ROLAND GARROS 2007

draws at http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/index.html

i haven't thought about predictions at all yet so here goes with some spur of the moment QF picks:

Henin v S.Williams (who will probably come back to take this match)
Jankovic v Petrova (jelena j has played what seems like every week this year so far; she's clearly going to run out of gas at some point because of her insane schedule, but i think she'll still be fresh enough to beat venus in the third round, and she owns her projected 4th-round opponent, dementieva)
Ivanovic v Peer
Chakvetadze v A.Bondarenko (sharapova is in dreadful form and will be lucky to survive emilie loit in the first; patty schnyder is the obvious candidate likely to take advantage but alona bondarenko's been in very strong, consistent form recently, and batty patty remains batty) (also this bracket features the most likely sister match-up: there could be an ALL-BONDARENKO third round!)

most exciting first round match = marion baroli v aravane rezai. both french up'n'comers with mad dads: bartoli may be the seeded one but rezai's the one who a) refuses to speak to the french media because of their negative stories about her family, which are probably all accurate given that b) she and her father are actually the subject of a two-year ban from using the roland garros facilities, such is the extent of his bad behaviour - she is apparently being permitted to enter the grounds to play her matches and nothing more, c) la famille rezai were also reported to have travelled to australia earlier this year in a caravan. yep, caravane rezai more like.

Very excited about this for the rather boring and obvious reason that Federer blitzed Nadal 6-0 in the 3rd in the Hamburg final a week ago which means that the (non-calendar year) Grand Slam is very much ON. It has happened before in the men's game in my lifetime - just - but if I can't recall the Moon landings, I obviously can't recall Laver beating Roche at Forest Hills.

Shame Tony R is unlikely to play his part in history this time; funny how Fed drops his coach and tends to immediately go up a level (see: 2003 Masters Cup). Still, so much of his 2007 clay court form has been sufficiently wretched to cast doubt on his ability to genuinely get through what is a nasty draw.

Yay for Roland Garros! And for once i have tickets and shall be there tuesday which maks me very happy.

Woo a grand slam thread! I look forward to some incisive play from the usual suspects, and the charmingly clueless idiocies from the likes of me.

GO MARIA ELENA!

Yeah I feel like Mark C -- I have nothing to add, but I get excited for every new tennis thread. In 5 years of reading ILE I think tennis threads have been the highlight.

Reading an article yesterday about Fed's drop in % of Fed's 1st serve - apparently Hamburg's type of clay is more suited to Fed's game. Also Nadal usually doesn't compete in Hamburg, and ws more tired.

I'd interpret all of this as: maybe Fed has gone closer to removing that block he had against Nadal on clay. However he will have a bad game on the way to the final that might actually knock him out before he gets there.

federer v nadal really is the rivalry that keeps on giving - even when the outcome is v predictable (and it usually is! most of the time the favourite has won) theer are always so many questions hanging over the result - can nadal compete with federer on a fast court, how close is federer to 'solving' nadal on clay etc etc.

regardless of the qualifications - and i think the 0-6 third set does indicate nadal was tired - i think hamburg was still v important for fed, it put an immediate end to his so-called "slump" (if only my slumping favourites could slump like roger!) for one.

it's raining, again, they're showing murray v nadal at the australian open - missed it at the time, it really is a treat!

ooh! it's stopped raining! venus williams v alize cornet coming up!

I'm looking at live action now (I think) - Venus W held serve in opening game v Cornet despite having a break point.

Lex, my mum voted Nadal best arse in tennis in her annual Wimbledon cheek check. What say you?

wish it were drier

nadal has an amazing arse and indeed body, generally. not really my favoured body type but it's impressive...one of my friends was at the indian wells tournament in california earlier this year, and apparently there was a group of very SoCal ladies chatting in the lounge, and into one of the lulls in conversation one of them dropped the line "oh NADAL, i'm here for his buns and his guns!"

ice cream cone is v feisty. venus started off error-riddled but cleaned it up fairly swiftly - thought she'd run away with it but cornet managed to break back.

and now she's 0-40 down again, oh well

The Cone has another break point

She tried a cheeky drop shot which Venus saw coming from Versailles. Bye bye break.

one of cornet's drop shots finally works!

clear by now that for all her feistiness she can't really hurt venus though - maybe if she'd taken that point to go up 5-4 in the first things would be different but the wind seems to have been taken out of her sails somewhat. still, this is a v entertaining match, some really nice rallies going.

hahahaha buns'n'guns.

My mother does not use the word 'buns' in reference to anatomy. Ever.

watched Davy Denko paste the Italian, whatisname. Impressive.

So is going down a set and a break and then storming back to win Serena's MO now? Last few times I've seen her it's been like this.

Barry Davies is BACK. But so is the rain. I see two points of Fed-Russell and they're off. 6-4 4-1.

