Roland Garros Crisis Center, Day 1
[Note: we are moving to the first Overflow post as of around 11.15 a.m. EST. Please follow the link below - RV].
'Morning everyone. With the tennis beginning in Paris, we're back in Crisis Center mode for the duration of the two weeks. As a reminder, this means that we ask you all to stick to discussing the ongoing tennis, or other relevant tennis-related matters of the day. This specifically excludes discussing your performance in the suicide pool or other competitions, out of courtesy to the many visitors who aren't taking part. After all of the matches are over it will be OK to drift mildly off-topic, but again we ask that the subject remains primarily tennis-related. We haven't yet had to go through a Grand Slam tournament with the current version of TypePad, and these two weeks are likely to be very busy ones comment-wise even with you all staying on-topic.
As most of you have learned to expect, we'll be putting up Overflow posts on TennisWorld's Overflow blog when needed, to try to keep the conversation flowing. Links to these Overflows will not appear on the tennis.com front page. The first Overflow will be linked from the top of this headline post, to be as obvious as possible; subsequent posts will be accessed by automatically-generated links on the Overflow blog, much as you're accustomed to. Don't forget that you can find the latest Overflow there from the link at the top of its "Recent Entries" column.
Here's today's Order of Play, with defending Champion Ana Ivanovic starting proceedings out on Court Philippe Chatrier (pictured above during an exhibition that took place yesterday - the weather looks a lot better today), with other matches on the main show courts involving Marat Safin, Gilles Simon, Amelie Mauresmo, Fernando Verdasco and Andy Murray, amongst others. Lleyton Hewitt and Ivo Karlovic start the day out on Court 1, while a little later former champion Gaston Gaudio faces Radek Stepanek on the same court.
Enjoy the tennis.
-- Rosangel Valenti