When you apologise for almost bumping into someone at the tennis and you immediately realise that it is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga heading to the same Centre Court that you are moving to in a bid to watch him play, then it is clear that Eastbourne is putting on a special pre-Wimbledon show for it's fortunate spectators, counting me among it's numbers.
I wished Tsonga all the best, and of course he responded "sure thanks Tony see you for drinks afterwards" but not before I'd witnessed two women's matches on Centre Court. Now my seasons ticket included seats in Centre Court for all days, which also allowed access to the other courts should my presence at any one of them be demanded for a particular reason.
Today and tomorrow my seat is in row G, and for the final 3 days row AA, BB and AA. Now I am used to single letter rows meaning lower deck closer to action and double letter rows upper deck farther away so I was a little disappointed until I found out the truth in this neck of the woods. AA through to DD are the very front rows and instead of plastic seats include cushioned back and bottoms. Thank you very much - now we only need the weather to stay fine. It did today so we are off to a great start.
So is Ana Ivanovic who showed just how much talent she can wield with that racquet as she dispensed in straight sets with German top twenty star of the very near future Julia Goerges. Ana was at her brilliant best returning the dangerous Goerges serve with immaculate passing shots and placement that reduced the follow up shots to sometimes farcical. Julia tried valiantly to compete and become part of the match but this was not her day - there will be plenty of others though and Wimbledon will be yet another step in the learning process. Grass is a surface foreign to most.
Next the moment we had waited for - the return of the best female player in the game for the past decade, and Serena after the expectedly warm welcome delivered in return a first set that was as rusty as an old bucket. Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova played some wonderful shots all over the court and Serena just struggled to put her game back together. The pieces were there but only occasionally. Five games to none and finally the proud younger Williams sister held serve ultimately surrendering the first set 6-1. The match really began to ignite in the second set as Serena exerted her will to dominate, despite the continued fine efforts from Pironkova. A third set was required, and it could have gone either way but a champion finds the way through and almost 12 months down the track from her last tournament, Serena won - just!
Andy Murray had given Jo-Wilfried Tsonga a disappointment with the defeat in the Queens final so it took some guts to front up at Eastbourne the following day to play Denis Istomin in the first round. We received our usual dose from the French talent - booming serve, pace around the court, passion in all his endeavor and many classy tennis shots - the first set over very quickly but to Istomin's credit 7-5 in the second a much fairer reflection of the difference in standard between the two. Still no problem for Tsonga.
Then the only downer for the day - Lleyton Hewitt, in his first outing at Eastbourne, was being thrashed by Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-2 and more of the same, before he called it quits citing an injury. We hadn't noticed anything but he certainly was not playing to the level that one would expect against a clay courter like Rochus. Hope he is OK for Wimbledon, because he already missed Roland Garros.
Lastly, I saw the final stanza of recently crowned French Open champion Li Na winning her match against Austria's Tamira Paszek before England's own James Ward shared sets with Serbian Janko Tipsarevic. Everyone agreed it was a little too dark to continue so we all went back to our homes hotels or wherever, some to come back again tomorrow.
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