Is this the coldest Whitsun holiday ever? 6.2C here in Crystal Palace.

What are ther guns in buns 'n' guns?

Come on Cornet! Or has it finished.

No one has mentioned that Potito Starace (who would surely be wearing ILX-emblazoned clobber if we were in the business of corporate sponsorship) won through to the second round yesterday. It's United Colours of Benneteau or Tone Berlocq up next and then, possibly, Federer. He could be on telly!

(Cornet melted: four and three).

They were showing Clidge-FordCapri from 2001 but at 5-5 in the final set the in-laws voted for Two Ronnies. It's the King Singers.

Rodge clinically disposing of Rosalind Russell.

Earlier, Looby Loo won a third-set tiebreaker against Clement.

Roddick in trouble vs Andreev; AR won the first set & was a break up in the second but Igor has taken over: Pandy serving at 2-4 40/40 in the 4th, trailing by two sets to one.

Look at me - it's just like the old days. I'm staying late at work to follow a tennis match on a self-refreshing web page.

Roddick serving to stay alive at 3-5.

Oh, in other news, Henman is two sets down to a Latvian named Ernests Gulbis who is ranked #84.

Match point Andreev.

Roddick holds. Curses. I've missed another train.

Dlouhy and Kohlschreiber 9-9 in the 5th out on court 10.

Roddick out. Lovely. I don't care if I get wet on the way to Charing Cross now.

(MJ u r a traet)

all-round lovely results to come home to! dickhead AND blake out without me so much as having to even acknowledge that they turned up at all, henperson going down to a latvian teenager who appears to be a plural of himself, BIG AKGUL from UZBEKISTAN winning her second grand slam match, demented diva and weird jelena avoiding upsets, gasquet AND allez my son appearing to - fingers crossed - both have their heads screwed on right for once (ew, anatomical mixed metaphors). WOO!

sad about the rad wanksta and caravane, though; and our pet is unlucky to have succumbed to injury in her second consecutive roland garros first round.

EPICZ - two so far; kohlschreiber over dlouhy 17-15 in the fifth on the men's side, recent first-time titlist miracles sequera razzing razzano 9-7 in the third. her reward is...serena williams.

SLUMPZ - oh anna-lena groenefeld, it surely gets no worse than losing to a veteran french wild card who's never cracked the top 100.

(notes on BIG AKGUL: she is like 6'3", she plays a limited schedule in the challengers because apparently she can barely afford to travel to tournaments; people who have seen her say she has massive potential, but because she can't afford to hire a coach either basically goes out to each match and blasts the ball without a gameplan.)

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/3/global/photos_rx/Amanmuradova_8192_rx.jpg

OH MY. I wish I could watch this. All in favour of chipping in to sponsor BIG AKGUL say WORD!

What would an ILE Tennis Thread Sponsor expect on the clothing for our money?

thank u for starting this thread :-)

"EPICZ - two so far; kohlschreiber over dlouhy 17-15 in the fifth"

Unlike that bogus 'epic' between Fabulous Phil and Nadal over most of the first week of the Oz Open, obviously this match really was long, didn't just seem so.

Maybe Kohlschlau v 'Dlouhy the Dflhy' was epic as in Ulysses, whereas K v Nadal was just 1000 disjointed pages with the pretensions of epic-ality.

Had a very good day yesterday, saw the Groenefeld defeat, Robredo's victory, Hewitt's thrashing of Miyrni (already forgot how to spell his name), Santoro (who was fun to watch)-Chela, PH Mathieu- Mayer, Nadal-Del Potro, Djokovic-Gilardo and Karlovic-Blake. A good day indeed. I even was a meter away from Federer at one point, he was coming into the Philippe Chatrier just as Nadal's game was beginning.

Hewitt thru. I blinked and missed Molik's tournament (always a shame). Pratt wins, Sammy the Stoat on later tonight.

Tipsarevic has put an erratic and distracted Safin on the plane. Local hero Gasquet's Open has not much longer to run either. Sharapova unconvincing but through, Mesmo bagelled Granville in the first set but about to go 3-0 down (one break) in the second.

In a tragic result for tennis fashion, Meghann Shaughnessy is also through, thrashing Princess Anastasia Myskina 6-1 6-0. Meggsie faces yet another Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsove (hereafter, 'Svetakuz') in the next round.

oh anastasia :( though i'd totally expected it - it's her first tournament back from foot surgery and she herself said she only played to test the foot out.

can't believe flava flav managed to lose to pratt on clay!

mesmo through in two, eventually.

Has anyone read this?

http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/news/articles/2007-05-30/200705301180514565765.html

They're copping our style, man.

