Evening-time tennis

It was that time of the year again: tennis time in Bucharest. 2014 BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy was, among others, a huge reason for me to travel home. I skipped FedCup because of going home for Easter (Romania vs Serbia, our girls won) but Tuesday morning I went to the Tennis Arena to watch some really good games and support my favorites: all the Romanians and Seppi plus Nieminen. I also was very eager to see the evolution of the doubles draw. This year the doubles competition was very strong here in Bucharest.

Andreas Seppi

Unfortunately for me Seppi left the singles competition quite fast but I did have a chance to see him in doubles. Partnering Bracciali he played against Crivoi/Ungur and lost to Murry/Peers. My other favorite, Nieminen, lost in the 2nd round to defending champion Lukas Rosol. The Romanians gave me some joy as 3 of them (Victor Hanescu, Marius Copil and Adrian Ungur) made it to the second round. And of course I waited impatiently to see Horia Tecau play with his new partner Jean-Julien Rojer. I’ve seen Horia so many times and I know him as a player since 2002 so I am very happy when I see him play, he is the reason why I follow doubles in the end. He and his partner in crime are the reason behind some really serious shivering both from freezing and from being nervous: I spent Friday late-evening fighting the cold and the wind to watch them play against Fleming/Hutchins.

Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecau

They didn’t do a spectacular match and were quite disappointed after, yet the small frozen crowd still cheered and supported. The emotions came Saturday when they nearly lost their spot in the final due to some match points that Murry/Peers had against them. Oh my God was the match trilling and scary. At the end of the day my hands hurt from the clapping and I was a bit voiceless from the screaming. Somewhere after saving the match points and launching the game into the tie-break the boys got all of us screaming and got themselves in the final. And on Sunday they defeated “Polish Power” Fyrstenberg/Matkowski to claim the title. 

Grigor Dimitrov

I also witnessed Grigor Dimitrov cruising to his 2nd title of the year and 3rd of his career. In the final he defeated last year’s champion Lukas Rosol. The first set of the final was spectacular and I got to see some really beautiful tennis. In the second set the Czech player lost himself and gave away the set, the match and the trophy to the Bulgarian (who had some strong support from his country men that traveled from Bulgaria to see him play).

I saw some really beautiful doubles matches, players I’ve never seen before like Istomin or Mannarino and all the strong doubles teams, players I know well and enjoy watching, drank plenty of coffee and enjoyed the sweets from Poiana Soarelui. I froze a little bit more than I usually do but still managed to get sunburns. And most importantly: I enjoyed the tennis. You can find more detailed stories in Romanian on my tennis blog by going here.

Game, set, match, championship: Grigor Dimitrov, Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecau.