Moscow Memoirs (Kremlin Cup 2007 Report)

[Annie]

THE FOLLOWING REPORT AND ALL PHOTOS ARE A SOLE PROPERTY OF TGFR, FRANCIS, DIANNE AND MYSELF AND ARE NOT TO BE REPRODUCED ANYWHERE WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION. THANK YOU

I apologize in advance for such a great delay but unfortunately life brings its own scenario along most of the time. We hope this report meets your expectations and was worth a wait. Comments in red are done by frensje ;D Enjoy everyone

Woooooooweeeeee, it’s finally here !!!!

First of all, I would really like to thank Anna and Lena for the warm welcome in Moscow! It was a true pleasure to meet you and I hope (and actually already know for sure ) that it wasn’t the last time !

And ofcourse: Diane, it was so nice to meet you too! We had a great time and I wish that one day, I can come over to Down under to meet you there!




Avalon, Frensje and Annie do Moscow
2007 Kremlin Cup Diaries


Preface

It all started on a cold rainy afternoon on October 5, 2007. I hopped on a train and headed to the Domodedovo airport in Moscow to pick up Guest number 1 – Francis (frensje). It’s a real shame how unlucky the girls were with the weather. Three weeks before and a week after their visit it was dry and warm and rather pleasant actually but the whole week of Kremlin Cup was unbearable: freezing with terrible winds, rain and even snow sometimes. But I am sure our Olimpiyski adventures compensated for all the inconveniences. Well I am getting ahead of myself here so lets go back.

I arrived at the airport and the first thing I saw in the arrivals area were two guys holding up a Kremlin Cup sign. Things were starting to get interesting already, I thought hoping to get a glimpse of some players while waiting, and made my way to stay close to the guys. First person to approach them was Patty Schyder and hubby followed by Emilie Louis. Here is when something typically Russian happened. Both guys decided to walk the ladies to the car and simply abandoned the airport for some time. Just then Janko Tipsarevich and one of the tournament umpires, Emanuel Jose, walked out and started looking for Kremlin Cup representatives. I still don’t get why one of the guys couldn’t stay behind but anyway. Poor Janko and Emanuel stayed roaming around the airport desperately seeking the officials until ten minutes later they appeared again and things were sorted. Just five minutes after that a gorgeous curly haired girl with blue eyes walked out and started heading towards me – the mad Francis herself rolling a huge bright red suitcase behind her. We hopped onto a train into town and started chatting. I must tell you that we stopped chatting 10 days later when I put her on the same train but in the opposite direction LOL.

2 tube line changes, 5-6 staircases and about 100 swear words later (rush hour in Moscow underground with a suitcase can be a real pain, but taking the taxi would have been suicidal on a Friday night) we arrived at the hotel, checked in and were joined by our darling friend Lena. After receiving gorgeous gifts from Holland I unfortunately had to leave Fran in Lena’s good hands as my cousin was getting married the morning after and I had to take off for the countryside that night for the upcoming celebrations.

Ooooh, yeah! Getting on the metro with a huge suitcase is a nightmare! Especially all those staircases, lol, but we made it!!! The hotel was good, and with a perfect view ( 21st floor ). After Anna left, Lena and I did some more talking and went for dinner ( a very bad sushi dinner in the hotel … Next time I’ll be there, we’ll go to a proper sushi place! ) and we did a night tour in Moscow city, and it was already gorgeous… with all those pretty lights on the buildings…. Already breathtaking!

On Saturday Lena and I met again, now doing the usual sight see! We went to the red square and the St. Basil Cathedral which was truelly amazing!!! What a gorgeous Cathedral was that! And…. woohoo, I bought myself a very sweet tennis t-shirt from Bosco, with a tennis Cheburashka on it …. After buying it, I was happy and dancing like a little kid!

