Roland Garros Thread.

[Guest Princess Leena]

The 2nd grand slam of the tennis year has commenced today (Roland Garros now begins on Sunday).

 

All seeds that have played today have won, thus far. Including Federer.

[CanadianChris 0]

I'll be watching this solely to see Rafael Nadal. The man is a wizard.

[Guest Princess Leena]

He starts tomorrow.

 

Barring some injury or Jesus-like performance by Federer in the final, Rafa is not losing here.

[Guest]

What was that Ancic-Jobber shoving match about?

[Adam 0]

I'll be watching this solely to see Rafael Nadal. The man is a wizard.

 

Damn right, that kid owns everyone on clay, doesn't matter who they are. I would have liked to see him fight it out at the Aussie Open, but unfortunately injury prevented that.

[Guest Princess Leena]

What was that Ancic-Jobber shoving match about?

 

I'm not sure...

 

I think Capdeville thought the ball bounced twice on Ancic's side, and he complained to the ump. And Ancic got pissy for some reason. Ancic is Croatian after all, so I'll just use that explanation.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I'll be watching this solely to see Rafael Nadal. The man is a wizard.

 

Damn right, that kid owns everyone on clay, doesn't matter who they are. I would have liked to see him fight it out at the Aussie Open, but unfortunately injury prevented that.

 

It was a shame he missed the Aussie Open, because the hot conditions were perfect for him. Receptive courts that would exaggerate his spins. I was quite confident he would have won there.

[franchise632 0]

So Leena who do you like on the ladies side of the things?? Im not a huge tennis mind and only really know some of the top players. I haven't had much chance to watch any of the matches yet. I usually pick up tennis around Wimbledon time.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Women's side is a complete toss-up, since the quality is at an all-time low for the WTA.

 

The favorite is Justine, but she did her usual early round suckage today vs. Yakimova. Amelie is still around, but she is known for massive choking at her home slam.

 

I dread that Penis Williams will make the final from the top half, since Sharapova is coming back from injury and looks rusty besides clay being her worst surface.

[franchise632 0]

It seems that tennis overal is a fairly low point in terms of high profile talent. There are players that are really good. Of course you have Federer, Roddick, Sharapova, and the Williams sisters. Of course the later two are certainly declining on the tennis front. Those are esentially it for people that you could name that casual fans are going to know. From what I have seen there are some other talented players but you don't see those big names and big rivalries.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Roddick and Sharapova aren't hot shit, either.

 

As long as people know who Federer and Nadal are, that's good. They're currently the 2 best players of the past 10 years. It's a great rivalry.

 

But, of course, if you live in the US, you'd have no way of watching any of their classic matches this year unless you're one of the few that has the Tennis Channel.

[naiwf 0]

I don't really care much for the French Open, but my picks going in were JHH to repeat and even though logic says Nadal will as well, I think he'll get bounced in the QF or SF round leaving Fed to complete the 'Roger Slam'.

 

I still think it's funny that lots of so called tennis fans had Petrova winning this tourney.

[pochorenella 0]

He starts tomorrow.

 

Barring some injury or Jesus-like performance by Federer in the final, Rafa is not losing here.

 

Federer had Nadal's number last month (was it Montecarlo? I forget) where he should've won that 5-set masterpiece after leading 4-1 on the fifth and having two match points. Difference was that Nadal is a monster with the return and just keeps getting to each ball, even if they're extremely difficult, and sometimes hitting winners to boot! He took advantage on a single match point and took the championship, but Federer should have won that one.

 

Of course Nadal is still the favorite on this type of courts, but Federer keeps getting better and better on clay, so if Federer can get past Nalbandian (he's ahead on 1 on 1 encounters) on the semis or somewhere around that, we should get another thriller like that last final they had, and I hope Federer wins it.

 

The Federer-Nadal rivalry is sure to reach legendary status like Borg-McEnroe or Sampras-Agassi.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I don't really care much for the French Open, but my picks going in were JHH to repeat and even though logic says Nadal will as well, I think he'll get bounced in the QF or SF round leaving Fed to complete the 'Roger Slam'.

 

I still think it's funny that lots of so called tennis fans had Petrova winning this tourney.

 

Nadia was a serious threat considering her season thus far. I didn't have her winning due to her inexperience in important moments and general Russian insanity, but on the wacky women's side, who knows. If shitty Myskina won this 2 years ago, Nadia definitely could have if she was healthy and lucky.

[Guest Princess Leena]

He starts tomorrow.

 

Barring some injury or Jesus-like performance by Federer in the final, Rafa is not losing here.

 

Federer had Nadal's number last month (was it Montecarlo? I forget) where he should've won that 5-set masterpiece after leading 4-1 on the fifth and having two match points. Difference was that Nadal is a monster with the return and just keeps getting to each ball, even if they're extremely difficult, and sometimes hitting winners to boot! He took advantage on a single match point and took the championship, but Federer should have won that one.

 

Of course Nadal is still the favorite on this type of courts, but Federer keeps getting better and better on clay, so if Federer can get past Nalbandian (he's ahead on 1 on 1 encounters) on the semis or somewhere around that, we should get another thriller like that last final they had, and I hope Federer wins it.

 

The Federer-Nadal rivalry is sure to reach legendary status like Borg-McEnroe or Sampras-Agassi.

 

It was Rome, and Roger really should have had that match. He definitely should have won the Dubai final, as if Roger relaxes and doesn't panic, trying to avoid any types of rallies against Rafa, he'd beat him easily on anything not clay, or high-bouncing.

 

I don't know if this will end being a great rivalry like the two you mentioned... simply because I think Nadal's style will always limit him on faster surfaces. If he goes up against a hot player, like Blake at the US Open, there's not much he can do. Whereas Roger will win 95% of the time against anyone not Nadal, on any surface, even if he's sucking.

[naiwf 0]

I don't really care much for the French Open, but my picks going in were JHH to repeat and even though logic says Nadal will as well, I think he'll get bounced in the QF or SF round leaving Fed to complete the 'Roger Slam'.

 

I still think it's funny that lots of so called tennis fans had Petrova winning this tourney.

 

Nadia was a serious threat considering her season thus far. I didn't have her winning due to her inexperience in important moments and general Russian insanity, but on the wacky women's side, who knows. If shitty Myskina won this 2 years ago, Nadia definitely could have if she was healthy and lucky.

 

I believe the adjective you were looking for with Myskina is "sexy" not shitty. She won because everyone with talent was hurt at the time. Nadia didn't have that benefit and she's a nutjob to begin with. There's no way anyone should have thought she would win 7 matches in a 2 week timeframe with the pressure, and quality of opposition increasing every other day.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Nastya is attractive, but she's never been deserving of a slam.

 

It was a mix of many injuries in 2004, and players just dying against her. Plus, clay was by far her worst surface. It came totally out of nowhere.

 

Nadia won Amelia Island, Charleston and Berlin. And beat Justine in Berlin, which is no easy task. She played well coming into this. I think it's wrong to say she had no chance. Especially with the issues many other top players have.

[naiwf 0]

She was in Justine's quarter which meant she would have had to beat the defending champ and then two other top players. Nadia's never shown that ability. In theory, she COULD have done it. In reality, I would have made a lot of money offering people 25-1 on her winning because I knew it would never have happened.

[franchise632 0]

Roddick and Sharapova aren't hot shit, either.

 

As long as people know who Federer and Nadal are, that's good. They're currently the 2 best players of the past 10 years. It's a great rivalry.

 

But, of course, if you live in the US, you'd have no way of watching any of their classic matches this year unless you're one of the few that has the Tennis Channel.

 

 

I was only speaking to there marquee value and name recognition. I realize neither Roddick or Maria are that great. Though when both healthy they are top tier talent in this era. Of course I can only speak to the Amercian POV on tennis. The American networks don't much care that Federer/Nadal is a great rivalry based purely on great tennis. They don't think, and they maybe right, that they could sell it to the casual American fans. Tennis has always thrived better in this country with when we had the top players and stories to sell. That went away went Pete Sampras retired. We had Andre for awhile but even then things were declining. As long as there are no real top tier Amercians playing the game most people in this country aren't really gonna care about it.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Tennis was dying even when Pete/Andre were on top. It's been a slippery slide since the 1980's.

 

I've never understood why tennis in the US (and to a smaller scale, therest of the world) wants to only focus on their own country's players. In golf, it's not like we ignore Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia or Mike Weir just because they're foreigners. And golf even has a strong event like the Ryder Cup where nationalities are important. Tennis has the Davis and Fed Cup, that nobody in the US gives a crap about.

