Going into the French Open, you'd give it a toss-up as to who was playing better after Rafael Nadal: David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco. I mean, sure you could point to Roger Federer, but he only had one good tournament, and two "bad" ones (Estoril and Rome). You wouldn't have expected David Ferrer to struggle
This is one of those matches that shows Roddick isn't exactly a clay courter. Gabashvili is one of those dangerous players who hits hard but whose errors typically do him in. But not today. Gabashvili kept hitting balls hard and Roddick, in an effort to keep up, made a few too many errors. Roddick came
With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged. Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today. In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today. All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer,
Perhaps the most peculiar match of Day 4 was the one between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini. That the match needed to go to an extra day to get finished was a "shame on Gael" situation. Gael Monfils was winning comfortably, up 2 sets to none. His athleticism should have been enough to win. Fognini
The closest I've ever heard someone making comments like Sam Querrey was the brief disgust that Roger Federer had shortly after losing in the semifinals at Miami. Federer said he was glad to leave hardcourts and was eager to play on clay again. After Querrey lost to Robby Ginepri, admittedly a guy he lost to
For a while, Gael Monfils was cruising to an easy win over his Italian opponent. Up 6-2, 6-4 and a break in the third, Monfils began fooling around a bit and eventually lost the third set 7-5. Monfils was also up two breaks in the fourth set, but again lost this set, 6-4. At 4-all,
One wonders where this Roger Federer was a few weeks ago with backhand flying out and losing early. It seems Roger's priorities are to win Slams and that early losses are not bothersome to Roger, or for the conspiracy-minded, Roger selectively loses so as not to tempt injury or to keep some of what he
If you watch enough tennis, you see beyond the names most people know, beyond Federer, Nadal, beyond Tsonga, Roddick, beyond Querrey, and start to see names like Andreas Seppi, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Thomaz Bellucci. You'll see names like Victor Hanescu and Janko Tipsarevic. These are the guys whose ranks typically float in the 30s or 40s,
With two days of play complete, let's look at how the top seeds are faring. Roger Federer Roger Federer had a bit of a tight first set, but then relaxed, and had a very easy first round match. He's playing like he did in Madrid, and that was just too much for Luczak. I think
When the draw for the French Open came out, this was seen as easily the most difficult of the first round matches. Although Gasquet was ranked in the high 60s when the draw was made, a ranking that dropped into the low 40s by Monday when his win in Nice counted to his results, he
