Unseen before practice photos: Lesson learnt

Practice court supposed to be a popular hangout place for tennis fans during any tennis tournament.

However, it was a different case at the PROTON Malaysian Open last week.

The seats at the practice courts (gym hall) were empty. Popular players came in and out without being mobbed by fans simply because there were almost none.

The crowd was slightly better when the players practice on Court 1, behind the Centre Court.

Hopefully the number of fans at the practice courts improve next year.

We attended a few practice sessions and here are some of the pictures we've got.

Left - Thumbs up from Rohan Bopanna
Right - Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi experimenting a simple yoga position

Igor Kunitsyn - "What are you looking at?"

Mikhail Youzhny - Maybe it's a Russian thing. They are not impressed with Nikon-toting mamarazzi

Tennis talk - David Ferrer, Andre Sa, Marcelo Melo, Jose Acasuso

Left - Marcelo Melo says hi to Jose Acasuso
Right - Ferrer crotch grab picture revealed

Keep your chins up, Acasuso

Happy people are beautiful people - Jose Verdasco, Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez

Fernando Gonzalez arrives at the practice court with his entourage

(Photos credit to HSFoo/hcfoo.com)

Weekend winners: Nikolay Davydenko, Gilles Simon, Maria Sharapova

Top seed Nikolay Davydenko defeated Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 7-5 to win the Malaysia Open on Sunday.

Poles Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski took the doubles title after beating Igor Kunitsyn and Jaroslav Levinsky 6-2, 6-1.

In Bangkok, Gilles Simon won the Thailand Open after down Viktor Troicki 7-5, 6-3 for his first ATP title of the year and sixth overall.

In the doubles final, Americans Eric Butorac and Rajeev Ram beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Mischa Zverev 7-6(4), 6-3.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Maria Sharapova won her first tournament since returning from a 10-month injury layoff when Jelena Jankovic retired because of an arm injury in the first set of the Toray Pan Pacific final.

Sharapova was up 5-2 at Ariake Colosseum when the seventh-seeded Serb took a timeout to have her right arm examined by the trainer. Jankovic returned to the court and lost the first two points of the eighth game before retiring.

(Via AP; Images via Yahoo! Sports)

A conversation with chair umpire Carlos Bernardes

Thanks to a contest by Astrolife I had the opportunity to toss coin for the doubles semifinals match last night.

It was such an honour to be able to step onto the Centre Court. [Click here to check out the court preparation, if you haven't seen it yet]

I was introduced to the chair umpire Carlos Bernardes by the international Media Director Craig Gabriel.

I congratulated Carlos as his country Brazil won the rights to host the Olympics 2016.

I teased him by saying that the organiser should have a special autograph signing session for the chair umpires as he and Mohamed Lahyani are very popular here.

Then we started talking about Malaysia - he said he had now know the meaning of 'Malaysia Truly Asia'.

Carlos said he had seen the commercial countless times on CNN but only understand the true meaning of that famous tagline when he reached this country.

Everywhere he went, including the KLCC, he was truly amazed by how the different races in this country able to live together despite social and cultural differences.

As we walked towards the middle of the Centre Court, waiting for the players to join us, Carlos added that the ATP World Tour tried very hard to promote the doubles event - having the players' names on the back of their t-shirts is one way to do so.

I shook hands with all the players and tossed the coin. Mariusz Fyrstenberg joked/praised me for that nice flip :P

What a priceless experience that was on Friday night.

I'm glad I made full use of that opportunity to speak to one of the best and nicest chair umpires in the world.

(Images by HSFoo/hcfoo.com)

Proton Malaysian Open: Results and OOP for Final Day

Davydenko vs Verdasco in the final showdown

RESULTS - SATURDAY, 3 OCTOBER, 2009
Singles - Semifinals
[1] N Davydenko (RUS) d [3] R Soderling (SWE) 16 76(1) 62
[2] F Verdasco (ESP) d [4] F Gonzalez (CHI) 64 75

Doubles - Semifinals
[1] M Fyrstenberg (POL) / M Matkowski (POL) d [3] M Damm (CZE) / R Lindstedt (SWE) 63 67(4) 10-4
I Kunitsyn (RUS) / J Levinsky (CZE) d S Huss (AUS) / S Lipsky (USA) 36 76(5) 10-3


ORDER OF PLAY - SUNDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2009
CENTER COURT start 2:30 pm
[1] M Fyrstenberg (POL) / M Matkowski (POL) vs I Kunitsyn (RUS) / J Levinsky (CZE) - DOUBLES FINAL
Not Before 3:45 PM
[1] N Davydenko (RUS) vs [2] F Verdasco (ESP) - SINGLES FINAL

(Images by Proton Malaysian Open)