Boulder and American Coco Gauff. Here are photos of them, first Katie then Coco:
Poor Katie, she was the David against the goliath of Coco, here's the score:The next match, again round 2, was between American Jessica Pegula and another Russian turned Kazakhstani Yulia Putintseva. Jessica is from Buffalo which isn't too far from where I live, here she is:This was a tighter match than the previous ones, but still well tilted into Jessica's favour:
There was a gap after this match with the next one starting about two hours later, so I walked around the whole area and discovered there is a water bottle refill station among a wide variety of other things that are interactive as well as like you would see at a convention. I ate a fish 'n chips and a can of Pepsi for 35$. The match between Rybakina and Brady had ended during the time, and then the big match between Canada's Leylah Annie Fernandez and Beatriz Haddad Maia started on center court to which I did not have a ticket. They showed this match on a number of outdoor screens so I got to watch some of the second set. Leylah had a match point in that second set, but lost it and Beatriz ended up winning the second set forcing a third. Once that second set ended I left the area I was in to find a more tranquil spot and found on court 5 a doubles match was to start in 20 minutes, so I sat there.
Eventually Leylah's match ended, and yay she won!
Then I returned to the Rogers Court for the last match of the day session, I got there an hour early and used my umbrella to put me in shade while I read the book I had with me this day: Dimension 13 by Robert Silverberg. This match was between Czechia's Marketa Vandrousova and Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, the latter a far favourite by the crowd as she has been on the WTA circuit for many years and has made many appearances at this event.
I didn't get any great photos of the players, so this will have to do:
Vondrousova dominated the first set, but Wozniacki made a very interesting second set that unfortunately didn't go her way:The Rybakina/Brady match followed by the Haddad Maia/Fernandez match made it so that the Center court day session ran very late, so we had to wait for the stadium to empty and then make our way in. While waiting I bought and ate a Beaver Tale (9$) and continued reading my book. I was fortunate that I got to my seat as they were doing the coin toss, so I didn't miss the start of the match between top 5 player Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka and Croatia's Petra Martic.
This was the view from my section 327 seat A7 position, very similar to my seat from the previous night:
and here is Sabalenka:There was a set point in the second set that Petra had a chance of winning the set, but Sabalenka ended up winning in the tie break:At that moment that Petra had that chance, a guy called out very clearly something like 'here's your chance Petra, go for it!'. It is too bad it didn't work out for her.
I actually missed the tie break as it was 22h30 by this time and I was worried about transiting home. There was another match after this one:
Going three sets with an extra long middle set would have pushed this match probably to or past midnight. So I left at 22h30, walked to Parc metro, took the blue line to Snowdon, the Orange line to LG and then the 211 home.I just did some verification, and I could have stayed considerably later. The last 211 bus leaves at 1h20 on weekdays and 1h45 on Saturday nights. To catch that bus Google Maps says I should leave the stadium at 12h28 which is almost two full hours later than I left yesterday.
For next year I am thinking of doing Rogers Court on Tuesday and Thursday day sessions, and Center Court for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night sessions. Possibly I would add a Sunday qualifying to that too as the tickets are less expensive. By not going during the day on Wednesday, I can have a nap. I will definitely stick to section 117 or 118 for the Rogers Court day sessions.
Just for reference, as the prize money is planned to be matched to the men's tournament in a few years, the players who make it to the first round but exit will get $12,848USD while those who get to the second round and exit will get $17,930USD. Those players above who won their second round matches will get $31,650USD if they do not get past the third round.
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