Cincinnati Highlights Day 1

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know there are a lot of nice bum shots of the men, so in deference to J.D. and all of the straight dudes out there reading, this Lisicki photo is for you. We saw the happy German practicing at the Western and Southern Open, Cincinnati Masters in 2013. You’ll see more of her in the full report of this tourney, but for now we’re just hitting on a few of the highlights of Saturday, Day 1.

Before we move on, though, I will say that Sabine does not just smile in her matches–she spent a lot of time grinning during this practice as well. Especially after a hilarious little squeak when she badly missed a cone on the court she was aiming for–and even moreso after her coach helpfully kicked the cone over to help her out. #cheater

Everyone got really excited about the unusual practice pairing of Aga Radwanska and Benoit Paire that was listed on the schedule–that is, until everyone realized Aga was still in Toronto. Turns out that Cincy mistook Radwanska the Younger for her big sis, and we were treated instead to Urszula and Benoit. This paring was not so unusual after all, for the two took the workout very seriously and seemed to mesh pretty well on the court.

Three cute things about Benoit at practice:

1) He is very polite. Every time he hit a shot *slightly* off to Ula, he quickly offered her a regretful “Aww, sorry!”

2) Yes, he even thuds his racquet in frustration on court in practice, over the tiniest of mistakes. However, no racquets were permanently harmed in the making of this practice session, thankfully.

3) Over on the next court, Benneteau very clearly wanted to harass Benoit at one point, but when he saw his young French cohort was Very Seriously Working, he smiled and backed away, no doubt saving his evil plans for teasing Ben until a more opportune time. Tursonov did not have the same scruples. All I’ll say is that there may have been a towel scarf and cheek-kissing involved.

Later in the afternoon, things started to heat up. The sun came out from behind the clouds, temperatures rose, and a substantial crowd of fangirls swooned as David Ferrer pulled off his shirt. As you can see here, he got a kick out of the simultaneous sighs of pleasure from the ladies in da house.

His sparring partner for the day, the luscious Tommy Robredo, was not amused by Daveed getting all the love. So he promptly went shirtless as well, and all the suddenly-forgotten husbands in the crowd started good-naturedly grumbling about the beefcake on the court showing off for the totally-loving-it ladies.

“I’ve clearly lost you,” J.D. said to me, as he noticed I was also taking pictures of the *next* court over, because there was a shirtless Juan Monaco showing off his incredible muscles. J.D. left me for Angelique Kerber and, 2000 pics later, I left the Spanish boys for a closer look at Pico.

He’s whistling in appreciation at his own hotness. Well, really, it was after an awesome winner by his practice partner Baghdatis, but ya gotta think the boy knows how yummy he is. But he has appreciation for others as well, as he stuck around to watch Tommy Haas practice when it was the German’s turn to take the court. J.D. (who had returned from Kerber-ogling) surmised that Pico was waiting to see Tommy shirtless.

You might want to sit down before you click that picture. Or perhaps lie down. And cancel anything else you might have planned for the day. Seriously.

Now that you’ve gone comatose with lust (or are sitting and wondering “where the hell are those Kerber pics J.D. was snapping?), I’ll just leave you there and we’ll catch up again tomorrow. Please keep tuning in to the blog because there’ll be more about Day One, which also included Berankis, Vekic, Dimitrov, and more!

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PHOTOS: c2013 Valerie David for TennisInsideOut.com