Friday, September 10, 2004

It's Friday already!

Wow, I think we should have Monday's off more often, because this week just feels like it has FLOWN past. At the lab today, there was a meeting with all the graduate students and our lab director, John Volakis, to discuss student concerns and such. Most of the student's concerns seemed to be about the shuffling of offices, but Dr. Volakis reminded us that we had about 20+ new students coming in the fall, and the constant moving was necessary to accomodate the new students and squeeze as much out of our rooms. The good news is that the ESL lab will undergo an expansion in the next 3 or 4 years where a new building will be built that will connect to the old one. In addition, new renovations will also be done in the building to bring the building out of its aging World War II look.



The American men didn't fare too well today as the US Open resumed its schedule from the near rainout from yesterday. Andre Agassi fought back in his match against Roger Federer and evened the match by taking the fourth set 6-3. But Federer regrouped and pulled out the match in the 5th set 6-3. Andy Roddick, the defending champion, almost matched Joachim Johansson serve for serve as these two big servers dualed it out into the 5th set. However, Roddick dug himself in a 0-40 hole in his service game as he was behind 4-5 in the set. He saved the first two match points, but he hit a backhand long on the 3rd match point for Johansson to lose the match. Looking at the statistics of the match, you probably would have figured that Roddick had the match won. He had more aces, won a larger percentage of his service games, and won more points overall. But tennis is kind of funny in that you don't have to be better statistically; you just have to be the better competitor in the match and win all the crucial points.

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