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Monday, February 07, 2005
toray pan pacific open 2005; reunion dinner at tsurumi
beginning of new week, but already looking forward to the end...
weekend, me pal, calvin and i went to the tokyo metropolitan gymnasium to watch the toray ppo women's tennis tournament. we tried getting the tickets earlier on a few weeks back, but it was sold out. but we decided to go on saturday anyway to see if we get lucky.
the stadium was at the sendagaya station (千駄ヶ谷駅), which is quite close to harajuku. when we reached there at about 1130, what greeted us was a huge crowd waiting in line to get inside. undaunted, we went towards a booth marked at ticketing. a nice family-looking man came and talked to me near the booth. turns out he had tickets he wanna sell, charging the face value only. this was because his family couldn't turn up. so we happily helped him out by getting two 4000 yen (S$64) from him. Poor guy, he looked like he had a few more than 2 tickets extra. hope he manages to sell off everything.
so we went in, booked ourselves some seats (4000 yen are free seating tickets at the furthest end of the stadium), filled up some lucky draw coupons, got some yuckysoba for lunch, and waited for the matches to begin at 1pm. it was the semi-finals on sat, and the first match was between sharapova and shinobu asagoe.
the japanese are crazy about sharapova (who wouldn't be?) but i guess national pride came first, as no one cheered for sharapova during that match, and instead many were urging asagoe on. but of course, maria won.
won't bore you guys with the tennis write-ups, so in short, sat events ended at around 6+. would have been later if not for one of the gals pulling out due to injury, and hence a walkover for one of the doubles matches. this was my first live tennis tournament, and it is indeed a great experience. think this is better than my nba experience, although the crowd is more subdued here.
after that, i went to tsurumi to meet up with some guys and gals at the gals' dormitory. we had an early reunion dinner, with lao yu sheng too! the gals' dorm, although far away from their train station, is much bigger, better equipped and on the whole, seems a nicer place to live in than our dormitory. ah well, i guess the grass is always greener in tsurumi. we had a good fill, and there were plenty of left overs =) more on this dinner can be seen here at my fren's blog... hehe...
on sunday, we went again to the toray open to watch the finals. just couldn't get enough of sharapova.. i mean tennis... =) this time we got tickets from the booth. apparently there were still quite a few tickets left unsold. this time it costed us 4500 yen each (S$72). First i thought maybe the japs are cheapskate like us, 2 matches compared to 4 matches, that's why dun come to watch on that day. then calvin pointed out that no jap players on sunday tt's why. i guess this is the more plausible reason.
anyway, 1st set sharapova won with ease. davenport then called for a medical time-out. jialat... worry worry... what if she decided to pull out, then the day will be over (since she was also involved in the doubles finals). so hoping that our 4500 yen will not last only 30 mins, i prayed for her return.
and return she did, but it was evident she could not run and chase down balls. we expected a 1-sided situation in favor of sharapova, but since she returned from treatment, she did not drop a single serve at all. seems to me that when a part of the body is not working well, other parts function better =p. anyway she was hitting aces like nothing.. kewl... she broke sharapova once to claim the 2nd set. final set, both held on to their own serves and went all the way to a tie-breaker. sharapova finally won the tie-break.
sharapova won... 嬉しかった... but not as happy as i would have been if it had been a fair match. that being said, the results might have been totally different without the injury. well, anyway... =) report is here. more photos on the tournament can be found here. i must add that the amount of pics on sharapova is biasely huge compared to others. not that i mind of course =p
oh yes, calvin won a bath towel from the lucky draw too.. lucky guy...
lindsay and maria
some observations about the japs during the tournament. well they are supposed to be a polite race aren't they? after the singles semis, when sharapova won, they promptly interviewed her and all. but when 4-time champion, world no. 1 davenport won her semi match, they didn't do anything at all. i mean talk about favouritism and courtesy. obviously they have lots of the former, but lack the latter. another thing, the japs are weird in the sense in cinemas, during the credits after a movie, they will sit through the credits politely, no sound, lights still dark and everything, as if the movie is still screening. i guess you can call this being polite as well, appreciating the efforts of the backroom staff of the movie. but, when it comes to prize giving ceremony in the tournament, they all were rushing towards the exit noisily. talk about ill-manners man. seems like winning the doubles match isn't important to the local crowds at all. if i were the champ, i will feel damned insulted by the japs... ah well... another case of insensitivity and mannerisms-a-lacking in the japs.
went to shibuya after that for dinner. when we reached there, we saw a mob of ppl surrounding somebody, everyone with their camera phones were clicking away. wondering who the hooha was about, we went to crane our necks for a look. i thought it might be sharapova =p, but it was a shorter blonde gal. her back was facing me, but when i caught a split second glance, i thot the gal looked a bit like reese witherspoon. calvin said he saw her face and she looked like Anna Feris. we don't know for sure, the crowd was crazy. some jap guy went up to her and grabbed her, while having his fren take a pic of them. i guess that was the last straw for her, as she and her mate high-tailed out of the street into some alley, presumably back to their hotel... gosh another example of rude japanese. anyway as i was reading bryan's blog today, kelly clarkson was in town this weekend, so it might be her too... hell.. all blondes look the same from the back!
again... more pics later...
update: pics!!
outside of tokyo metropolitan gymnasium
posing with trophies
side view of centre court
lovely sharapova (sorry, i don't have a 10x zoom...)
davenport
trophy presentation (the gal in kimono is the toray bikini model 04/05... or so they announced... wonder what she was doing in a kimono then...)
sharapova's acceptence speech
maria and lindsay
last pose with the court (for this year at least!)
posted by winz at 10:20 AM
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