Day 7: A good day to have a grounds pass.

The action at Ashe today was pretty straightforward, but it was on the outer courts where you would have found a couple of five-setters and a few upsets yesterday.

Starting with this guy:



This is Ernests Gulbis. Never heard of him? That's ok, I hadn't either until TTW member Starlite requested some pictures of him from people actually going to the open. He is from Latvia. He just turned 19 on August 30. He is currently ranked 88, but has been as high as 79. And last night, he took out #8 seed Tommy Robredo. In straight sets. Now, Disco Tommy has been struggling of late, but this is still a pretty big upset. These guys also provided entertainment well into the night as they didn't even take the court until around 11pm. And they were scheduled as part of the day session!

The delay was in part to the many five set matches that took place on the men's side yesterday. David Ferrer took five to defeat David Nalbandian; Chela won in five over Ljubicic (who still can't find GS success), and Stan the Man Wawrinka took five sets to dismiss American Robby Ginepri, who, despite the loss, seems to have finally found his tennis again. And I don't know what they have in the water in Switzerland, but Wawrinka's backhand, just like Roger's, is a thing of absolute beauty.

There are a lot of Spanish and Latin American players still in the men's draw...proving that those players have made the adjustments needed to play on hardcourts as well as they do on clay. Now, if the Americans could only do the same thing and transfer their hardcourt knowledge to clay! Anyway, two countrymen battled over what was Hewitt's spot in the draw, with Juan Monaco edging out Augustin Calleri. Nadal's knees looked pretty good as he took out Tsonga, who just seemed content to have made it to the third round. Djokovic defeatead Juan Martin del Potro in a night match that was...kinda dull. Both night matches on Ashe, featuring Henin and Djoko, held no surprises.

Oh, and there is one more five setter I'm forgetting! Carlos Moya continues his stellar season and play with a five set win over Philip Kohlschreiber of Germany. The old man can still play!

The highly anticipated match-ups of V. Williams/AnaIvo and S. Williams/Maid Marion ended up being a cake-walk for the sisters. I was surprised, and more than a little disappointed. We had the French Open runner-up and the Wimbledon runner-up fold like day old sandwiches. They didn't believe, so they lost and lost pretty quickly.

The seeds in men's doubles are falling as fast as they did on Saturday in the women's draw. Melo/Sa defeated Bjorkman/Mirnyi (what is up with them this year?), and Aspelin/Knowle took out the last team to beat the Bryans, Erlich/Ram. I would pencil in a Bryan/Bryan and Knowles/Nestor final, but I'm almost afraid to!

The women's doubles were not completely without upsets either. Molik/Santangelo are out. Stubbs/Peschke are hanging on, though, and took three sets to defeat Hantuchova/Hingis. With the #1 seeds out, I would say it is for Raymond/Stosur to win or lose, but there are still a few teams lurking about that could give them trouble.

The juniors also got underway yesterday, and A-Rad's little sister, Urszula, is the #2 seed in the girl's singles draw. Look out Williams...there may be a new sister act in town!