Tuesday 28 September 2010

The 2010 Hansol Open: Love the Tennis, Love the Players, Love the Weather!









I was a very happy tennis fan as I was able to watch some high-level tennis at the 2010 Hansol Open held at the tennis courts of the Olympic Park, although it was a looooong subway ride from where I lived.

But a happy tennis fan just the same.

Big names like Dinara Safina, Ana Ivanovic, Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova were in action when I decided to watch the first-round matches last Wednesday, September 22, right after the rained-out Tuesday. We, tennis fans, were lucky on Wednesday that the rain clouds have finally disappeared, letting the sun and the cooler breezes take over the Olympic Park tennis courts.

It was fun watching the powerful ground strokes that these girls were able to generate, not to mention the way they move around the court making it look like they were strolling around the Olympic Park. Those nice legs really could move and run like they were trained to.


And those serves!  I wish I could hit those flat serves with accuracy right in the middle 'T'. Or perhaps mastering a slice serve would just be fine for me. I can just imagine how many thousands of serves these girls have thrown all their professional lives just to perfect their service motion. If only Safina could teach me. Ha-ha-ha!


I was able to talk to the very friendly, Jarmila Groth (from Australia), who unfortunately lost to Nadia Petrova on the first round, and I had photo with Klara Zakopalova who went on to the finals, but eventually lost to the champion, Alisa Kleybanova. Klara was impressive, even in her small stature, during her match against the beautiful Julia Goerges (from Germany), who had a unique yellow-green uniform (headband, shirt and shoes!).  And those legs, Julia!  Klara won over Julia in three tough sets. Julia, by the way, won the doubles titles with Polona Hercog.


Well, congratulations to the champions, to Hansol Paper Co., Ltd. and the other sponsors for bringing these top tennis players to Seoul, and for letting the local tennis fans (me included, of course!) enjoy the high-level tennis!


Ciao.

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