Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka are making a relative mess of their respective treks through the bottom half of the French Open draw. What counts, of course, is that they remain alive. But to say it has not been easy would be a gross understatement.
Murray has won two straight five-setters over qualifier Radek Stepanek and wild card Mathias Bourgue. After scraping past Stepanek 3-6, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3, 7-5 in a darkness-delayed match on Tuesday, the second-ranked Scot overcame the little-known Bourgue 6-2, 2-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday.
“Today certainly wasn’t easy,” Murray commented after getting past the world No. 164. “I lost my way on the court today for quite a while. So (it was good) to turn it around and find a way to win after a period where I was struggling to win points at one stage–I was losing a lot of games at love. It felt like…every time the ball was in the middle of the court he was hitting winners. I couldn’t see where his shots were going. Yeah, it was a big struggle.”
Wawrinka at least reduced his number of required sets from five to three, but he also ran into some difficulty on Tuesday. Having previously outlasted Lukas Rosol 4-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, the defending Roland Garros champion defeated Taro Daniel 7-6(7), 6-3, 6-4. But Wawrinka trailed 6-4 in the first-set tiebreaker and by 4-2 in the third before bouncing back in each of those sets.
“(It) was a good match,” the world No. 4 assessed. “I’m happy to get through in three sets. For sure it was some up and down, could have been better, but winning three sets [is] always good…. In general I think it’s been a good day.”
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will hope to have an easier time of things on Thursday, just as they did in their opening-round matches. Djokovic coasted past Yen-Hsun Lu 6-4, 6-1, 6-1, while Nadal triple-breadsticked Sam Groth 6-1, 6-1, 6-1.
Next up for the world No. 1 is Steve Darcis, whom he leads 2-0 in the head-to-head series. Djokovic rolled 6-4, 6-0 eight years ago on the clay courts of the Rome Masters and 6-0, 7-5 last year in Miami. Darcis is coming off a 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 blowout of Marsel Ilhan, which gave the 161st-ranked Belgian his first ATP-level victory of the season and his fourth career win in the French Open main draw. Since losing the opening set of his qualifying campaign last week, Darcis has reeled off nine consecutive sets.
“I love sharks,” Djokovic quipped when told Darcis’ nickname is ‘The Shark.’ “He’s been around the tour for many years. He had a couple of big wins–I think (against) Nadal in Wimbledon a couple of years ago. Generally, I think he prefers playing on quicker surfaces. So I haven’t seen him play much on clay; gonna have to do a little bit of homework there.”
Nadal is also set for a first-time encounter, as he has faced Facundo Bagnis. The all-lefty battle was booked when Bagnis downed Kenny De Schepper 6-0, 6-2, 7-6(2) on Tuesday. The 99th-ranked Argentine is perhaps best known for beating Julien Benneteau 18-16 in the fifth set in round one of this event two years ago. That had been the only Grand Slam win of Bagnis’ career until he victimized De Schepper.
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Is guga kuerten coaching Novak for RG?
Novak is tweeting a bit about him these days.
PR exercise most likely.
Exactly. He assiduously cultivates friendships with the big names at every tournament.
ed, did you see my reply on Daily Picks explaining why I made the comment about Murray winning back to back 5 set matches. It’s Murray who was defaming his opponents by saying he gets suspicious of specific players doing just that.
I assumed you were joking!
No, I wasn’t. It was really out of order for Andy to make such comments as the anecdotes he used to illustrate his claim were directly aimed at Rafa and Novak.
Keep your mind focused, stay confident and enjoy the game, Rafa!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjXWRFaUUAAbW0R.jpg
Not a good start being broken in the first set.
ok here we are. not a good start. but has pulled it back in his second service game…
Hope Rafa wraps this up quickly. Wind and heavy rain heading to Paris any minute now.
oh great! so we could have 2 nervy starts instead of one!
I’m watching on Eurosport Player which is a several minutes behind real play. Why is Rafa dropping so many balls short on the service line. Want to see some of that venom please.
Was that a rhetorical question?
That’s a bit more like it.
some good rallies in the first set…Rafa playing just enough for the win in the first set…good job! He does not need to expand too much energy…hope he is quick…don’t like rain interruptions at all…
TV for Rafa when he was serving for the set. He must have been like 3 seconds over.
loud reactions from the Argentine when he makes errors…he gets on my nerves…
Dominant…brilliant…the King of Clay in action…
it’s not that Bagnis is not trying…he is a clay courter after all…but his game is totally neutralized by Rafa…
^^Looks like he has a nasty temper.
the Serbian commentator saying that Bagnis breaking Rafa in the first game only woke up an animal in Rafa… 🙂
Eurosport has switched to Djoker vs Darcis which is more competitive so I’m now watching Rafa on Eurosport Player.
Wasn’t it Darcis who put Rafa out of Wimbledon some years back but incurred a shoulder injury in the process which kept him out of the game for ages?
It was Darcis.
That was his meal ticket.
I’m surprised he still has to play tennis what with the multi-millions of dollars from endorsements that must have dropped in his lap after that win.
But I guess it’s not the money that drives these pros.
Suppose it’s too much to hope he would pull it off twice 🙂
Bother. Was hoping Rafa would make it a double bagel.
Dont believe it. Rafa fails to serve out the match.
#Nerves never far away 🙁
Exactly ed. They are always there under the surfrace.
no, there were no nerves when serving for the match! Rafa just saw himself already in the locker room, taking a nice hot shower…no nerves at all, just one loose game…
Rafa played very good match…did not push hard…didn’t need to…
Riiiiiiight.
#EdHasANiceAvatar
dear hawks,
first you need to watch the match in order to judge Rafa’s play, don’t you think? 🙂
#youarewelcome
dear nats,
first you need to ask me if I watched the match in order to judge that I didn’t, don’t you think? 🙂
#YoureWelcomeYetAgain
And no disrespect intended, but even if I hadn’t watched the match, it’s not rocket science to correlate nerves to the ONLY two times Rafa being broken in the match just happening on his FIRST and LAST service games.
@ hawks 2:46 PM,
sorry if you did see the match! My impression was you didn’t! My bad, sorry again.
however, I still disagree…In his first game Rafa did not know what to expect from his opponent and was having a slow start…nothing to do with nerves…when serving for the match, two breaks up, do you really think Rafa was at all nervous??? Believe me, he was not…this match was really a straight forward one for Rafa…and it’s not that Argentine failed to put up a fight…there were involved in some nice rallies…
However, we all can observe Rafa’s level of play in somewhat different way…the statistics speak for themselves…Rafa was cruising and never felt nervous IMO…
Vamos Champ!
I saw the match. Rafa played great for 95% of the match EXCEPT first and last service games.
The first service break had only to do with Rafa hitting short (due to early nerves) which he quickly sorted out.
Similarly, he didn’t execute on his shots and made poor decisions serving for the match which were mental errors.
Other than that, he played and executed very well and only showed signs of nerves on those two breaks.
I respect your opinion but I respectfully disagree.
But at least we discuss tennis and not posters which is the way it should always be!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
I don’t always live up to it but there are degrees of evil.
Rafa’s stats:
Set1
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjYl6eMVEAAz2v6.jpg
Set2
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjYl8nAUYAAkCXB.jpg
🙂 🙂
Rafa’s stats:
Match:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CjYl-2VUYAM6JcR.jpg
🙂 🙂 🙂
The tennis channel is showing Novak’s match. So I can’t see Rafa!
Okay, I checked the score online and Rafa won easily!
In the third round!
That Djjokovic will win is NID but Darcis is making him work hard for it.
by watching Rafa and Novak play their respective matches I feel so sad that one of them will not play in the finals…It’s just unfair…these two are currently the best on clay and they will meet in the semis…stupid RG draw…
agreed. they should seed according to surface. i am furious about it as well..
the worst scenario is that the 2 kill each other so the winner is out of it for the final. i really don’t want to see that happen…
agreed…me too…
Now they are showing Tsonga/Baggy.
Baggy up a break in the first set.
Darcie is putting up a decent effort, but the outcome is not in doubt.
Tsonga gets the break after a great point. Entertaining!
Now 4-4
I did not expect this first set to be that close.
The commies said that Darcis broke back in the third set. On serve!
Granollers takes the first set against Mahut.
Novak got the break back. But good for Darcis for giving it a good effort and not making it too easy for Novak.
Zverev and Robert each have a set.
Tsonga and baggy in a TB.
baggy takes first set…
This is quite a battle with Tsonga and baggy.
Wow! Baggy wins the TB and the first set. I did not see that coming.
Tsonga had set point but blew it.
did anyone see the pigeons attack zverev?? as a result of the pigeon assault he lost the set!!
maybe they were fashionista pigeons and were offended by those zebra stripes…
what is is with the zebra look which is everywhere?!
LOL…poor Zverev 🙂
yeah, stripes are everywhere…so popular and so ugly in the same time…maybe the purpose is to annoy the opponent and get him distracted the same Wawa did with his pair of shorts last year… 🙂
No doubt that they were “hooligan fedfan” pigeons taking out their frustrations of MIA Fed.
haha hawks hadn’t thought of that!!
you are right!
if they are hooligan fedfan pigeons why are they attacking zverev though??
maybe they are getting some practice in for later assaults on their real target? ie rafa…
Just any target will do at this point amy. God, it’s KILLING them!!!
No need for the pigeons to go after Rafa though as the Fedfan-dominated boorish French RG crowd will handle that (unless he’s playing Nole of whom they enjoy cheering against even more)!
Vamos! And NEVER support the boorish French RG crowd!
🙂
…should say
Vamos! And NEVER support the boorish French RG crowd if you are a Rafan!
btw hawks. i just wanted to thank you for the thoughtful and generous post you left me last friday when i was ill. i was too out of it to reply but it was very nice of you.
of course you are right about the rg crowd. do you remember when they booed serena for no reason years ago? during the match with henin?
Hey no worries amy. Looking back maybe I was a bit over the top on my barrage of responses after the draw came out.
