sk tennis

Yesterday I’ve visited the ATP tournament in Hamburg (Germany) for the first time. Despite heavy rain I saw really good tennis at the International German Open. Today I uploaded pictures and videos of the semifinals day.

After arriving at the venue I followed the practice sessions of some players on Center Court: Nikolay Davydenko and the doubles teams Marcelo Melo / Filip Polasek and Frantisek Cermak / Michal Martinek. The first match under the closed roof was a Juniors match between the Germans Nico Matic and Lars-Hendrik Behlen which Behlen won.

The first singles semifinal was Paul-Henri Mathieu from France vs. the suprise qualifier Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay. It was a great match with a lot of worth seeing rallies. Cuevas played a strong first set. I was really impressed by his style of playing especially his one-handed backhand. Mathieu played very inconsistant until he broke back in the second set and turned the paper to level the match. But before the third and deciding set was ready to start heavy rain stopped the match. Despite of the closed roof water dropped on court and the stands. But for all that the atmosphere was great. After over a over 30 minute break the match restarted. Mathieu started great in the third set and led fastly with 4-0. But Cuevas turned the paper to level the set to 5-5. Then Mathieu broke Cuevas’ serve again and closed a really good match with 4-6 6-3 7-5.

Nikolay Davydenko & David Ferrer played the second semifinal. The Spaniard Ferrer broke early but Davydenko broke back at 2-5. The Russian played very constantly and won the first set 7-5. The second set was nearly a duplication of the first so Davydenko won 7-5 7-6(2).

Here you can watch all 121 pictures and 9 videos.

Hamburg was the last tournament for me to visit in 2009. Next year I plan to go to WTA Stuttgart for the whole week and some German Bundesliga matches in Berlin.