Roland Garros Day 12: The Drench Open

Hey Y'all. Galileo here.

The rain really has mucked everything up. Hingis/Paes had to play two mixed doubles matches in the same day. They won them both but it is still a difficult thing to do. The sooner RG gets its roof the better. Funny that both the French and U.S. Open be so far behind the other two slams. They don’t even have the tradition excuse. At least Flushing Meadows is large enough to contain a slam. More and more questions are being asked about Roland Garros and its size.

Tomorrow Djokovic plays on Lenglen. With the mixed final and four semi-finals in singles to squeeze in, the top seed and world’s best player has been relegated. That would never have happened to either of the past two world number ones. But Djokovic has been punished for being merely great rather than godlike. This BACKSPINNER has criticised him and was not alone in doing do.

It is still surprising that Stosur versus Muguruza is not played on Lenglen. I am sure that Sam would gladly swap; her run to the U.S. Open title was made on the back-courts. Speaking above of organization and lack thereof, shall we remind ourselves of Stosur’s run five years ago?


Anyway, moving away from Roland Garros, or the 2016 Drench Open as it is being referred to, let’s talk about post slam events. We have the Ricoh Open in Rosmalen, the Netherlands. Goffin, Tomic, Karlovic and Johnson are our top seeds. Watch out for 7th seed Zverev.

Federer will play the Mercedes Cup and Halle. He and Vilas are tied at 806 on the all-time outdoor wins list. Fed also trails Connors by 170-142 on the grass wins count. If he sweeps all three grass tournaments he will have 15 more victories. That would mean next year he would have a chance to overtake. He is also two behind Lendl on all time matches played and one behind the Czech on matches won. He could feasibly take second on the all-time semi-finals list this year as he trails Lendl by 9. So records are there for the Fed.

It should be noted Guy Forget has done admirably considering it is his first tournament as director. He has had a hellish baptism of fire but he looks to be competent. Now it is time to focus on our quarterfinals.


CHATRIER: DJOKOVIC D. BERDYCH
...24-2. That is now the head-to-head lead Djokovic has. But his 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 victory almost never came to pass. At one point he smashed a racket and nearly hit a line-judge. Why anybody would do such a thing when they were playing fantastic tennis and won pretty easily is a mystery to me, but then we’ve gotten used to our top seeds not being a—ah, bad tempered. This is the reason he will never quite be as celebrated as Fedal. Anyway, Berdych was fine. He played well but he could not hit through the Djoker. He played lights out for two sets but only a Djokovic blip made that second set close. Berdman hit just 28 errors but the Serbian defence gave him only 24 winners. It’s madness. Novak breaks six times to two and goes 30-22 yet chucks his racket. Why? Berdych attacked throughout, coming to net 28 times and constantly knocking on the door. He hammered down forehands and backhands. On one point he hit a ball on the reach crosscourt into the far corner. Djokovic half-volleyed it right onto the baseline. Time and time again the Czech would play a great point and be denied. Didn’t play badly, got outclassed and never gave up. He will stay at eight in the world but only because Thiem has risen eight places to 7th. Even then he is only 75 points behind the Austrian.
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LENGLEN: THIEM D. GOFFIN
...Thiem’s rise to greatness took two hours and 51 minutes. He has smashed his previous best ranking to smithereens by rising to world number 7. Well, that’s the estimate in any case. Down 4-6, 3-5, he looked to be in big trouble. He had thrown away his 3-1 first lead. He was in fact two points from a double break before crumbling. He fought back to a 3-0 lead in the breaker but squandered that, too. This match-up between the 12th and 13th seeds was turning into a battle of who could miss the fewest opportunities. Finally at 7-7 they played another long baseline rally. Goffin was the rector, defending hammer blow after hammer blow but never able to get onto the front foot. Finally Thiem buried the Belgian with an enormous forehand down the line. Once he took the second and third Goffin went away very quickly. They are developing quite a fascinating rivalry these two. But this new rivalry they have developed is friendlier than you might think. It’s nice to have all these rising stars be fairly pleasant.


How much can Thiem dent Djokovic? Can he win? Thiem has to go for it; his 49-46 on winners is very good. His eight breaks to six is also acceptable but he has to win more second serve points than 50 per cent. He must also come to net every now and then. He did so in this quarter and it worked. So he should do it again.
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Mirza/Dodig also had to play twice in one day. In the semi-final they defeated Kiki and her partner Herbert 4-6, 6-3, 12-10. Both sides broke 5 times and won 65 points. Go figure.

So our Kiki bravely departs. She is going to Rosmalen to play in the Ricoh Open. She can pretty much get the train there from Paris. It would take her under four hours and, being French, she would be a bit of an expert on European trains, no?

But hang on. She does not have to leave yet. She and Garcia are the highest seeded pair left. They face a very tough test in the shape of Kuznetsova/Gasparyan. They have lost just one set and could go through the tournament and win without having defeated a single seed.

But the Russian pair should not be taken lightly. Especially at Roland Garros, Kuznetsova is very dangerous. And they have nothing to lose. Kiki has never been to a semi-final here. Neither Gasparyan not Garcia have been to a slam level semi of any description. In her last Roland Garros doubles semi Sveta and Likhovtseva won 6-2, 6-4 over Navratilova and Raymond.

That was Navratilova’s final Roland Garros semi-final. Her first was in 1974. Insanity.



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