tennishead on tour: It rains in Rome too…
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It’s not every day you get to share a cold, dark, misty Rome car park in the early hours of the morning with one of the best tennis players in the world but tonight we had that pleasure.
The $2million Internazionali BNL d’Italia lost its second seed this evening when Serena Williams crashed out to Swiss Patty Schnyder 6-2, 2-6, 6-1.
It chucked it down. Cats and dogs. Or cani e gatti if you will
After a long, rain-interrupted day at the Foro Italico Williams didn’t get on court for her second round match until about 11pm and it was well past 1am when we watched her climb into the back of the courtesy car that, for a couple of wonderful minutes, we thought might be ours.
With players pouring out of the VIP area after delayed second round singles matches we began to get the feeling it’d be a long wait so instead headed for the taxi rank and the 24-hour snack bar just outside the Olympic Park.
To be honest, we feel partly to blame for today’s crummy weather. From the moment we took the decision to leave the compact umbrella in the hotel room, it was bound to chuck it down. And it did. Cats and dogs. Or cani e gatti if you will.
The venue was bathed in sunshine when play began at 1pm on day three of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Premier event, but within a couple of hours a whopper of a thunderstorm set in that delayed play until around 6pm.
The only match to come off court during the early burst of action was a second round contest between 2008 runner-up Alize Cornet and Kateryna Bondarenko.
It proved to be another disappointing day on tour for Cornet, the young Frenchwoman losing 6-4, 6-1 and cutting a forlorn figure after the match.
The 19-year-old from Nice, who, incidentally has a dog called Andy and a cat named Papyrus (I know this because I emailed her brother (and agent) about it just last week. Fact.), has only won one match on clay this season.
Whatever’s up with the teenager, she’s certainly lost her mojo right now and it was nowhere to be found on court 1 on Tuesday.
The early period of play allowed defending champion Jelena Jankovic to build a lead over Argentine glamourpuss Gisela Dulko on the main show court, although the second set turned into a bit of a dogfight.
Jankovic had to stave off a handful of set points serving at 4-5 in the second in pouring rain before finally holding for 5-all when the players left the court for around four hours.
She came back out to wrap up a 6-3, 7-6 victory and is now one step closer to a hat-trick of Italian Open victories after winning the title in 2007 and 2008.
The rain did have its positives, however, as the wet weather meant we had a long chat that turned into a full-blown WTA Tour gossip with tennishead blogger Anne Keothavong in the players’ restaurant. It wasn’t all pleasure however – we also got an interview out of the lunch date which you can read here.
The British No.1 lost to Carla Suarez Navarro on Sunday and had been waiting to play a first round doubles with Japan’s Ayumi Morita before her partner pulled out of the event with a thigh strain on Monday night.
Anne heads to Madrid tomorrow for qualifying for next week’s Premier event at the brand new Magic Box, and although she lost in the first round in Rome said she’s enjoyed her time in the Italian capital – she even squeezed in an open-topped bus tour with her coach Claire Curran.
Fraid I can’t divulge any of the topics visited when the gossiping got under way. They’d close us down… I can divulge, however, that Venus Williams’ dog Harold has been seen on site, been ferried from court to interview room to hotel and back again in his very own travel bag.
For the wee fella’s sake, let’s just hope it’s waterproof…
