| Wes Moodie from Monte Carlo |
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| Monday, 20 April 2009 16:27 |
 There are worse places to be than Monte Carlo (or Aunty Carlo as my two-year-old daughter calls it). We stayed at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and my room was on the 8th floor and had a rather nice view over the Monte Carlo beachfront and sea. Not a bad place to contemplate life.If your life’s worth contemplating then you can admire the scenery and if it’s not….well you’re on the 8th floor and you could probably end it pretty quick…so….either way the 8th floor looking over Monte Carlo Bay is a good place to be. It was my first tournament with a new partner, Sweden’s Simon Aspelin. I quite enjoyed it although I felt it ended a little too quickly – the second round. We played a really good first round to beat another couple of Swedes Robert Lindstedt and Robin Soderling 6-2, 6-4 but somehow one or two points went against us next time out against seventh seeds Andy Ram and Julian Knowle and we came up a little short 7-6, 6-2. Wednesday night was a big night for us as parents – we left our daughter, Danica, and Kevin Ullyett’s daughter, Jemima, with a babysitter for the first time while we went to the Player Party. It’s the traditional ATP player party which is a talent show of sorts. Standout performances were from Novak Djokovic who was acting as the Hugh Heffner of the ATP. Viktor Troicki and Knowle made some surprisingly sexy girls. Andy Murray admitted to spying on the other players in the showers (I’m quite certain he was joking though!) and Andre Sa did a good imitation of Fernando Verdasco, never straying too far from the mirror while his coach, Rafael Nadal, applied more hair gel at every opportunity. It was a fun evening and Danica did well for her longest time yet away from Mommy and Daddy with a stranger. Nadal won the tournament, (again) and I’m (hypothetically) putting my money on Nadal to win eight French Opens. You heard it here first. I’m currently in Barcelona playing again this week with Simon Aspelin. Should be fun….. Wes |
