Three Setters For Everybody

Rowan here. Awesome day of tennis at the Heineken Open today. All eight second round matches went to three sets, it was tennis heaven.

Juan Martin del Potro got tested by Ernests Gulbis but came through all right in the end. With all the Gulbis hype I forgot how good del Potro is. He did win 23 matches in a row last year after all. In a rematch of last year’s final defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber narrowly beat Juan Carlos Ferrero in a third set tiebreak under the lights. A bit tragic for all you Ferreroholics out there, but it was a heck of a match. 2008 champ Phil has 2007 champ Dave Ferrer in the quarterfinals, should be a good fight.

The Americans are still putting in a good showing, with easygoing Sam Querrey and tall John Isner both in the quarterfinals. Isner beat Robby Ginepri in, guess what, a third set tiebreak. He’s so huge. Fellow American Bobby Reynolds put up a good fight against third seed Robin Soderling before going down in three. When the crowd realised that there was a tennis player on centre court who was actually named Bobby, and that he was an underdog, they went wild. Cries of “Come on Bobby!” and “Let’s go Bobby!” soon became shortened to “Yeah Bobby!!” and then simply “Bobby!!!” every time he won a point or needed to win a point. He was popular, it is a good name. I was surprised umpire Gerry Armstrong didn’t start saying “Advantage Bobby", but he controlled himself and kept to the etiquette.