 

There's always been many exciting non-Americans... but, ESPN/NBC keep replaying Roddick, Agassi, Williams etc... matches 100 times, and ignoring the rest. Which is a big reason that tennis isn't growing, IMO.

[naiwf 0]

Tennis was dying even when Pete/Andre were on top. It's been a slippery slide since the 1980's.

 

I've never understood why tennis in the US (and to a smaller scale, therest of the world) wants to only focus on their own country's players. In golf, it's not like we ignore Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia or Mike Weir just because they're foreigners. And golf even has a strong event like the Ryder Cup where nationalities are important. Tennis has the Davis and Fed Cup, that nobody in the US gives a crap about.

 

There's always been many exciting non-Americans... but, ESPN/NBC keep replaying Roddick, Agassi, Williams etc... matches 100 times, and ignoring the rest. Which is a big reason that tennis isn't growing, IMO.

 

Arrogance. I think the fact that the majority of great tennis players now speak "broken English" or don't speak English at all is what prevents them from focusing on the loser Americans. Honestly, I didn't care that Yao Ming needed a translator when he came to the NBA, so what difference would it make if Nadal needed one when he first started on tour? It's not like these guys cut interviews in the midst of play anyway so who cares if we can hear Roddick curse in English, but other top ten players can do it in multiple languages?

 

It just pisses me off because I can't get TTC here and it sucks that I can only "watch" tennis on live scoreboards, 5 or 6 hour delayed coverage (or get up at 5 AM to watch a match live) or for 2 hours per day at the very end of big time tournaments on ESPN.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Classic match underway right now between Nadal and Mathieu. Nadal is leading 5-7 6-4 6-4 3-4 in the fourth set and this has already gone 4 and a half hours. For a second I thought NBC was going to switch over to the Blake-Monfils match (which would have been an awful decision) but they only showed a couple of points before going back.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Martina Hingis' comeback is basically saving womens tennis right now.

[pochorenella 0]

Classic match underway right now between Nadal and Mathieu. Nadal is leading 5-7 6-4 6-4 3-4 in the fourth set and this has already gone 4 and a half hours. For a second I thought NBC was going to switch over to the Blake-Monfils match (which would have been an awful decision) but they only showed a couple of points before going back.

 

Terrific, terrific 4-set match. Nadal had tons of trouble with this Mathieu guy, specially keeping his serve after being broken almost a half-dozen times. For a short while I thought it would go to a fifth set but it was not to be. Now Rafa faces Hewitt next, which could also potentially be another great match. Mind you, Rafa is winning that one, but Hewitt could put up a great challenge.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Lleyton sucks on clay. I think Rafa beats him in 3 easy sets.

 

Nice of Mathieu to play his rare good match against Nadal. That was fine tennis.

 

Martina Hingis' comeback is basically saving womens tennis right now.

 

True. Martina is the only top WTA player I can stand nowadays. Well, her and Justine, but I can see why people find Justine annoying. Let's all pray she can beat St. Kim in the QF.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Sharapova with yet another breakdown to choke away a match. Lately it seems the only people she can beat regularly are other Russians with equally weak mental games.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Lleyton sucks on clay. I think Rafa beats him in 3 easy sets.

 

Nice of Mathieu to play his rare good match against Nadal. That was fine tennis.

 

Martina Hingis' comeback is basically saving womens tennis right now.

 

True. Martina is the only top WTA player I can stand nowadays. Well, her and Justine, but I can see why people find Justine annoying. Let's all pray she can beat St. Kim in the QF.

 

Really the Aussie Open final is the only big blight on Henin-Hardenne's track record. If she'd gutted that one out and simply lost the last set I don't think many people would have much bad to say about her.

 

Speaking of Justine, she's putting the screws to Myskina, 6-1 and 3-0 right now.

[Guest Princess Leena]

No... many certain fans still bring up the 2003 RG HAND incident...

 

And Justine basically ended Caprifati with that amazing 2003 US Open win.

 

I guess it's mostly just American fans who hate Justine.

[pochorenella 0]

I like Justine just fine. That one-handed backhand shot is a rarity these days. Is she in the same group than Venus Williams? That could be her most serious challenge so far in the tourney.

 

And I hope Hingis goes really far here. She's badly needed on the tour.

[CanadianChris 0]

Solid 4-set win for Nadal over Hewitt. Lleyton was playing at a high level from the second set on, but Nadal was just better. He has an amazing ability to appear as if he's controlling a point even if he's on defence.