Day 4 at USTA Nat'l Clay Courts

Posted by T. A. Niles Apr 23, 2008

The kiss of death is still mine…for the most part. Wilder cruised as expected, and Coulton didn’t have much trouble at all with me either, but almost every other match I predicted went the other way.. I predicted a heck of a match between Fedderly and Eagle, and I was right…for seven games. Fedderly then withdrew due to injury. So much for a fan pleaser.

Another match I predicted to be a “terrific match for the spectators” (Kraut v. Rearte) might have been, but only for the Rearte fans. Kraut went down 1 and 0. I picked Mendel to beat Bucar, and Mendel went down 4-6 in the third. Two other seeds that I picked, Egan Adams and Jeff Clark, were banished to the back-draw down as well. At least Mike Rose made it through as predicted.

You could make a lot of money betting against my picks. It’s absolutely uncanny. I’m going to start a business: Guys are going to have to pay me not to pick ‘em. Too bad it didn’t work against Coulton…

Today’s was the weakest match I have played mentally in a while. Heck, I only saved one measly match point. And the match point that I lost was a great point until the most pathetic attempt at a dropshot you’ve ever seen…unless you saw the one I tried a couple points earlier.

I’ll go at it again in the morning, and I hope to bring more to the table than I did today. There are no easy matches left, so I’m looking for the “A” game to make an appearance. I’m starting to forget what it looks like. If you see it before I do, holla! Game, set, match.