Good mornin', fine ladies (and gents). While Melbourne sleeps, I'm creating a quick post to give y'all a place to talk, what with the latest CC thread overflowing the 1,000 Comment mark. So move the conversation over here and let's have a little fun, shall we? In my mind, yesterday's male stars, if you leave out the usual suspects (Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, James Blake, et al) were:
Lleyton Hewitt - All right, he's a marquee name. Still, anybody who posts an identical score to Roger Federer's, goes 2-3 on bagels and gives up just three games in that other set deserves some props, right? Lleyton was asked if there was anything his coach, Tony Roche, was unhappy about after his demolition of Steve Darcis and he replied: Not that I've heard yet. Wait till I get on the court tomorrow...
Hyung-Taik Lee - He hammered Chris Guccione in straights, which was a very solid performance, given that "Gooch" has been playing well and figured as a big crowd favorite. No quotes from HT - dude don't do no stinkin' press in English! Guccione was asked if he had "set himself" to get through the first round this year, and snapped: Are you serious? What do you think I'm doing?
Marat Safin - Ain't no mountain high enough! The emerging winter sports king adapted to the hot weather nicely, beating Ernests Gulbis (with a name like that, he belongs in the next 007 flick) and said of his newfound passion for snowboarding: Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.. .I'm alive, so I think it was good. Snowboarding as a life-threatening sport. Gotta love the drama queens!
Juan Carlos Ferrero - His match-up with Nicholas Kiefer was one of the more compelling clashes of the day, and JC demonstrated that all that talk of a career change a few years ago (Rumor has it that he's been approached to play Jesus in the annual Toledo Easter Passion pageant) was premature. He allowed Kiefer just eight games, 4-3-1