Roland Garros Crisis Center, Day 2

By Rosangel Valenti, TW Contributing Editor

Good morning. This is today's regular post for discussing the tennis taking place in Paris. You will have a fresh Crisis Center each day during these two weeks. Pete may also be posting later on in the day. Anyone who missed yesterday's Crisis Center Bonus post might like to check out Mariej's description of yesterday at Roland Garros. The schedule for today can be found here.

Match Choice:

Men - Stanislas Wawrinka versus Philipp Kohlschreiber, currently ranked 10 and 36 respectively. The two have never met. Unaccountably this is scheduled for Court 1, which may well mean that many of us won't get TV coverage (I'm sure there will also be those mourning  the banishment of Bolelli against Baghdatis to Court 2). This pits the Rome finalist against another man who has already shown his credentials on clay - being the somewhat unfortunate loser of an exciting three-setter against Tommy Robredo two weeks ago in Hamburg. Another match that has the potential to get interesting is Roger Federer's first appearance in Paris this year, pitted against Sam Querrey, whose run to the quarterfinals in Monte Carlo surprised many. His serve and groundstrokes worked well for him on the fast clay there. The two have met once, a year ago in Miami, when Federer won in straight sets.

Women - Unfortunately another intriguing match, Sabine Lisicki versus Elena Vesnina, is also taking place on Court 6, where it will go unseen. Perhaps the match between surprise Australian Open fourth-rounder Casey Dellacqua and surprise Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli on the second show court could be interesting. Bartoli leads the head-to-head 2-0, but their last match, on green clay in Charleston, went to three sets.

Player of the Day:

Not many inspiring wins yesterday. I didn't see Eduardo Schwank's five-set victory over Carlos Moya. Of the matches I saw, world number 64 Denis Gremelmayr gets the nod, after proving that his recent performance against Roger Federer in Estoril, and his run to the semis in Barcelona, beating Nicolas Almagro along the way, were not flukes. He took the first set against Novak Djokovic, played some high-risk line-splitting shots that paid off, and forced the world number three to produce some of his best tennis to come through in four sets - not always smoothly.

Weather Report:

Roland Garros dodged the showers predicted for yesterday; can it do so yet again today? Light rain is forecast, with heavy showers expected on Tuesday.

As always, enjoy today's tennis.