French Open Day 2: To Rain on Rafa, or For Rafa to Reign?

Hi All. Galileo here.

Six years ago Rafa Nadal dismissed Simone Bolelli for the loss of just five games. Well this time it was a different story.

He took a 6-4, 6-3 lead but the Italian fought back to take a 3-0 lead in the third before rain intervened. It was bad timing in one way as the best path to beating Rafa is momentum, but the rain might just extend the Italian’s stay. If there was any year that Rafa’s fitness was an issue it is this year. If he gets taken to four or gets delayed until late today because of the rain he could feel it down the road. Of course, the most likely outcome is a straight sits win, even being down 3-0. It is only one break after all. Still, the rain is definitely not good news for the Spaniard.

In one of the better matches of the day, Bernard Tomic lost in four. But it is an achievement nevertheless. He actually played through qualifiers and he made a real, noticeable effort in the first round. Given that clay isn’t his best surface, it really isn’t a bad result. And he can now join Gilles Muller on a plane straight to the nearest grass court. Now if he can qualify for Wimbledon and get a friendly draw there he could make a decent showing of himself. He has time on his side. He can still fix up his career.

His opponent, lucky loser Marco Trungelliti, had to literally drag his grandma out of the shower in Barcelona and drove from there to Paris. He has the result of his career so it was probably worth the ten hour drive. The link here is a great read.

*SUICIDE POOL PICS*
MS 1st Rd: Djokovic [20] d. [q] Dutra Silva {W}
MS 2nd Rd: Gasquet [27] d. Jaziri {W}
==
WS 1st Rd: Bertens [8] d. Sabalenka WS 2nd Rd:


One of our three former champions is gone. Let’s see what happened.

CHATRIER: DJOKOVIC D. DUTRA SILVA
…Roland Garros is the least forgiving and gentle of the slams. The crowd gets after you and the scheduling can err towards the crazy. But they have shown faith here. They know Novak Djokovic will draw a crowd and even if it’s financially motivated it still shows they have confidence in him. Here he looked good, albeit against inferior opposition. If you had to play Silva anywhere you wouldn’t pick the clay, though he is unlikely to cause you trouble there, either. It took him just over two hours to come through 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. While an upset never looked like it was on the cards, the Brazilian still managed to cause trouble- he went up a break in the second and Djokovic really struggled to get the set under his belt. Once he had that 2-0 cushion, however, he was absolutely fine. Still, a 37-36 mark on winners to errors needs to be improved on and at times he looked tired. He could not handle Nadal here but he might be able to handle someone like David Goffin. Next up he plays Jaume Munar who came back from two sets down to beat David Ferrer. He is 21 and is part of the bright future of Spanish tennis. It will be a fascinating matchup of the old and new. Munar won Roland Garros in 2015 in the junior doubles. He lost in the singles finals to Andrey Rublev the year before so it could be a test
Also there might be a racket smash:



LENGLEN: GARCIA-LOPEZ D. WAWRINKA
...So, history does repeat itself. The match was delicately balanced in the fourth set breaker. Both guys were playing great tennis. Wawrinka was up 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Swiss had so many chances in that breaker. He even had two serves to win it. He was in inches away. But a wild swing on the forehand landed a metre clear of the baseline. From there he faded. The 6-3 final set scoreline indicates it was close. It didn’t feel that way. It would be so easy to jump to conclusions here and say that Wawrinka is done. He couldn’t move properly by the 5th set. He looked spent. He gave up a little bit at the end. But he can still hit. He has three or four years left while he is still relevant. And you don’t need to move well to win Wimbledon, the only slam he has yet to take. Look at Andy Roddick and Lindsay Davenport. They were very successful at Wimbledon and they didn’t move. If Wawrinka can learn to play a little better on the surface he could win it. Fedalovic will be gone in two years. Andy Murray is finished. Wawrinka has a chance at SW19 if he can get that knee back into working order. Or at least resembling working order. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez was brilliant. Karen Khachanov is up next and that could be another classic five setter.

LENGLEN: GASQUET D. SEPPI
...This was supposed to be a gritty, four—set duel on dirt with the crowd propelling Richard Gasquet to an entertaining victory. Instead the Frenchman needed just 90 minutes to win 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.He won 88 points and dropped just 45. He won over 60 per cent of return points. Throw in eight breaks and this was really brutal. Gasquet looked phenomenal. He moves on and will play Malek Jaziri next, and on this evidence he is a great choice for the suicide pick.

COURT ONE: THIEM D. IVASHKA
...The Belarusian has been around the fringes of the challenger tour for a while now, since 2013 in fact. Finally, aged 24, he has emerged onto the tour and holds and 11-7 record. This month he hit his highest ever ranking of 111. That is pretty remarkable. Playing against Domi Thiem in Paris was always going to prove to be a sterner test however. He was dressed in a white outfit covered in black stars and on the back was the number 17 so at least he stood out. He lost 6-2, 6-4, 6-1. So if people remember him it will be for his dress sense not his tennis because it wasn’t close at all. Thiem controlled the match from start to finish in what was a consummate performance. Next up for Thiem will be a real test; Stefanos Tsitsipas. If you don’t know about the Greek now you will soon.

COURT THREE: BAUTISTA AGUT D. ISTOMIN
...This one was always going to be tight but when it comes to making their seed nobody is better than Bautista Agut. He is machine-like. He really had his back up against the wall but came back to win 6-2, 6-7[3], 1-6, 6-4, 6-4. Beating the Spaniard across five is notoriously difficult. He may be a classic case of beats-everyone-he’s-supposed-to-and-nobody-he-isn’t but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Istomin was plus five on the winner to error count, while Agut was -3. In fact the Spaniard only won four more points. But that can be all it takes. Colombian qualifier Santiago Giraldo is up next. That will not be easy. And he can’t really afford to go five because Djokovic will almost certainly be waiting for him in the third round.



Thanks and visit WTA BACKSPIN.

Read more!