Post by Annie on Jun 28, 2005 20:07:56 GMT 3
Madrid Report 2003
By Susan
Please do not reproduce elsewhere without her permission- thanks!
We saw Marat practice before his match against Bjorkman- nothing too demanding, a lot of baseline work and a short volleying practice...he hardly broke sweat. During the match he seemed very comfortable on his backhand side so obviously his wrist was not troubling him.his forehand was a different matter though and he made a number of unforced errors ( if you saw the match you'll know all this already!) He was back to his old entertaining self though, questioning line calls and being completely aghast when he was foot faulted about four times..his reactions were so funny...classic Marat.Even though he lost the match it was so lovely seeng him play live again.My friend and I DID notice when he changed his shirt ( not that we were looking closely of course ;-) ) that he had a tattoo at the top of his left shoulder!! Now I don't know if its a real one or not...we were too far away to tell. But it looks like maybe some initials, or a Chinese character or something similar.I wonder if he had it done during his break? Has anyone else noticed it ??
The day after his defeat, we saw him practice for about an hour with Carlos Moya ( yeah..that was really tough to watch ;-) He then spent another hour out there with Denis and another guy doing the most demanding training session...honestly it was unbelievable. Lots of sprinting and running practices, sprinting to the net and running backwards to the baseline, over and over again.Then lots of side-stepping drills and then they laid out a load of tennis balls over the court and poor Marat had to sprint to each one in turn, pick it up then sprint back to the baseline to put the balls down. he then did a practice which involved Denis throwing balls just over the net and Marat had to sprint from the baseline to try and catch the balls on the bounce then go back to the back of the court! I felt faint just watching him! After an hour of this Marat went and sat down and looked like he couldn't move! He was saturated with sweat and looked dead beat...poor lamb.They called it a day after that, but Marat still had time to sign for some girls who like me had stood watching in amazement for a couple of hours!! He also gave his extremely sweaty towel to one of them.
By Susan
Please do not reproduce elsewhere without her permission- thanks!
We saw Marat practice before his match against Bjorkman- nothing too demanding, a lot of baseline work and a short volleying practice...he hardly broke sweat. During the match he seemed very comfortable on his backhand side so obviously his wrist was not troubling him.his forehand was a different matter though and he made a number of unforced errors ( if you saw the match you'll know all this already!) He was back to his old entertaining self though, questioning line calls and being completely aghast when he was foot faulted about four times..his reactions were so funny...classic Marat.Even though he lost the match it was so lovely seeng him play live again.My friend and I DID notice when he changed his shirt ( not that we were looking closely of course ;-) ) that he had a tattoo at the top of his left shoulder!! Now I don't know if its a real one or not...we were too far away to tell. But it looks like maybe some initials, or a Chinese character or something similar.I wonder if he had it done during his break? Has anyone else noticed it ??
The day after his defeat, we saw him practice for about an hour with Carlos Moya ( yeah..that was really tough to watch ;-) He then spent another hour out there with Denis and another guy doing the most demanding training session...honestly it was unbelievable. Lots of sprinting and running practices, sprinting to the net and running backwards to the baseline, over and over again.Then lots of side-stepping drills and then they laid out a load of tennis balls over the court and poor Marat had to sprint to each one in turn, pick it up then sprint back to the baseline to put the balls down. he then did a practice which involved Denis throwing balls just over the net and Marat had to sprint from the baseline to try and catch the balls on the bounce then go back to the back of the court! I felt faint just watching him! After an hour of this Marat went and sat down and looked like he couldn't move! He was saturated with sweat and looked dead beat...poor lamb.They called it a day after that, but Marat still had time to sign for some girls who like me had stood watching in amazement for a couple of hours!! He also gave his extremely sweaty towel to one of them.
