By Lisa-Marie Burrows
Mutua Madrid Open, Madrid – It was a tale of two different halves in Madrid today, as without a shadow of a doubt, the prize for best press conference this week has to go to the enigmatic Serena Williams who defeated Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-3 and the saddest of the day so far was Fernando Verdasco’s press conference after his defeat at the hands of Tomas Berdych 1-6, 2-6.
Serena Williams entered the press conference bright and breezy and very satisfied with her victory of today as she knew she ‘had to be ready.’
If next year at the Mutua Madrid Open they decide to use fluroscent balls, Serena Williams will be one happy lady as she is currently ‘living in the 80’s’ and with that said she promptly lifted up her leg on the desk to show the media room her bright yellow, fluorescent socks and declared:
“Fluroscent balls?? Hmmmm, interesting. I love fluorescent colours If we had that this year I would be completely excited!!”
(Sorry for the quality of the photo, I was laughing as I snapped a picture!)
Serena recently shot “Drop Dead Diva” and was asked what it was like to be a lawyer, with a smile on her face she laughed:
“I’m not a lawyer, but I’m good at arguing! The show was fun and I hope I did good. I was joking that I’m an Oscar winning actress behind the camera so whenever I give my lines it was unbelievable, but once the camera was on me I got a little nervous.”
On the other side of the happiness in the media room was the sadness felt by Fernando Verdasco. The man responsible for knocking out Rafael Nadal in the last round was clearly subdud and looked tired from the events of the last 24 hours:
“He [Berdych] played a really high level all of the match and physically was tough. Today I didn’t have the energy to play against the quality player like Berdych. One day you can be really happy and the next day something like today can happen.”
The world No.19 lifted his head up on occasion and said that he will try to remain positive after such a great week and look forward to Rome. However one thing that was clearly evident during his match was the amount of empty seats and dismal atmosphere around the stadium, Verdasco suggested maybe it was that the weather was too hot and people prefer to watch it on tv, but then poignantly added:
“I guess if it were Rafa here against Berdych, here there would be more people – because he’s Rafa.”
It was not all doom and gloom for the Spaniard as once again he was questioned about the blue clay and with a roll of his eyes he joked:
“I’m tired of talking about the blue clay. I’ve said it in Chinese, in English, Spanish, in Russian… The difference is only the colour. I respect the decisions and opinions of each player, but the only thing we need to make it better is to be safer for the players, it’s slippery.”
Lisa-Marie Burrows is currently in Madrid covering the Mutua Madrid Open and will be at the Rome Masters next week. Catch her as a regular contributor for TennisBloggers.com and on Twitter: @TennisNewsViews.
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