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 Some players wonder: Is there any way out?Continued
Did the up-and-down Granville earn herself re-consideration for a future Fed Cup spot with her performance? Probably. She has a terrific shot to reach the quarters as she'll face Michaella Krajicek, who upset Anna "the Weeping Life" Chakvetadze. Anna C balled hard into a towel after losing the first-set breaker. Granville's all-court game fits nicely into the grass, but she's not exactly a person who brims with confidence. "There are points where you ask yourself, 'Why am I doing this?' " asked former Stanford standout Granville, who didn't win a match on clay this year. " 'Why am I here in the middle of Oklahoma with two people watching'? But I think that's what keeps me going, is I feel like I haven't reached my potential. I haven't played my best tennis yet. So that's why I'm still playing." It's pretty clear that James Blake needs to change his mentality, because week after week, Slam after Slam, it's obvious there's something missing. I could list at least five things off the top of my head, but here's one for those of you who have watched a lot of America's second-best player: When his serve goes off - and he doesn't even have a very good serve - his whole game falls apart. Here's another: He doesn't believe he's really a Top-10 player. If he did, he wouldn't prop every guy who beats him as if they were Fed or Rafa Nadal. Here's another: He's really shaky when he gets close to playing a five-setter, which by the way, he has yet to win. He played a lousy fourth-set tiebreak and then went on and on about how well JC played. Sure the Spaniard is tough, but isn't Blake supposed to be, too? Take it any way you like for Roddick with Ivan Ljubicic going down to Paul-Henri Mathieu 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3: He's happy he doesn't have to face the allegedly elite Croat, or disturbed because Mathieu is streaky and slightly capable of an upset. Jelena Jankovic and Lucie Safarova contested the women's match of the day (apologies Ms. Schnyder and Bondarenko) with the Serb fighting through some bad spots and coming up with a 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-2 win. "At some point I was thinking, 'My God, is there any way out?' " Jankovic asked. Here's a big "grrr" moment from our newest Justine and Kim, live from Serbia, Jankovic and Ivanovic. "I am not really into the swimming pools and everything," Jankovic said. "I don't know why Ana brought this up, and it's nothing to be to proud of, at least from my point of view, because these are the facilities that we have in Serbia when you have to practice there. But I wouldn't be proud to say I'm practicing in a swimming pool. It's just sad that Serbia has such facilities like that and that we don't have many different surfaces and big clubs there so we can practice and big gyms and everything." © TennisReporters.net 2007
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