We were reunited again on Sunday morning when Francis and I took a walk around wet and cold centre of Moscow and visited some tourist places like Old Arbat and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. I had to abandon my guest yet again for a few hours during lunch due to some previous arrangements and when we saw each other in the evening – it was the three musketeers together at last. Dianne (Avalon) had arrived earlier in the afternoon, so we were a full house ready to rock the city. After a nice evening stroll in the Red Square and Tverskaya street we settled in a pretty Italian Restaurant for dinner and a wonderful chat about everything and nothing. Hours flew by, we took another walk after dinner and at around midnight headed our separate ways to recuperate strength for our first tennis day the next morning.


Day 1. Let the fun begin

Now I must tell you people that I am a very punctual person, it drives many people insane how always on time I am but this week something had happened in the stars and almost every single meeting Francis, Dianne and I set up – I was always late for it for one reason or the other, it was incredible! So Monday morning started with me getting stuck in a huge traffic jam on the way to the tube station so I was really late and the girls had to wait around. By about noon we finally managed to get to the stadium and decided that there weren’t that many exciting matches going on just yet as mostly there were qualifications wrapping up. So I took the ladies around the stadium and showed all the strategic places, cafeterias, etc. At 1 am we headed to watch a rather interesting doubles match: Daniel Nestor/Nenad Zimonjic against IgorAndreev/Yuri Schukin. It was quite a fun game and we admired the view from our front row seats trying to adjust our cameras and just enjoy the show. After the match was over we switched courts and joined Dianne in her patriotic outburst to go and support Alicia Molik. Halfway through the match Francis and I decided to walk out and take a stroll around. I also heard that Kolya Davydenko was about to have an autograph session so I wanted to take some pictures for Noemi’s website and myself, which we successfully did. Afterwards we were also rewarded by Mitya’s appearance in the VIP area signing for kids and other fans, so we managed to take a few shots of that too. We were so excited to see him that Francis actually forgot she wanted to get her photo with him signed. But I assured her we would get many more chances in three days. To Australia’s great delight Alicia came out a winner and we happily headed to lunch to a strategically well placed cafeteria near the players stadium entrance.

Igor/Yuri doubles match:







Some Alicia pictures:



Kolya fotoshoot/autograph session:




Dima ( wearing a really cool sweater ):





Just as we were munching away on our pizzas and salads I turn my head and here he comes, the man that brought us altogether and that has been the object of our nervous breakdowns for the past few years – Mr. Marat Safin. Smiling widely, wearing a very trendy black trench coat, he immediately became the centre of attention, as always. He saw us all sitting together and nodded, so we all got up and went to say our hellos and to take some photos with the big guy. While I was there having my picture taken with him a certain commotion started behind my back and I heard and saw all the girls laughing. But since I couldn’t really move with Marat’s arm around me I was not seeing what was happening. Later everyone told me that Mitya ran up to Marat and started joking around pulling him by the arm and asking for an autograph and God bless Dianne who managed to take this really funny and sweet at the same time picture of the three of us. Priceless stuff.

That moment was really priceless indeed! You can really see the “WTF just happened” expression on Marats face, while we were laughing so hard !
Thank god the moment was captured




Marat with Lena


Francis and Marat



And for the priceless stuff ;D




After all the action died down as the boys left we returned to our now cold lunch and as you can imagine spent a good hour or so blabbing away about our encounter. We also saw Zhenya Korolev pass by talking to Vera Zvonareva and had our pics taken with the little one. Later on we roamed around the VIP area waiting for DiMarat’s match and just watching players go by and managed to take a pic with Amelie Moresmo whom I really really like, so I was very happy. Lena finally managed to fulfil her dream and have a long chat with Enric Mollina and we took absolutely great photos with him, such a daring!









Nastya Myskina ;D



We were heading to grab something to eat, when fate gave us another great gift. Marat and Mitya, both with Hernan Gumy and Vitaly Gorin correspondingly came to hit a few balls on the nearby court which was free. Life was grand ;D They played, fooled around, then got serious and worked a bit their shots. We just sat there oblivious to the rest of the world and watched, it was wonderful. When they had finished their warm-up and left


DiMarat practice session:





DiMarat match was great, a drool fest at its best. They didn’t play that spectacular to say the least but I think none of us could care less. Men in Black were hot and that’s all that mattered at that very moment (how bad! LOL ) At this stage we were joined by another friend of mine (Irochka - mer from MTF), who lost her LIVE tennis virginity at that point as this was her first ever live Marat encounter, I praise myself for that he he. The good thing was that they won and that meant that we actually had hope to see them EVERY day out of three days we had tickets for. Things were getting better by the minute. We also attended the last match of the day on Centre Court, which was Radek Stepanek against Teimuraz Gabashvili and afterwards went to a sweet little place near the stadium with Russian cuisine for a nice dinner. Tomorrow promised higher quality tennis and new encounters with our favourites.


Doubles picture and drooling fest :

[Annie]

Day 2. Happy Day

Tuesday morning I was mega late for a change as was trying to transfer Francis’ and Di’s photos from their memory cards onto my computer and a disk later. Took me ages to do that so the girls found their way to MacCafe near Olimpiyski (that place became our headquarters until the end of the week), where we met up almost an hour later than planned. By the time we got to the stadium it was noon and Paul Henry Mathieu had already defeated Grosjean 6/2 6/2, so we went straight to one of the minor courts and watched a little bit of Jose Acasusos first round match half way through which I went to the Centre Court to watch Kolya/Tsonga and the girls joined me later having taken a peek at Dinara’s doubles match on the way.

Kolya’s match was good fun because at times Tsonga gave him a really hard time, however the difference in class was too obvious and a stronger man won.

Kolya- Tsonga match:








Mo umping ;D


Grosjean watching ;D






Sasha was there too ;D:


After the match a whole delegation went out on court because there was something wrong with hawk-eye






We then headed to another court to see Misha and Tipsarevic play doubles together and they unfortunately lost the match.




While Anna was cheering for Misha and Janko, I was doing my patriotic duty : Michaella Krajicheck was playing also at the Kremlin Cup, and I was cheering for her, at first at her singles match (while her coach and her doubles partner were sitting behind me, noticing I was cheering for her in Dutch and asked me if I wanted to come and do the same in their doubles match

Here are some pictures from both singles and doubles:







We peeked to another court to see Igor Kunitsyn play Diego Hartfield and were really surprised to see Chucho and his girlfriend in the stands. They were very cute hugging and smooching away ;D

Some pictures of that match:






After that we decided it was time for a lunch break because we all know how much strength Marat’s matches take from us and his singles game followed by Mitya’s match were getting closer by the minute. Having stuffed ourselves and meeting Irina Davydenko with her girlfriends at a table across from us (she was incredibly sweet, recognized me and waved and said hello and all) and being joined by Irochka from MTF again we headed for the torture. And that is when I got a serious feeling of déjà vu. Last year me, Annette and Lena were in exact same situation. Waiting for Marat’s singles match, which was getting mega delayed by Masha Kirilenko and Francesca Schiavone.
This year Masha decided to make Marat wait yet again. Too bad that unlike last year she lost this time.

Some pictures of Masha's match vs. Radwanska:








On the way to Masha's match I came across someone who would make Patxy smile from ear to ear ;D




And it was finally Marat’s turn to get out on the Centre Court.

It was definitely not the best Marat match, he made tons of mistakes and the young Matsukevich who had nothing to lose kept applying the pressure on him. But all is well that ends well and class and experience took over in the end and the victory was sealed in straight sets. Our spirits were higher but we still had Mitya on the agenda, so cheering gear was at the ready. Misha Zverev wasn’t about to go down easily and quietly, it ended up being a three-setter with a few heart attacks along the way but the winning streak of our favourites was prolonged by the blondie so the day ended on a high note. It also ended very very late, we didn’t even go for dinner, but headed home to fall into our beds.

