Been following the ATP Masters Cup since afternoon, and the most striking aspect of it to me has been the lack of facilities at the Houston Tennis Center. Start of play was delayed today afternoon because of rain. However, even though it stopped raining at 3:15 PST, it was possible for play to begin only a complete one hour later at 4:15 PST. The reason for it - the lack of covers to protect the court and the absence of any sort of equipment to help dry up the court. In fact, even right now, play has been suspended - but it stopped raining almost half an hour ago. The images being shown right now on ESPN will make any tennis fan cry! Ball boys and ball girls are wiping the court with towels - dragging towels with their feet along the court! PATHETIC - I think that absolutely sums up the situation in Texas right now. If this tournament was being held somewhere in Asia and start of play was delayed due to similar lack of facilities, I'm absolutely certain a big hue and cry would have been raised about it and the tournament would have been moved to a different venue the next year. However, with the tournament being in Texas, USA, I'm sure no one is going to even mention a word about this!
Another instance of American chauvinism was yesterday when Hewitt absolutely tore apart Roddick's play. There were numerous articles on the Web which speculated that Roddick was making changes to his game so that he could challenge Federer next year, and yesterday's loss was a result of these changes. So, Roddick's loss to Hewitt should be viewed more as a sacrifice he made so that he could be competitive next year. Bullshit! Nothing can be farther from the truth. Roddick basically relies on raw power to hit crushing winners and Hewitt's speed ensured that he chased each of Roddick's groundstrokes and nullified his advantage. The only player who I think can challenge Federer next year is Safin (he gave ample evidence of that in the 38-point tiebreak yesterday). Safin just needs to try and work on cutting down the number of unforced errors he makes and I'm sure he can challenge Federer consistenly. I don't have much hope for Hewitt based on what I saw in the US Open final and what I've seen so far in today's match so far. Let's hope someone is going to catch up Federer soon. We can only draw hope from the state of women's tennis where other players have caught up with and even surpassed the Williams sisters, who looked unbeatable a couple of years back. For now, let's atleast hope play resumes soon at Texas ...
Cheers,
Harsha
