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2008-05-13 08:39:00
A ticket to a tennis event contains a lot of uncertainty. When you pay for a football ticket, you know that you will at least get to watch 90 minutes (if there isn’t any extraordinary situation which forces the match to be suspended). The spectators at Foro Italico were as unlucky as you can get on the semifinal Saturday of Internazionali BNL d’Italia. What could have been a fantastic showdown between the top four players in the world, as in Monte Carlo two weeks earlier, turned out to be a total of ten games with injuries stopping Roddick after just three games and Stepanek after seven games. How unfortunate is that? Let’s hope that part of the crowd was the same that witnessed the epic five set final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal two years earlier. That incredible value that the ticket holders got that day would definitely even out a day like the one this past weekend.
The Masters Series rolls on in Hamburg, the tournament that has seen some very surprising champions in the past. Roberto Carretero will probably remain the most surprising Masters Series winner ever for a very long time to come. The story has been told before but can be told many times again. Twelve years ago, the 20-year old Spaniard ranked 143rd qualified into the main draw and then went on to win the title after a great final against compatriot Alex Corretja. During the year following the win, Carretero went 1-18 on the ATP level and only ever again won four matches on the highest professional level. His year-end ranking fell from 67 in 1996 to 298 a year later and he only finished in the Top 200 one more time (173rd in 1999). How someone could produce world class tennis one week and then never again even get close to that level will remain a mystery.
There was one sight today at Rothenbaum that really disturbed me. As I was walking next to Court 1, I felt the annoying smell of smoke entering my nose. I looked up, and saw Albert Costa. I had to look again. Did I just see the former clay court master, who once had a very impressive physical endurance, smoke a cigarette? I had to look again. And yes. He even dropped the cigarette down on the ground but picked it up again to continue smoking. Maybe this is the new way coaches are handling defeats. The time I saw Costa was just after Feliciano Lopez had gone down in straight sets to Ivo Minar. A few hours later, it was Guillermo Canas’ coach Gaston Etlis who was smoking a cigarette of defeat. It’s their own business, but it still hurts a lot to see someone such as Albert Costa, who was the champion at Roland Garros less than six years ago, walk around on the tournament grounds with poison in his mouth. I also don’t think a professional coach should be doing something as stupid, as it will inspire others to make the wrong decisions.
Before writing this, I just got back from an exhausting run around the beautiful lake Alster. Five years ago, Costa would have out-run me on any day. After the sight today, things might be reversed five years from now. Why Albert, why?
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