Marat's 1st round match:





Some red undies


Dima's match:

[emma]

Thanks a lot naughty and naughty ;D

[Annie]

Day 3. Blondie goes down but DiMarat still standing

Wednesday was mega crazy tennis wise. The schedule looked absolutely great and we realized from the start that we will have tons of running to do to change courts and see some matches. We met up with some girls from the Russian tennis forum and had a lovely coffee at MacCafe (that was actually a day when I was on time!!!) and off we were. I was a bit upset because I had planned to do something for my favourite umpire Mo Lahyani and didn’t manage. There is a little Mo fan club on MTF and the girls made this really wonderful collage consisting of our photos with Mo taken during various tournaments all over the world. So I had to print it out and frame it and give it to him. But no bloody printing shop would print from Word, I spent two whole hours trying to do it in the morning but didn’t succeed. I gave up in the end thinking I would try and find another way to pass it on until the end of the week.

Once we entered the stadium we ran up to the schedule stand because up until that moment we had no idea whether DiMarat would play or not since Mitya finished his singles match at almost 1 am the day before. We were extremely surprised to find out that not only were they playing but they also had an afternoon match and before that Mitya was supposed to play his second round singles match! We thought that was pushing it a little, he must have been exhausted.

We first decided to see a little bit of Mathieu – Kunitsyn on Court 1 since we had missed PHM the day before. The match finished rather fast and I headed to centre court to watch Amelie while the ladies decided to take a walk around and watch some Bartoli and join me later. Amelie started off well but towards the end it seemed like she was not on court at all. An obscene amount of unforced errors quite evidently led to her loss in the first round unfortunately.

Some Amelie and Vera in action piccies:











We stayed on centre court because next up was Misha Youzhny against Gulbis. Not the most exciting match of the tournament but at least Teddy won.

From the match:
















We decided that Lena and Sveta would have to win their respective matches without us because we were incredibly hungry and headed for lunch to our favourite strategically placed cafeteria. And once our mouths were stuffed with crab salad I turned around to see Hernan Gumy walking towards the locker rooms and a few seconds later Marat followed him. A daily smile and a nod towards us followed and Francis still chewing on her salad started to try and get a present she got for him from Holland out of her bag. She finally managed and finally gave it to him (we saw him every day but all the time she forgot she had it in her bag LMAO …that’s what Safin does to your brain, or what’s left of it). Francis brought Marat a lovely book on how to climb a mountain, so I think it might come in handy for the big guy in the future.

Ummm, hun… Have to interrupt in here ... Think your memory failed a bit out in here, cuz this happened on tuesday (remember… we were both wearing our new bought Cheburashka tennis t-shirts ;D! Gave it before he had to wait sooooooo long for his 1st round singles match …. Boy, did he had plenty of time there to read it, haha !

Ah well..getting old LOL. Here is a pic of you giving the pressie ;D



Once fed and happy we headed to court 1 to try and catch a glimpse of Lena Dementieva playing Patty Schnyder but unfortunately we got there too late only to see smiling Lena happily walk off the court having unexpectedly easily beaten Patty in straight sets. We took our front row seats and prepared for Stepanek/Tursunov. Then Dinaras doubles match was up on the same court to be followed by DiMarat. Considering Court 1 is rather small and doesn’t have many good seats we decided that at least one of us will always stick to Court 1 and keep the seats for the others for the doubles match.







So Mitya kicked off pretty confidently even though you could see he was really tired. But he took control from the start, made very few mistakes and within half an hour won the first set. We were happy; his whole team was happy, nothing betokened trouble. However in the second set things started getting tricky. Mitya looked more and more tired by the minute, started putting more and more balls out and before we knew it he had lost the match in three sets. He looked absolutely guttered, and we all felt like running there and giving him a huge hug but decided against it in the end since we had at least one more match we really wanted to see so hassles with security were not on the agenda LOL.

Poor Dima , it was so sad . But he did satisfy us ( well, at least me ) with a shirt change during the match ... And Mo was umping, so Anna was very pleased as well










THE SHIRT CHANGE ;D :






I took pics as well ;D







After having taken a tea/coffee/potty break during Dinara’s doubles match (sorry girl LOL) we then settled for a DiMarat performance.

