[alexosnasos2]

Nelslus is frankly shocked that you all are so hung up on this silly Wimbledon tournament- WHA-EVAH- when baby nelslus and nelslus have been attending the latest and MUCH more relevant Winnetka Challenger tournament.

Just a few tidbits:

*Most importantly, there have been two players that nelslus has seen so far that send nelslus' naughty bits heart atwitter- Slovakian Luka Gregorc and American Todd Paul. BABIES GOT BACK. Serve them up on a nelslus platter for a nelslus FEAST if of course nelslus were single, of course, nelslus sez.

*As there was much rain on Sunday, we had to see some matches indoors. Which, as nice as the tennis complex is in Winnetka, gave me the feeling of watching a zoo filled with tennis players. A bunch of us tennis nerds were watching these indoor matches behind glass pretty much- almost no sound except for one court where you could hear the ball. Mind you, this now qualifies this post as "You Know You're A Tennis Fan...."

*It's so sad seeing some names who had to try to QUALIFY for this tournament. Example I have heard of- 32 year old Cecil Mamiit (ranked as high as 72, in 1999) and eternal-qualifier Phillip Simmonds.

*Players who dropped out thanks to Wimbledon apparently were Kevin Anderson and Bobby Reynolds.

*Players in the main draw include VINCE FREAKIN' SPADEA (we saw him briefly practicing- beyond-goofy cap-and-clothes and all that- and expect to see him play in a match tonight), Robert Kendrick, Amer Delic, Rajeev Ram, Brendan Evans, Frederic Niemeyer and Scoville Jenkins.

*If you really want some fascinating psychological battles- GET thee to a challenger tournament, if you ever get the chance. You'll see players who pretty much have all of the skills- EXCEPT they're lacking when to use these skills, or they appear to be focused on maintaining their current status but not getting to the next level, or there is just ONE glaring weakness.....

To use the examples of the aforementioned gentlemen (and note that, to qualify, players had to play two matches on Sunday, and then win another match on Monday just to qualify- only four qualifying slots available)- Todd Paul has a lot of skills- but only one option on the backhand- slice, slice, slice, slice. SHHHHEEEEESH. We still got to see him save match points against Michael McClune- mostly out of sheer guts and desire. McClune was the better player almost all of this match- but, Paul just hung in there- and, to be fair, he was using the not-exactly-multidimensional-backhand effectively at the end. (All ultimately for naught- lost in the final round of qualifying to Phillip Simmonds 1 & 2.)

Re: Mr. Gregorc- who according to the ITF site BTW has had fairly recent respectable losses to the likes of Davydenko, Hewitt and Mad Max (and of course otherwise has had mucho losses and some wins in the challenger fields)- in his second round qualifying match against Russian-born American (if we heard this right- again, we were behind freakin' glass) Nikita Kryvonos, he managed to serve SIX DOUBLE FAULTS IN ONE GAME. AND. HELD. (He ended up winning this match 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3, and then apparently qualifed on Monday (didn't see this) 6 & 3.)

*The player we saw in qualifying who impressed us the most was Dane Martin Pedersen. He was hitting the HELL out of the ball, both sides. Of course, he ended up not qualifying.

*Last night, in main draw matches, we saw the end of Ryan Sweeting destroying Stoppini 2 & 2, and the complete match of second seed Japanese player 24 year old Go Soeda beating American Wild Card Ryan Preston 4 & 5.

Note that Go (did nelslus resist the urge to share thousands upon veritable thousands of comic masterpieces involving the term "Go" with baby nelslus last night? WHY, no, nelslus did NOT resist this temptation, thank you SO much for asking ) is currently ranked 124th- and did apparently try to qualify for Wimbledon- winning one match. (Thus, his appearance in Winnetka.) He's won quite a bit on the challenger tour lately- and done Davis Cup for Japan and all. But- with what we saw- it's just hard to see him going much further. I mean- I respect the hell out of anyone ranked 124 in the world. But, he just let the currently-unranked (with a career high of 1,004 back in April of 2007) hang in there over and over again. Pretty much won just keeping the ball in play a bit more- in a match that was so boring it would have made Conchita vs. Amanda blush. I mean, solid baseline play, with of course no clue of what to do the few times Preston drew him to the net (which would have been a great play more often.)

*That's it for now.