Farmers Classic/UCLA - Friday, 29 July

Del Potro is halfway between vacation and back into tennis. His first serve was the dead giveaway where he pulled his head down before making contact with the ball way too many times. Probably wanted to put his head down on a pillow and go to sleep. Still it's fun to watch the big man move around the court.

Gulbis was pretty inspired and fired up. I saw him warming up with Canas. I was surprised to see that Gulbis hired someone who was banned from the sport for a time for drug offense. I guess he and his team believe in second chances for those who made wrong turns at some point in their lives. Pretty generous I'd say.

Larry Passos

More fun than watching that match was meeting and talking to Larry Passos during the Belluci / Bogomolov match. He's an intense character. The very stern fatherly type. No nonsense. And he gesticulates with his hands like crazy. If Bellucci missed a shot, Passos would imitate the correct way to hit it with his hands. Then fold his arms and wait for the next point to end. Half the time it was just an ongoing conversation Passos had with himself. Bellucci played a stunning first set and then Bogomolov found ways to break his rythym by challenging line calls, taking a MTO, more line call discussions, hitting loopy moonballs back. Pretty much anything to throw off Bellucci and it worked. Bellucci 's ability to focus grew increasingly worse in the 2nd set. At one point Passos told Alex B to knock off all the line call crap. There was also quite a bit of back and forth between Passos and Bellucci when Thomaz' mind started wandering. Since I don't speak Portuguese I can't be sure Passos was coaching but it sure seemed like it.

Between the points we spoke about Bogomolov's Brazilian wife (who is why Larry knows him and thought it was fine to call him out on the nutty line calls), Bogomolov's gambling and subsequent ban from the game, and Bellucci's focus. I managed to ask him what he thought of Dimitrov's game. His answer: 'Beautiful game. Beautiful strokes. Very talented. He's young.'

Then I asked "Where's Guga?"

Passos' response: "On a beach somewhere."

Some guy two seats over turned to Passos and asked him if he knew Bellucci. "I'm his coach!" croaked Larry.

A man of few words and loads of gestures. Larry Passos. Love the guy.