We did watched it (a bit ) and they won easily






To Lena’s great delight the umpire of the match was Enric Mollina so it was triple the fun for all of us. They took off to a rather shaky start mostly due to the fact that Mitya was still feeling very down and gloomy. But Marat will not be Marat if he didn’t take the lead in that situation. He helped Mitya in any way he could, during changeovers he was joking and talking to him, trying to encourage his partner. Luckily for us all Marat’s charm doesn’t only spread on women and some moments later Mitya managed to relax and get into the game finally. He started to serve well and hit some good volleys. He was smiling and joking about with Marat more often during changeovers now and they finally started to look like they were both enjoying themselves. Once that happened – a win was a technical matter. After the match was over Marat made us all laugh yet again. The exit from the court they played on is very tricky – it gets you out bang in the middle of the VIP zone and it is quite far away from the locker rooms, so you can only imagine what would have happened if he came out with all those people there. So what does the smartass do? He climbs over the barrier of the court and went out from the back way…the security guards didn’t expect that to happen so one of them raced after Marat and while climbing over the same barrier fell flat on his face LMAO. That was absolutely priceless, all the stands were just in hysterical giggles. It was obviously easy for Marat to climb that thing due to his height but the security guy was just shorter…a lot shorter, so it looked totally funny.

Doublesmatch, round 2
Some enrique, especially for Lena



Synchronized stretching












Some of my match piccies too ;D






The day finished with the final match on Centre Court. Andy Murray played Zhenya Korolev. We did our best to cheer for the little one, and he fought like a man but obviously Andy is a player of a much higher class so he won pretty easily.

Some pictures of the Zhenya - Andy match :












Little Zhenya indeed fought like a big (and later I found out an already very well built & developed) man, and it was a bit sad to see him lose :’(. As I already mentioned… during one of the breaks, Zhenya decided to give us a heart attack, by doing a shirt change! OMFG!!!!!! Does that boy has a great body … Anna didn’t dare to click away (his parents were sitting in his box and she felt a bit strange to capture that yummie moment as a granny, while his parents were there , but me wasn’t embarrassed to do it at all *angel* so I clicked away …. But i have to admit , while doing that, i felt a bit pervy (not that THAT stopped me or so )

And this was the result :









Some other piccies from the day








Our pleasant encounters ;D






We managed to send Di to take a picture with Mitya...after about half an hour of pursuation ;D








Our day was over and unfortunately Kremlin Cup for over for Dianne who had to go back home on Friday and me and Francis were still contemplating whether we should buy more tickets or not. But officially the Kremlin Cup over for the three musketeers. It was sad and later on we realized how silly we were, we didn’t even take a photo of the three of us at the stadium. Ah well…more reason for the ladies to come back I suppose.

[Annie]

Thursday I was back at work and the girls were off for sightseeing very unsuccessfully (but I will leave it to them to tell you stories about that). We did compensate it however with a lovely dinner in an authentic Ukrainian restaurant with hubby and tons of gorilka so at least all was not lost.

The sightsee tour was really a disaster … We were really everytime at the wrong place, wrong time:

-The Kremlin was closed on Thursday.
-Lenins tomb was open till 1pm (and we thought till 3pm, so we went there at 10
minutes past 1….
-Changing the guards : we were told that it was every whole hour, so we got there at 5pm sharp, but then … the only thing we saw was the ending of it, cuz the guards we DONE with the changing at every whole hour.
-IT WAS F****** COLD!!!!!!!!!!!! and there was and icy wind and a lot of rain

After all these little/ big disappointments, we went to Arbat to do some souvenir shopping (which turned out pretty good) and then we had to run to the metro station to meet Anna for dinner… Which was quite a story on itself too .... Man, they really have to shoot the guy who invented 2!!!!! blue lines at 1!!!!!! metrostation .... took us about a half our to find eachother in it (which turned out great for D ;D, who had the time to change into something fancier )

The dinner was yummie, and don’t even let me start about the gorilka, lol (brought a bottle home, which unfortunately is already empty by now) AND … we finally meet the FAMOUS Mr. Annie , who is even better in person then on the pictures! Seeying Anna and Dima together makes you a believer of true love!

