Cincy Diary — Frances Tiafoe, John Isner, Dominic Thiem, Karen Khachanov, Vasek Pospisil, and More!
Welcome to another edition of our Cincy diary, bringing you with us as we relive every moment of thrills, spills, sweat, tears, drama, and hot legs during nine days of a Masters/Premier 5 event. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we did, and do please share the link to this post if you think all your social media BFFs would love to see these, too!
And don’t despair, WTA fans, we’ve got more of the ladies coming up in future editions!
Photographer wish list: Be able to afford two cameras. There’s a reason many pro photogs walk around with two different cameras around their neck. That super zoom lens is extremely unhelpful when Viktor Troicki leaves the practice court and unexpectedly appears right in front of you. Lenses can be changed, but not in one second — unless you’re an android like that Pliskobot we’ve seen roaming the grounds…
P.S. All pics below can be clicked or zoomed to see more detail.
Cruising by the cluster of practice courts 12-15 (formerly 11-14, and yes, we’re still confused by all this) we caught sight of Americans John Isner and Frances Tiafoe practicing together. There was a huge crowd gathered to see the home country faves, but we managed to sneak in to nab a few pics.
It’s often an adjustment seeing players in real life as opposed to the TV, and we’ve got to say that John is one of those guys who looks way younger and more adorbs in person than he appears on the flat screen at home.
Big John and his coach checked out the action on the next court, where Prajnesh Gunneswaran was practicing. The Indian player unfortunately went out in the first round of qualies, but has been doing well overall on the ITF and challenger tours, up to #224 in the rankings from #386 at this point last year (and #861 back in 2015).
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Next up was a ridiculously intense practice session between Dominic Thiem and Karen Khachanov –aka the The Great Austrian Hope of one-handed backhand lovers everywhere: Baby Haasrinka, and the #NextGen star who was currently closest to seeing Sascha’s silhouette in the distance on the rankings: Hot Legs Khachanov.
If tennis balls could scream, it would have been deafening as these two just whipped the ball back and forth with all the strength they had. There was sweating, and grunting, and straining, and we were kinda seriously hoping neither one would blow a tendon before they played their first matches.
Got lots of pics of Dommy and his rippling back muscles today… 😍 #Thiem #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/xDTG7AC8a6
— Tennis Inside Out (@TennisInsideOut) August 12, 2017
There will definitely be more rippling Dommy muscles on the site, this here is just a teaser. Enjoy all the testosterone-filled tennis on display!
In the middle of all that intensity, there’s always a little time for a grin and an extra flash of thigh…
And a moment to go to the towel and catch your breath…
And then back to work…
We told you it was intense!
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In the midst off all this aggressive battling on the practice court, Canada’s Vasek Pospisil was next door in a brutal match against Aussie J.P. Smith.
The perennially rosy-cheeked Vashy just couldn’t seem to get anything going his way, and his North American hard court swing struggles continued as he lost to Smith in this first round of qualies, 4-6, 4-6. (Smith would, incidentally, fall by that same scoreline to Richard Gasquet in the main draw first round.)
That’s it for this installment of our Cincy diary. Stay tuned for more, with upcoming segments featuring Christian Harrison, Ernests Gulbis, Kiki Mladenovic, Julia Goerges, and Tommy Paul!
