That was the question I had been asking myself this entire week. The Sofia Tennis Open is happening this week in the Bulgarian capital, and I happen to live there. I have been visiting the tournament a couple of times in the past years, but my initial thoughts this year were not to go.
Why? I have no idea to be fair. I mean, I'm now on Scorum, so when this sort of sports event comes by you should do your best to go right? I would normally do that, regardless of which sport it is. Strangely enough, I couldn't find the mood or the will to go. Until a couple of days ago Daniil Medvedev showed up at the company I work for. I wrote a post about this already if you haven't read that yet.
It was then when I started to wonder myself, "Why do I not go this year?" Tonight I checked the results of the quarter-finals and I noticed that Matteo Berrettini won against Fernando Verdasco. Based on my tennis knowledge and history I would have preferred Verdasco to win and potentially see him play. Roberto Bautista Agut, the winner of the tournament a few years ago would for sure reach the semi-final, at least that is what I would expect in his match against Márton Fucsovics. However, it turned out that Bautista Agut is injured, and he was unable to play today. The first time I had seen his name I had to laugh out loud, I couldn't believe what I was reading. Apart from that I actually don't know anything about this player. On Saturday Berrettini and Fucsovics will face each other for a place in a prestigious final of an ATP tournament.
Good for them, but in all fairness, this wasn't the semi-final match I was hoping to see. I became happier when I saw the other semi-final line-up. My new friend Daniil Medvedev managed to qualify for it as well after beating Martin Klizan in two simple sets. After shaking his hand, I'm excited to see him play live. The last quarter-final was between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Gaël Monfils. Tsitsipas is becoming more and more known to the wider audience and is a high-quality talent of whom we will much more in the upcoming years. Monfils is on the ATP Tour for a long time already and doesn't need much introduction to those who follow tennis a little bit. His energetic style of play has always interested me. It's certainly not the best, but it's extremely entertaining to watch. My wife also likes watching him play for the same reason.
Monfils won, and that was the moment for me to stand up and speak to my wife. We both had a tough day at work today and had expressed our feelings of it to each other a bit earlier. I told her that I found the perfect way of cheering her up. Of course, she asked what it was, and I looked at her, already knowing she was going to smile after I would tell her. "Well, how about we go and watch Monfils live tomorrow?" There it was, the expected smile. The answer was yes, just like when I asked her to marry me! Mission accomplished.
I went on the internet and purchased the tickets. We'll be watching both semi-finals, as well as one of the semi-finals in doubles. So, besides all the football betting, and visiting Ikea, our Saturday is going to be filled with tennis.
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