Friday while I was slaving away at work and then seeing Dianne off at the airport *sob*
I said goodbye to Diane in the morning which was really strange and no fun at all ! But it was a pleasure to meet her, and you were a real good roomie


Francis decided she hasn’t had enough of tennis just yet and went back to Olimpiyski. So she will tell you all about her day there, including such highlights as Marat kissing Grillotti and other interesting stories LOL.

Yeap! Another day in paradise for me! Anna set up a meeting for me with Masha (from MTF), who had the pleasure of “babysit” me on friday!
I went to the Mc. Café to meet up with Masha. We headed off to the ticketbox (with a lot of money in my wallet for the tickets) to buy me VIP ticket for Friday, and ofcourse 2 tickets for the final on sunday (Anna and I finally made up our minds … We were going to do it !!!!!!!)


The OOP for this day was really promising, and almost all the to be seen matches were on Centre Court, so no running around between courts!

First we went to see Elena vs. Azarenka:





and then I did some running from Centre Court to Court 1

On court 1 there was Dinara playing Vera







And on Centre Court, Janko Tipsarevich was playing Radek Stepanek:







Janko, after defeating Radek


It was time for lunch then , and while sitting there, we saw the guys coming out of the lockerroom.... PRACTICE SESSION ;D
Ofcourse we followed them (not right away, we waited a little while) and saw them practicing on court 2, and to tell you the truth, seeying that, made me a bit scared for the actual match against the Frenchies… Marat was so NOT in the mood for practicing… Think he was practicing for not more then 5-10 minutes and then decided to sit on the chair and play with his cellphone! Hernan decided to hit some balls with Dima (and I was thinking maybe Hernan could replace Marat and play the doubles match with Dima instead of Marat!)






A stripping Hernan ;D (too bad he didn't go further then this ........ )









At the end of the practice session, they had some fun, trying to hit the scoreboard with the tennisballs that were on the court!

The "practice" session was over and we headed back to Centre Court again, to see Serena vs. Vaidisova:









And there was a very nice spectator there too: Kafelnikov



Next we witnessed the best match of the whole tournament: Igor Andreev vs. Kolya Davydenko ( At least, according to me ! What a match was that! Gorgeous rallies and shots, and eventually Kolya won the match (Masha was so sad about it) !

Pictures of THE match of the tournament!!!!!!!

A lot of Igor piccies ;D







And yeah , I did made some Kolya piccies as well...... SOME as in 2





Then THE doubles match was about to start!!! And what a weird match it was. Seeying Grilotti as the umpire was for us the start to get nervous! BAD OMEN !

It did started funny though, with DiMarat entering the court, and then Marat opening his tennisbag, taking out a new pair of shorts, walking off the court ( WHY did he had to walk away for changing his shorts, he just could've done it ON COURT ) and coming back in a new pair while trowing the "old one" to Hernan

Marat was arguing a few times with Grilotti, got a warning kept argueing and there you go, point to the Frenchies (Dima was "annoyed" at one point too , screaming “ROMAAAANOOOOOOOOO” at one time after he made another mistake by telling the ball was in, while it was obviously out) and eventually the kiss was there, it was a funny/ sweet moment!
It wasn’t a really good match, but it was obvious that they were having fun on the court (thank god they didn't let their heads go because of Grilotti's bad umping) and they won: FINALS BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

Some pictures from the match:






The arguement




After the synchronised stretching, we have here: Synchronised drinking :



After the match was over, they signed some balls, which they hit into the crowd… a guy in the area next to us asked for a ball and Marat hit it towards him, BUT … a bit to slow/soft and when the guy tried to catch it, he fell of his chair, LMFOA!
Marat started to laugh so hard and couldn’t stop for like 10 minutes… Every time he looked at the guy… the laughing became even more hysterical! Priceless moment to see Marat laughing like that!