WHAT

I SWEAR EVERY PUN ON THAT PAGE WAS MADE BY US FIRST

OUTRAGE

anastasia :(

Anastasia Myskina won the 2004 French Open. Now she'd love to win a match.

Myskina lost 6-1, 6-0 to Meghann Shaughnessy in the first round Wednesday, making the Russian 0-7 since August, when she injured a toe on her left foot.

She had surgery in January and was hampered in her movement against Shaughnessy, sometimes not even trying to chase down shots.

"You can see that I'm moving like a big cow now," Myskina said. "I can't run."

Players have been sympathetic about her injury -- but she's not sure if it's totally sincere.

"All of them smile to me. So it's nice," Myskina said. "But you never know what they say behind your back."

Stose squeaks home v Kiritekanawalenko in a 'Life Savers Mint' of a match: sharp at the edges but nothong whatsoever in the middle. 6-1, broke then imploded in the second, first to lose serve in the decided but clawed back at the very end of the last possible moment.

the possibility of an ALL-BONDARENKO BATTLE is receding into the distance as k-bond trails batty patty by a set and 2-5 :(

however i like the look of young romanian ioana-raluca olaru, who is playing her first ever grand slam and on course for a third round spot.

you just made her name up out of leftover scrabble pieces, lex.

i am now watching more tennis! sweater kuznetsova has just taken the first set in a TB over megz shaughnessy, having trailed 0-5 0-40 at one point.

Bump

jelena just beat venus in three sets! it was tremendously exciting, and all i had was the scoreboard. bbc site says it was actually a well-played match. yay jelena!

The tennis threads are so entertaining

anastasia :(

But now I'm sad, I'm welling up

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/sp/getty/de/fullj.getty-tennis-fra-roland-garros-ivanovic-sharapova_9_24_36_am.jpg

btw she is very pretty

i was right about one semi anyway - henin gets her first straight set win over jankovic, 6-2 6-2. she's gotta be the favourite now - though i'm aware, at the back of my mind, that in the past year and a half she's lost 3 slam finals i'd pegged her as the overwhelming favourite to win...

lta, hang your head in shame:

Q. Before you went to Switzerland, can you tell us what the facilities were like back home where you practiced?

ANA IVANOVIC: Well, to tell you the truth, I grew up playing in a swimming pool. It's a club where they had olympic swimming pool, and then it was very expensive to keep it warm during the winter, and there was not many people using it. So they emptied the swimming pool, and they put carpet inside, and they placed -- (laughing) it's true. They placed two tennis courts and that's where I grew up practicing.

And it was impossible to play crosscourt, because it was this far from the wall. So we had to keep playing down the lines. And that was the courts we had during the winter.

In the summer was better situation. We had a lot of other clay courts. But still, these days we have maybe one or two hard court, outdoor. And it's very -- it's very hard for us to practice there.

Final, I say Henin, as well, in two. Two and two over the form player, that is some serious skillz.

Mens semis: Federer in 3, Nadal in 4.

Also, note use of PUNCTUATION in <a href="http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/bios/ws/wtaqp80.html";>this girl</a>'s name. Is it an actual full stop, or is this a rendering of a letter the character set doesn't support?

Oh, ffs, keep forgetting links are different now.

Federer takes two tight sets but Davy serves for the third...

Roger breaks back after an epic game; Nik also served for the second set and has missed something like 14 break-points, so RF might be riding his luck in this.

RF 4-2 up in the t-b...

RF loses his mini-break advantage but ND faces a match point at 5-6 anyway...

Roger into the final 7-5 7-6 7-6; Davy led 4-2 in the first set (and squandered a further 10 break points), served for the second at 5-4 and led 5-2 in the third. Federer is a lucky boy.

Nadal up two sets and a break - another close match but the champ's doing enough. Dream final is on.

Davy v. Goliath was frustrating. Feds wasn't extactly on his game and I was sure Davy's speed and prodigious groundies would give fits, and they did, but somehow all the breaks go to R-Fed.

http://www.fuzzysignal.com/tennis/whatsgoingon.htm

Ya Baby! Serbs reprezent this year! Super!

I was wondering if that was Steffi with the panty problem, but I guess the ball in the left hand settles it.

Look! St Angel and Lovely Leash won the laydeez doubles. Nice!

great start from ivanovic! pity it only lasted one and half games. from 0-1 0-40 henin has reeled off four straight, and ivanovic can find neither her first serve nor her backhand.

it's getting even worse, 2 DFs to give up her serve in the first game of the second set.

Gosh! This is... a rout.

oh dear.

ok, positives - we have matched elena in 04, and done better than mary in 05.

6-1, 6-2. That's right, just two holds of serve for Ivanovic. She must feel ooh, about this high: |

oh yeah and she matched maria in australia!

no of total games justine henin has lost in her 4 roland garros finals = 16

this also takes henin's slam total to 6, meaning she's now surpassed martina hingis and venus williams...

