French Open Day 8: A Good Day for an Umbrella

Hey Y'all. Galileo here.

When Juan Carlos Ferrero retired he had to find a job and he has. He makes for a great umbrella model!



In the spirit of Wimbledon and because it rained throughout today, the middle Sunday shall be a day of rest for ATP BACKSPIN. The other side has a full update and you can be grateful yet again that Todd is the boss.

So it will be back to a fuller update tomorrow, but for now enjoy this briefer update.

*Suicide Pick*
We all know how this works. Pick a player to win each round but you cannot pick them again. I blew the Barthel pick, but I survive in the men's singles.

Men's Singles 1st: Verdasco [32] d. Daniel [Q]
Men's Singles 2nd: Cilic [9] d. Arnaboldi [Q]
Men's Singles 3rd: Ferrer [7] d. Bolelli
Men's Singles 4th: Nishikori [5] d. Gabashvili
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Women's Singles Barthel d. Kania


PHILIPPE CHATRIER: TSONGA D. BERDYCH
...Tsonga seems to strike when one least expects. He struck and made his first ever final in Melbourne in 2008. He also made surprising Wimbledon runs twice. He beat Federer from nowhere in 2011. He made a second semi in a row at Wimbledon the next year. He has beaten the best everywhere and he plays great tennis on his run, too, good positive tennis. In fact, the most surprising thing about him may be that he has not yet made a semi-final at the U.S. Open. As a junior he won the U.S. and fell at the semi-final stage everywhere else. Berdych looked set for a semi-final run. But Tsonga was just too good and rolled through the first two sets 6-3, 6-2. All credit to Berdych for digging deep and pulling out a 7-6[5] third set victory. It delayed the inevitable. Tsonga responded even better to losing the third by holding it together well mentally. He took the fourth set 6-3 and with that the match. Tsonga got to a 43-41 final tally on the winners to errors ratio. He also broke six times to Berdman's two. Throw in thirteen aces and it was a good performance from the Frenchman. If he could just lose a few errors there he could win the whole thing. Nishikori is up next. Tsonga may just be the favorite. With the crowd and that serve he is a contender in any match. Can his huge weight of shot overpower the diminutive Japanese man?
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SUZANNE LENGLEN: WAWRINKA D. SIMON
...This match does not deserve an introduction. It does not deserve a mention. It does not deserve to have taken place in the fourth round. It deserves to be forgotten about quickly. It deserves to never be spoken again after the event concludes. Wawrinka took it 6-1, 6-4, 6-2. 46% of points ended in an error. 26% ended in winners. Ick. There really is no positive spin here sadly. Wawrinka also has awful shorts.

Stan's shorts are absolute filth #tresbeaut #Wawrinka pic.twitter.com/mS9d6HBIyF

— Rufus (@Rufus_No1) May 31, 2015

But hey Simon got some crowd support. Kind of. Yeah. Let's all move on. Err, try reading some of these. It will restore your faith in our sport. After matches like this, faith being restored is what's needed.
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SUZANNE LENGLEN: NISHIKORI D. GABASHVILI
...There's always a disappointing match or two on any given day in a slam. That’s the thing about sport. Who saw Nadal dominating Federer so badly in 2008 coming? Who saw Azarenka beating Sharapova that badly in Australia in 2012? Who saw the blowout in the 2014 Super Bowl? And those are finals. If that can happen in finals then it can and does happen earlier, too. Sometimes it's amazing to watch and sometimes it can be grim. Sadly today we had duds. Nishikori won 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. At least it was closer than that Simon/Vavsy farce. Nishikori went 40-34 in the winners department. His opponent could only manage 13-30. Nishikori broke five times and aside from being broken once it was pretty much perfect. He had plenty of help from his opponent, though. The score line sadly doesn’t lie on this occasion. This is Gabashvili's second fourth round here at the French. He has been as high as 52. He is set to rise 18 places to 56. Well, 56ish. It has been a great tournament for the Georgian born thirty year old. Even better, he had a birthday on the 23rd. He beat Roddick in 2010 when the American was the sixth seed. 22nd seed Melzer put paid to him. This time it was Nishikori. If he can string together two matches at Wimbledon and maybe make a quarterfinal in the next three weeks he should crack the top 50.
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COURT ONE: POSPISIL/SOCK D. MAHUT/HERBERT
...Played on Court One, the French fourteenth seeds showed off their stuff, but there is a new order in men's doubles. Pospisil/Sock are taking the world by storm. Seeded second, they are holding their own and are looking good. They needed two breaker sets to come through. The North Americans came through them 7-3, 7-2. It was tough with both sides breaking just the once. It was a tight match with the French pair winning 83 points and losing just 91. Here is why the rest of the men's doubles draw is so fascinating:



Now the draw begins to get serious. Normally the men's doubles draw at any tournament is an absolute dog's dinner but here it makes sense. Of course the clay court afficieonados and fourth seeded pair would be the ones to ruin it all.
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Any other notes?

* - When the players learn the local language of any tournament, even if it's only enough to give a speech, it reflects well on everyone. Great effort from all who try.
* - Tsonga is still giving the French joy. If he got a kind draw he could win Wimbledon. Speaking of, if Djokovic loses his next two slam matches he may not be world number one for much longer, though other results would have to go against Novak.
* - 52 pounds in Sterling for a Roland Garros Umbrella. 25 pounds for a Wimbledon one. Why?
* - The Roland Garros site was fine before. Why change it? Sure, snazzy it up, but if it ain't broke then don't fix it.
* - Casey Dellacqua and her partner Shvedova go through to the quarters. Here's a picture to illustrate that.



Well, I'm out for now.


Thanks all and visit WTA BACKSPIN please.

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