Another long tennis day had finished and Masha and I said bye and I headed off to the hotel, where I had a really nice dinner at my room!

Saturday afternoon even though the weather was absolutely dreadful we finally managed to get Francis into Kremlin and show her around, thank God. After numerous discussions the two of al also decided that we were going back to the stadium for the finals. It took us a while to decide but we thought that it’s not every day that all of us gather for the tourney together and it would be a shame to miss the most important day especially now that DiMarat made it to the doubles finals.

[Alya10]

YAY! Finally the report!
Great stuff girls (as always )
Thanks

[Annie]

Final Day

Sunday morning was something both of us would remember for as long as we live I think. I still haven’t given up on the idea of printing and framing a collage for Mohamed and Francis had something very important to do that morning.

A few weeks before she arrived here through Lena she had ordered a matryoshka (you know those typical Russian wooden dolls that live one inside the other), it was a special order to an artist because this was going to be one special matryoshka: a Marat one. Francis sent photos she wants to use on the dolls and the artist was going to make one for her.

So early morning Sunday we headed to a special market. All would have been well if it hadn’t snowed like mad that day, it was windy and freezing and we were soaked by the time we did all our things in that market, we later headed to a shop and bought Francis a new memory card for her camera and photo paper because I gave up trying to print a collage anywhere and decided to head to the office and do it there. So soaked and cold to our bones we arrived at my office, I did everything, Fran managed to dry a little and luckily for me I had another pair of boots there so I could change. After all of the adventure we finally headed to MacCafe for a well deserved coffee with cake and then it was time for some finals!

You’re so right about that first line, hun!!!! Don’t think I’ll ever forget that mornig…. But, man… were we on a mission or what!!!!! Indeed once again the weather failed out on us again, but it had something special!!!! The snow, us waiting for that Matryoshka guy (btw… the waiting was worth it badly! It’s a masterpiece :

I’m now the proud owner of a striptease Marat matryoshka ) and then the printing for Mo (thank god for the warm air blower in the hall of your office) which turned out very nice!


Ladies were up first and we were absolutely positive we knew the outcome of this match from the very start. How wrong were we! Lena was incredible. It was a great match on the whole with a lot of great rallies and some solid solid plays from both. We had a wonderful time watching it and we were oh so happy to see Lena finally win this title. She had been wanting it for a really long time and considering it was her birthday the day after – this was just a perfect present. Her speech was adorable also, she said she dedicated her victory to Boris Yeltsin – the man who took tennis to a new level in Russia.

It was so not expected (at least, by me) to see Lena win, but I felt really proud of her (with all these ruskies I felt one myself too, cheering my lungs out for the girl! Patriotic me, lol)
Serena’s speech was sweet too, promised to come back next year, and then as a Ruskie, cuz she wanted to be cheered like everyone did for Elena too!

Piccie fest from the ladies final ;D















Ceremony:




After a short break it was men’s final turn. It wasn’t as exciting as the ladies match had been but nonetheless Kolya managed to tickle some nerves. But the end of the second set he started making an incredibly large amount of mistakes, called a trainer and they started massaging his arm. I got really worried about him, his victory was just slipping away from him and by the way he was moving and acting, especially serving, I thought he would not last long. But thank God he managed to pull himself together and win the second set tie-break. I spoke to his wife Irina afterwards for quite a while and she told me he was in such pain he was almost crying after the match, his elbow was really bothering him and if there was a third set – he would have never won. But the fighting spirit (plus a few mistakes from PHM traditionally) did the job and a few moments later Kolya was raising the trophy above his head for the second year in a row and opened himself a door to Shanghai.
