So who thinks Fed will pull it off? I don't, but I can't wait to see this.

four minutes to go and i've no idea who'll win, i keep vacillating...ok ok i will go with FED and his lust for history

Icecream Cone won the girls singles. Yay!

from lemonade to ALIZE, now it's all gravy, baby

Federer is getting lots of break points. And not converting them.

and not even playing that badly on them - his backhand is really on today. but he's still missed like 8 break points in three nadal service games!

and typically nadal converts on his first.

federer just wasted another 3 BPs in a row! unbelievable.

Roger gets a break in the second!

and it's one set apiece. Or something. No, not something. That.

Nadal takes the third. Fatherly duties are keeping me away from watching much of this, but seeing as how my nerves were jangling after all those break-point misses in set one, it's probably for the best.

Is Fed still attacking like he was at the start of set two?

it's an odd match, he's attacking but inconsistently...like he's forgetting to do it all the time. and he's still shanking forehands, but not so much that you could say he's playing really badly.

Keeping popping my head in to see Rafa holding serve with more and more ease. Doesn't seem a way back here for Rodge.

sadly not...oh well. i don't know why he always looks so inhibited against rafa. it wasn't a great match.

roll of honour!

Men's singles: Rafael Nadal
Women's singles: Justine Henin
Men's doubles: Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor
Women's doubles: Alicia Molik and Mara Santangelo
Mixed doubles: Andy Ram and Nathalie Dechy
Boys' singles: Vladimir Ignatic
Girls' singles: Alizé Cornet
Boys' doubles: Thomas Fabbiano and Andrei Karatchenia
Girls' doubles: Ksenia Milevskaya and Urszula Radwanska

new ranks:

1. Justine Henin (1)
2. Maria Sharapova (2)
3. Jelena Jankovic (5)
4. Amelie Mauresmo (4)
5. Svetlana Kuznetsova (3)
6. Ana Ivanovic (7)
7. Serena Williams (8)
8. Anna Chakvetadze (9)
9. Martina Hingis (6)
10. Nadia Petrova (12)
11. Elena Dementieva (14)
12. Dinara Safina (11)
13. Daniela Hantuchova (13)
14. Nicole Vaidisova (10)
15. Patty Schnyder (15)
16. Shahar Peer (17)
17. Tatiana Golovin (16)
18. Na Li (18)
19. Vera Zvonareva (19)
20. Marion Bartoli (21)

1. Roger Federer (1)
2. Rafael Nadal (2)
3. Nikolay Davydenko (4)
4. Novak Djokovic (6)
5. Andy Roddick (3)
6. Fernando Gonzalez (5)
7. Tommy Robredo (9)
8. James Blake (8)
9. Andy Murray (11)
10. Tommy Haas (10)
11. Richard Gasquet (13)
12. Ivan Ljubicic (7)
13. Tomas Berdych (12)
14. Mikhail Youzhny (15)
15. David Ferrer (14)
16. Lleyton Hewitt (16)
17. Guillermo Canas (22)
18. Marcos Baghdatis (19)
19. Juan Carlos Ferrero (20)
20. Juan Ignacio Chela (21)

The leap back into the top ten clearly indicates that Andy Murray should avoid playing as long as possible.

Ah, if only he didn't have all those lovely hardcourt points to defend over the summer (and last 16 at Wimb wasn't too shabby either). But, yeah, I can see Roddick and Blake sliding if they fail to repeat their summer '06 form (but so will Murray).

I think I missed the point yesterday when the final started to turn Nadal's way. Federer was superb for most of the first set and should've led 5-1; even after that throwing that away his more aggressive approach seemed to be undoing Nadal in the 2nd. I was really surprised to come back in to find Fed 2-4 in the 3rd and, later, a break down in the 4th too. Hey - maybe RF needs a coach? Perhaps "get 1x game plan" might've worked yesterday.

sadly roddick still has room to build quite a cushion of points at wimbledon :(

i think rog had a decent game plan but just executed it too inconsistently...

Saw a quote where Fed basically admitted he needs a game plan, so, you know...too many unforced errors but also v poor 1st serve %

This keeps one of the great stories in sport going, tho', so I'm not complaining.

I don't know if this was posted upthread, but assuming it wasn't:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVcMOzSBaHM

o.O

THAT WAS BRILLIANT

all the players did them. all i can remember is that dementieva did 'lady marmalade'.

incidentally, lindsay davenport's baby just got born. she called it jagger. jagger leach. this seems very unlike the solid, sensible lindsay we all knew!

BAN <S>LOUIS</S> JAGGER LEACH.

oh, ffs. CURSE FUNCTIONAL RETARDATION and forgetting about it being UBBL code thing now.