Goodbye Gulbis!

The always entertaining Ernests Gulbis is quickly turning into one of my favourite players on the tour, so I was disappointed that he lost to Soderling in the first round of the Rogers Cup.

I really enjoyed watching Gulbis practice this week in Toronto, as it was one of the only practice sessions I attended where the coach was actually making the player do drills, as opposed to just hitting with another player. It was a brutally hot day with on-court temperatures apparently reaching 42°C (that's 107.6°F), and it was interesting to see the coach putting Gulbis through a tough workout while also trying to pump him up and motivate him the whole time. I was waiting for some sort of Safin-like meltdown or a racquet smashing frenzy, but although it was clear that Ernests was hot and tired, he kept smacking that ball—and let me tell you, he hits really, really hard. 


Here are some photos of Gulbis practicing...