Ceremony:








Mens singles final was umped by Mo so I was determined to go and find the guy in order to give him his presents.
We decided to skip the ladies doubles final and positioned ourselves in now so familiar cafeteria and got some food and drinks before DiMarat and I started keeping an eye on the locker room. Half an hour later I finally saw Mohamed and headed towards him. Presents were handed, showed him the collage and gave him a little bag with some souvenirs from me. He was extremely moved and presented me with a few kisses and hugs, so it was a fair deal LMAO. I really adore the man as a professional and as a person, such a sweet guy. Francis said that apparently while I was gone to see the score of the ladies on the big screen Mo came out looking for me, but I wasn’t there. Ah, too bad. Hopefully will see him here next time.

While we were roaming around waiting for the men’s doubles to start both Marat and Mitya teams were roaming up and down and even Mitya ran past us quite a few times. Francis had her picture taken with Hernan Gumy for her Kremlin Cup collection. At one point some girls were taking a photo with him and Mitya ran up from behind pretending to pull Hernan’s pants down, such a clown!



Doubles final was wonderful, fast, furious and painless. They were determined to win and they did the best they could. Considering more than half of the people had gone home and didn’t stay for the match, we were up in the front row yet again and made the most out of our last match at Kremlin Cup 2007. At one point the opponent’s team during a rally smashed the ball bang into the court and it started flying off into the stands…so you see Marat behind Mitya shouting at the latter “YOUR BALL!” We were cracking up. They were enjoying themselves and it really reflected in their game and the end result. Marat and Mitya were the only active playing Russians who hadn’t won a Kremlin Cup yet and they had the title now. Yeltsin’s widow presented them with their trophies and Mitya said the sweetest speech. He dedicated the win to his parents because this was his first title ever that he had won in their presence. A perfect end to a perfect week. We couldn’t be any happier.




















Arthur Chernov watching ;D








And the Ceremony:












This was the last photo we took during that week. Tired but happy LOL.


Goodbye Kremlin Cup 2007. And hello Kremlin Cup 2008 ;D ;D ;D

P.S. We would like to thank Annette for her constant SMS messages with orders of play for the following day. It is incredible how non-informed people at the venue itself are. Your help was invaluable love, thanks ever so much!

Yes indeed : uncountable (Will give them PERSONALLY ALL to you in May 2008 ;D ) for the updates, hun!!!!!!

We would like to thank Marat, Mitya, Mo, Enric and everyone else who on a daily basis gave us their smiles, nods and hellos. It was highly appreciated.

Very higly appreciated! Still think it's quite strange yet funny though, how easily you get familiar with the fact that they are there, and you see thm so close to you, EVERYDAY ;D ..... God bless the VIP zone

And last but not least we would like to thank Marat for giving all of us an incredible opportunity to meet wonderful people. The three of us had a terrific time together.

See you all next year!!!!

Ofcourse I'll be there hun !!!!! And i think i'll bring another Dutchie then with me too (right, Annabel ??)

[davis]

Wow, what a strategically nice move to post your report once the season is over ;D ;D ;D ;D That was your intention, right? LMAO!!!! ;D ;D ;D

Seriously, fun read! You girls had a great time, I'm glad for you!

And RE the SMS: You are very welcome (especially since Anna did the same for me in St. Petersburg ).

[uranus]

Finally!!!! THANK YOU Great photos and fun to read!

[jenhatter06]

Woohoo!! Report was mucho fun to read ... and thank you a million times for sharing ALL the wonderful and amazing photos!!

[GG]

I was having such a bad day, but you girls put a smile on my face again. Thanks a lot for your wonderful report and great photos. And YES if everything goes as planned, I'll be there next year.

[Giselle]

OMG! THIS WAS SO WORTH THE WAIT!!!! thanks so much the pictures are awesome I wish one day I could join the club and visit over there....

[Alya10]

I already thanked u girls, but I'll do it again, now that I finally finished reading everything
Thanks for making me feel like I was there too
big kiss

[Patxy]

Ahhh crazy girls who made us wait like forever!!
Loved all the adventures you had, some of them thanx to Dima, lol
Thank you so much for the all the pictures, Annie, Francis -including the Artur ones - ..... as usual...... ... ......

[yarina]

thanks for the report and photos;

little question: Cheburashka means "little rabbit", doesn't it?