 Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 |  Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 |  Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 |  Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 | Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 |  Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 10 Aug 2008 |
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| 10 Aug 2008 - Olympic Tennis Centre, Beijing - Chris Bowers | |
| Olympic Tennis Event begins under leaden skies |
The Olympic tennis event finally got under way 2˝ hours late thanks to heavy rain in Beijing on day one at the tennis event.
Spectators in the Olympic Green tennis centre were grateful for the length of a tennis court being only 25 metres (78 feet) – anything longer and they might have struggled to see both players, such was the murkiness of the light as James Blake and Chris Guccione walked out on court at 12.52.
The holes in the stands, which distinguish this arena from the similar courts used in Sydney and Athens, make it easy to feel you’re in either a lantern or a leaking goldfish bowl. With leaden grey skies refusing to brighten, it felt more like the goldfish bowl, and the crowd seemed particularly edgy – they were into the action from the start, but the gasps of anguish that greeted any error, even a missed first serve, suggested a collective nervous disposition.
Blake and Guccione didn’t seem nervous – in fact by rushing through the first three games in less than five minutes they seemed to be trying to make up for the time lost to the rain. It took until the 14th point for one to go against the serve, and Blake seemed to be hitting his serve as big as his big-serving opponent.
With both men in national colours – Guccione in fact in his team’s Olympic kit with matching gold and green cap – it seemed set for a good old-fashioned serve-and-volley contest, but Guccione has never found a way of making his 2.01-metre (6ft 7in) frame look intimidating, and made Blake seem terrier-like in contrast to the Aussie’s lumbering disposition.
Blake was simply better when it mattered most. Guccione had dropped just two points on his serve when he stepped up at 3-4, but a run of second serves allowed Blake to break and go on to take the first set in just 23 minutes. The Australian had a set point in the second, Blake double-faulting at 5-6 30-30, and the American was lucky to see the lanky leftie overcook a backhand approach shot off a very nervous second serve.
That proved the Aussie’s one chance, and two glorious backhands allowed Blake to take the first match of the Olympic tournament 63 76(3) in 71 minutes. And the sky was as grey at the end as it was at the beginning.
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