Day 3: No Gulbis action today. You're probably thinking that this should shut me up for one day. Nuh-uh. I still have a few things to report from yesterday and I really want to clear the backlog 'cuz I'm going to be sick if I don't. I know, it's no longer fresh news and you may not care to know what trivia I have to dish from yesterday but folks, I want to remind you, this is my blog, so I'll do what I want.

In yesterday's post, I did not have the chance to share my thoughts on the match. The play-by-play should come with an analysis, don't you think? Otherwise, it would be like giving you a shoe without the shoelaces. If I wax philosophic, and the ick factor becomes intolerable, well you know what to do. A fellow fan, her name is Camilla, saw Ernie play in Zagreb and afterward wrote a post in the MTF/Ernests Gulbis Thread and I'm paraphrasing her here, that it's easier to watch Ernie lose a match when you are actually there than if you are watching it on tv at home, because you are able to perceive more of what's going on. So true. I certainly saw a lot more than just how fast Ernie's serves were swinging by me. Such as, what happened during the second set that the stats alone could not tell you. You'd probably think he had a walkabout. Not the case. This is what happened: Dent upped his game having lost the first set. This put pressure on Ernie and he got rattled by the pressure. His game became messy. Same high-risk attacking game but with less consistency. You could see that he was trying to figure out how to win the set but couldn't piece it together, thus the acting out. Well, when you're rattled, how can you think straight? Unless you have a few ounces of control over your emotions, which Ernie does not yet have, it's really hard to do. Having seen him with his dad, though only on a few occasions, it's easy to see that he is a well-loved and sheltered child. Of course, I could be wrong about his upbringing but if I am right, this may have given him a more delicate and sensitive temperament, not unlike an artist's. He may have the physique of a modern jock but inside he is a softie. And softies generally don't do well under pressure. He needs to harden up. When and whether this would come to pass is anyone's guess. How then did he manage to win the third set? I can make a guess. Having one set each, the two players were even going to the third set, like starting the match over. At this point, all the bad things that happened during the second set could be forgotten. If you're smart you'll know it's already irrelevant. You start with a clean slate. This probably allowed Ernie to calm down and regroup. And because Dent is not a top-level player, he was not able to sustain the pressure that he put on Ernie in the second set. So Ernie played basically unchallenged. As you can see from the stats, he played a much better third set compared to the first. Serve percentage went up, less unforced errors, better scoreline. If Dent were a better player with a game to pressure Ernie and the toughness to sustain the pressure longer, no chance. Against del Potro? No chance. That's brutal from a fangirl, I know, but I saw del Potro play against Canas who threw everything but the kitchen sink at him last night, still he won. Granted, Canas does not have a game like Ernie's but the guy could think on the court. Del Potro had an answer to whatever Canas did. He is tough as nails. He will have to self-destruct tomorrow if Ernie were to win. So I'll go to the match thinking that I'm there to enjoy watching Ernie play because as Camilla said, there's really no more beautiful player to watch than Ernie when he plays his best tennis.

Before I sign off, let me tell you about my one other Gulbis sighting. I could just tell you straightaway that I passed him by the stairwell and be done with it. But that wouldn't be satisfying, would it? There's as much fun in the telling as in the story itself so let's see if I can work it a little bit. I'll begin with the Racquet Club of Memphis. As a venue for a combined ATP/WTA 500 tourney, it really is quite small. There's the main entrance that opens to a small lobby, then you go through the gift shop, then down a winding staircase to the subterranean floor and through a short corridor that leads to the ticket office, the players' lounge, and the courts. Everyone passes through this way, although the players can enter and exit their lounge area through a separate stairway in the lobby. When the place gets crowded, as at the end of the day session or before the evening session begins, you're practically rubbing elbows with the players in the passageway. Not that the players seem to mind. There's a relaxed atmosphere about the place, such as you'd find in your local sports club. And if you've been to the South of the US of A, you'll know about the famous southern hospitality. So we go back to Vika's match yesterday. As soon as it was over, Ernie and his dad left. I did too because by then I had all the tennis I could take. I was walking a few feet behind them. Then they stopped by the stairwell. It looked like Ernie wanted to go to the locker room and Ainars wanted to get out of there. So Ainars was on the stairs and Ernie was in the corridor. They were going back and forth in Latvian like this when I passed between them to go up to the upper level. Ernie was just a foot away to my right, and I don't know, you can call me stupid but I did not dare turn my head to look at him. I just kept going, straight as a rod. At the landing, I did look down and he was looking up at his dad with this sweet smile on his face, so boyish looking. So now I'm standing by the receptionist's desk in the lobby inquiring about the ride to the hotel. Here comes the father and son. To my surprise, Ainars decided to stop by the receptionist too. Son asks in Latvian, which I can easily guess to be: "What are you doing, dad?" Father says, "Schedule, son." Whoa. They speak to each other in English, too. Then Ernie, now halfway out the door, looking all pouty and impatient and sounding a bit whiny, says what could be, "No dad. Not now. We've got to go. We can ask Karl. He should know." And so they went. If I were with a friend who was not a fan, said friend would have told me then to wipe the silly fangirl smile off my face.