The hitting begins: Melbourne 17/01/07 Part II

I entered showcourt 2 which was a rather large arena which could probably accommodate 2 thousand plus spectators. The arena was relatively empty as I entered, as it was still early. There were 2 players training on the court.

Using the court for training before the match begins

The crowd, waiting for the match to start

As I saw on the scoreboard, the first match of the day, beginning at 11am was a match between the once great player, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and a relatively unknown player by the name of Danai Udomchoke. Juan is Spanish, and Danai is Thai. Wow an Asian player! I hope he doesn't choke (u don't choke - udomchoke). Just a joke. Anyway he's got many supporters in the crowd, mainly Thai, and there were in fact 2 behind me. This is looking pretty good for Asian tennis I suppose, especially with the recent rise of female Chinese players.

Here comes Mr Ferrero, nicknamed the Mosquito

Udomchoke and Ferrero face-off!

Here is Juan Carlos

Doing a smash

On the serve

A rare shot of Juan Carlos's opponent, Danai from Thailand

Ferrero on the receiving end

Danai on the serve. Well he's certainly not choking

The result turned out to be quite an upset for Ferrero as Udomchoke won in 4 sets 7-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1. Well bye bye Ferrero, and Hello Udomchoke! Could he replace Paradorn Srichapan as Thailand's number 1?

Yeah the result turned out to be quite surprising, but this is good for Asian tennis I suppose. Some of the spectators who turned out to watch Ferrero win were quite disappointed and left halfway during the match. I even heard someone commented, "I can't watch this anymore, this is spastic!" Well, the match was quite good, and it's nothing close to spastic.

Danai had many supporters in the crowd, and the Thai supporters were shouting for him, something like "Nai susu" which I reckon they want some milk? Because Nai in Mandarin is milk and susu in Bahasa Melayu means milk as well! So Danai.....got milk?

After the match, I walked out to one of the courts where many people were gathered. Ooh, my first glimpse of a top ten player on the court doing some training. Guess who?