Roland Garros Day Nine

Hey Y'all. Galileo here.

Well, well, well. We are now getting to the stage of the tournament where we can see just how badly I have called the draw. And, as usual, I have called it very badly. Picking Federer to make the semifinals -- how daring of me.

We are now seriously getting into the business end of the slam. That means more long matches and more high quality matches. We are going to have some real fireworks soon, especially in matches like Raonic/Djokvic. One match I certainly will not have the stamina to watch is the Murray/Monfils duel. That match on clay? No thank you. I like long rallies but there needs to be a bit more variety and Murray/Monfils is going to be [and I'm being honest here] dull.

I think starting with doubles would be a good place to start, before rolling into the singles. So, the Bryans are out. Yep, they lost and they lost 6-4/6-2 to Granollers/M.Lopez. It wasn't even close. The Bryans broke just once but had five opportunities. That is wasteful from clearly the world's best players. Their opponents managed to craft 6 break points and took five. It was a great returning and serving display from them. They needed just 70 minutes to cause the upset of the tournament. I picked the Spaniards as ones who would have a good Roland Garros. I got something right at least. But who do they play for the right to play in their maiden grand slam final?

They would play the winner of the Nestor/Zimonjic versus Draganja/Mergea match. And the favourites lost, lost in agonizing fashion, too. That means that only seeds 9, 11 and 12 are left. We could have an all-unseeded final. D&G have looked strong for a while in this tournament and they have just put on glass slippers and a fabulous, fabulous dress that is completely impractical. No, they are not Mattek-Sands, they are Cinderella. The unseeded pair won 6-7/6-3/7-6 in two hours and eighteen minutes. Down 5-2 in that final set breaker, they won 5 points in a row to seal the deal. Nestor had won this event in 2007 and in 2010-2012, too, winning the 2010 event with Zimonjic. The unseeded duo decided to ignore history and served their way to the win, being broken just twice. The doubles can be won by anyone, so why not them?

Right, well I suppose I should talk about what happened Monday in the singles then.


MARQUEE MATCH: NADAL d. LAJOVIC
...How often have we seen this? It's like a "Friends" rerun. We know the lines off by heart, we know the gags. Phoebe was always my favourite friend. Everyone has a favourite friend, don't they? Anyway, this was as predictable as it was brutal. Someone needs to get Rafa a new dictionary because his seems to be missing the word mercy. Once he smells blood, you just know he is going in for the kill. Rafa decided that Lajovic needed dismissing as soon as possible so that he could go and spend more time with Xisca. Because nothing of note really happened in the match, so here is a picture of her:



Awwww.

But I will talk about the least competitive match so far in Nadal's campaign. 9-43 was the Serb's winner to error count. Truly abysmal, but at least he went for his shots. Nadal was just 16-19. Again Nadal forces his opponents to go for broke on every shot. Lajovic just could not do it. Nadal plays Ferrer next and aggression will be needed. He won't win 68 per cent of receiving points, you would think. He will need to be proactive in that match. Can he do it? Yes.
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Un autre match intéressant: MONFILS d. GARCIA-LOPEZ
...The run of GGL finally comes to an end at the hands of an apparently 'exhausted' La Monf! La Monf! has once against frustrated us all but come up again somehow with a good slam run. He is the walking, talking enigma of the ATP tour. If he just kept his head and was aggressive how far could he go? When we look back we will think underachiever. What if that amount of talent had been given to someone with a good work ethic? Ah, La Monf! such a mystery you are. Anyway, he dismissed GGL 6-0/6-2/7-5 in an hour and fifty-nine. Going 21-48 in the winners category was what might have been the biggest problem for the Spaniard. Monfils only went 24-28 but it proved to be enough, especially considering his opponent only won 24 points in the first two sets but Monfils won 54. Monfils also managed to break eight times, though GGL did save 9 break points. This was not a great match from the Spaniard but it still had to be won by Monfils. He did that and closed it out relatively drama free in the end. It was a a surprisingly strong display from the Frenchman, dominating his opponent and making sure he could not come back into the match. He plays Murray now. The winner of that gets Nadal. So, no I do not think we will be seeing Murray in his first clay final.
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FOURTH ROUND : FERRER D. ANDERSON
...He got a set! He has improved in this last year. Lat year he lost 6-3/6-1/6-1. I remember watching that match and Anderson kept playing the same shots and doing the same thing. I will let my good friend Albert explain why this is not a good idea:



So, this year he decided to try something new to avoid the insanity. And it worked. Well, it kind of worked. He nicked a set but still lost 6-3/6-3/6-7/6-1 in about two hours and fifty minutes. He made himself more consistent with 42 winners, 9 aces to 40 errors. Incredibly, Ferru went 47-24. He was consistent and aggressive. He broke down Anderson game slowly but could not quite close it out in the third. The key was that Anderson only broke twice. Ferrer had 16 chances to break and did so 7 times. The whole key to the South African's game is that he is difficult to break. If you lose your service, he can essentially just serve out the set. Ferrer just returned too well. He nullified the serve and from there it became too difficult for Anderson. Ferrer now plays Nadal. Ouch. Anderson should be proud -- a fourth round and a serious testing of Ferrer.
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FOURTH ROUND : MURRAY D. VERDASCO
...Muzza did not run out of energy. It was a long three setter, lasting nearly three hours. Murray won in the end 6-4/7-5/7-6. Verdasco played all the nice tennis and hit the shots that make you exclaim whilst Murray just went for the passive-aggressive approach like he usually does. Lefties in general do struggle against Murray. Verdasco went 38-45 with winners but Murray went 35-50. That kind of play will not do when he faces Monfils. It simply will not do. Taking just four out fo 19 break points is also poor. Verdasco managed to take 2 of 6. I watched bits of this match and Verdasco did not quite click. He could not get the power game working and was sucked into Murray's style of play whereupon he lost. His serve was not firing on all cylinders and his forehand was not carving Murray up. Verdasco will move to the grass where he has serious points to defend. Murray has ground his way into the quarterfinals and he plays Monfils in the most boring match competition for longest rally ever. That is going four. It just is.
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Any other notes?

* - Hmm. German tennis is really starting to look good on the WTA tour but on the ATP tour it seems to have a use-by-date. Where is the German ATP youth?

* - Lajovic looked lost out there. He looked like a rookie pitching to David Ortiz -- you know the ball is going to be smacked at you.

* - Well, we will now be having a Spaniard in the final for sure. It is highly likely, however, as nobody beats Nadal over five sets here. Well there was this one guy once but he's not here anymore and it couldn't happen again, could it? Nadal has lost just 23 games. Good luck Ferrer! Graf lost just twenty games on the way to the 1988 French Open but 1988 Graf is a statistical anomaly. I said Nadal would only drop 7 games but I was wrong. He dropped four. He also lost 17 consecutive points in that second set. Poor Lajovic.

* - America had a torrid day, didn't it? Bye-Bye Sloane, Bryan's and the rest.

* - Is it wrong that I actually didn't mind Sveta's dress? Yes, I know it was horrible but I kind of liked it in a guilty pleasure way. In the same way I like US Politics. It's dreadful and it's too loud, but at the same time.

* - Nadal gets a real test for the first time. Ferrer, I feel confident in this, will get 15 games at least. Yes, he should win a set. I know I'm wrong but I want to try and call it positively not realistically.

* - There have only been a couple of minor organisational mess-ups. The Australian barely had any. Wimbledon is always impeccable. How it has a day of rest and still plays all its matches is beyond me. The organisational bar is set very high. How far below it will the US Open fall?

Thanx all and visit WTABACKSPIN please.

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