Roland Garros Crisis Center, Day 9
By Rosangel Valenti, TW Contributing Editor
Good morning. This is your daily gathering-place for chat and match-calling relating to the events going on in Paris. Today's schedule of play is on this link.
I finally made it to Paris yesterday, after my flight was delayed, in time to see Jelena Jankovic take an edgy victory over Agnieszka Radwanska. I watched most of the match between Novak Djokovic and Paul-Henri Mathieu - in which, although the crowd was willing him on, Mathieu couldn't consistently better Djokovic, who was also serving extremely well. I arranged to meet Pete on the basis that Djokovic would serve out the first set, and I'd leave the court on the changeover - he smoothly served his way out of a 0-40 hole to allow this to happen without a hitch.
The Nadal-Verdasco match that followed was a low-energy affair - very minimal fist-pumping, and a clearly-hurting Verdasco. With a humiliating scoreline (eventually of 6-1, 6-0, 6-2) against him, we even wondered whether Verdasco might retire from the match, but instead he found a few fireworks to achieve a break at the start of the third set. We needed to leave shortly before the end so that I could catch the last flight home, but the result never looked in doubt.
Match Choices:
For the men, the third match on Court Philippe Chatrier, between Ivan Ljubicic and Gael Monfils is potentially an attractive one. I'm not sure that the difference in personals styles between the two players could be greater. Ljubic leads the head-to-head 3-1, but Monfils will have the crowd behind him. Both have been struggled recently, but Ljubicic pulled off one of the surprises of the tournament by eliminating number for seed Nikolay Davydenko in the last round over five sets; Monfils also required five sets to dispose of Jurgen Melzer. Both players have done well in Paris before - Ljubicic in reaching the semifinal in 2006, his best-ever Slam result, while Monfils has already matched his 2006 best, having reached the fourth round.
Another key matchup today is David Ferrer againt Radek Stepanek. Ferrer came through a five-setter with Lleyton Hewitt in the last round, while Stepanek had a straight-sets victory over Tommy Robredo. Their head-to-head is 2-2; Stepanek emerged the winner in Rome earlier this year, in three sets (Note: latter sentence has been corrected).
On the women's side, I'm picking world number one Maria Sharapova against Berlin winner Dinara Safina, second on Court Suzanne Lenglen. Their head-to-head is 3-2 in Sharapova's favour. However, they have not played each other since 2006, and the honours between them on clay are 1-1, with Safina being the winner of their 2006 Roland Garros encounter, in three sets.
Player of the Day:
I wish it had been possible to be in two places simultaneously yesterday - the noise coming from Court Lenglen late in the day was intense. Nicolas Almagro eventually pulled off a tough win (7-7, 7-6, 7-5) against Jeremy Chardy, the French wildcard who earlier had defeated David Nalbandian (Pete will have some thoughts on him later on), and accordingly is the Player of the Day - surely a tough test awaits Rafael Nadal in their quarterfinal matchup?
Weather Report:
Yesterday was interrupted by two rain delays, albeit fairly brief by the standards of earlier in the week. Today, there could be more of the same, or some even heavier showers. Better weather is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.
As always, enjoy today's tennis.
[Note: I'm still working on putting all of my pictures into web galleries - this link contains a selection of my Nadal pictures from the third-round match with Jarkko Nieminen. The pictures above were both taken on Court Central yesterday].