Hope you are feeling better.
Yeah, I remember that serena match. I was also at RG for the Hingis Graf match where they destroyed Hingis. I was a big Graf fan at the time but was embarrassed to be part of this crowd.
https://youtu.be/AqLr00Krd0k
There is no excuse to defend the boorish behaviour of the French RG crowd. It is an embarrassment to the sport of tennis.
Flashback to hawk.
Speaking of the crowd, the author of this article (published on May 30, 2012) isn’t also happy about the audience – he bemoans that “the boorish French RG crowd” weren’t interested in watching Fed’s, the 2009 champion, match at RG:
http://www.espn.co.uk/tennis/sport/story/153134.html
(P.S. The author or editor couldn’t resist to include a lie about Rafa into the article: “Rafael Nadal… STILL gets booed by sections of the locals.” It’s not true! This is an example how fake stories are created.)
Flashback to someone.
augusta08 CONTINUES to struggle with reading comprehension.
#NothingNew
augusta, who were the spectators in white and green who chanted Rafa’s name during the match?
Mahut retired in his match with Granollers.
The spectators in green and white are backing Tsonga so they are French and the chanted Rafa, Rafa, throughout Rafa’s match!
Tsonga out of tsorts down two tsets.
Vamots Baggy!
The tennis channel switched to Serena’s match.
I cannot believe that Tsonga is now down two sets to baggy!
Tsonga has a habit of waking up when he looks dead and buried.
Baggy has to close this in 3; if Tsonga wins the 3rd set, he’ll wake up.
Rafa’s start to French this year is reminiscent of his start to RG08. Utterly dominant. Djokovic must be shitting in his pants right now…lol
Djoker has admitted that he turnS up his intensity when he plays Rafa so we shall see. I used to judge him by his early rounds performances but he’s said he plays against Rafa like against no other. Still, he has had to work for his wins so far.
Their meeting will be 50-50 IMO.
just tuned into the tsonga match. even he’s wearing the zebra look!! or pelican look i suppose…
would that mean if stan was wearing shorts this year they would be zebra shorts?! the mind boggles…
Tsonga won the third set. He might try to pull off one of his signature comebacks. I still don’t know how he lost the first two sets.
You got it in one NNY.
I’m firmly of the opinion Djokovic IS having a confidence problem. He’s making a good job of keeping up appearances off the court but his erratic play and demeanour during matches tell another story.
He is surely alarmed by Rafa’s resurgence just when he believed RG was his for the taking: not to mention a raft of young generation players who could very easily scupper his chances of lifting the coveted trophy. He has failed four times to date when he has been close.
To quote Samuel Beckett: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.’
It eventually worked for CB.
Maybe Nole just needs to get tatted.
yeah was just thinking that is the wrong quote from your point of view ed.
fail better means move things further on afterall. ie win…
Just as long as he doesn’t do it this year Amy.
And preferably not until after Rafa has reached his 10th RG
yeah agreed. but nole is my second fave so if rafa doesn’t do it i would like him to win.
i am so pissed off that they are on the same side of the draw…
Yes! Rafa has to get his 10th RG!
I do think it’s a shame that Rafa and Novak are in the same side of the draw.
no, actually FAIL always means FAIL…’fail better’ means fail with dignity and hope to keep on trying…
Who is CB?
I do think that Novak is aware of rafa’s resurgence. He knows what that means.
We are a long way from the semis and finals. You never know what can happen in a slam.
cry baby = stan with his tatoo nny…
Amy,
Oh! Thanks for that! 🙂
Tsonga is up a break in the fourth set. That match may go to five sets.
right on cue the crowd is booing baggy….
Nole knows he was lucky in Rome. Rafa is only gaining further confidence. he wont be that lucky again in Chatrier. Thats Rafa’s den
yeah, but Nole turns into a beast when playing Rafa…he will leave it his all on court…so will Rafa…
Tsonga wins the fourth set and takes it to a fifth set.
I just noticed that Tsonga is wearing a zebra design shirt! What is up with that? Is this a new fashion trend? Yikes!
Rafa’s own words from his post-match press confrence:
“I won two matches with comfortable results. I played the way that I had to play to be in the third round.”
“After a difficult first three games today, I played a solid match with not many mistakes and having control of the situation most of the time. I need to keep playing better if I want to have chances in the next rounds.”
“I just need to play my matches each day. I know there are still things I can improve, so I’m still practising and working on them.”
http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/roland-garros-rafael-nadal-reaction-thursday
Rafa’s own words in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdb5V1WUr7Y
that’s right, Rafa…as I said, he did not push hard…he did not need to…it’s gonna get tougher and he will be ready for it!
Vamos Champ!
Murray is on SL tomorrow. Not much room to return Dr Ivo’s serve.
Tsonga up a break by the time the tennis channel switches back.
Zverev/Thiem should be a good one on Saturday!
At 5-3 in the first Tennis Channel showed that first two games 40% of Rafa’s shots were short landing within the service line but in the six games that followed he’d reduced that to 23%.
Like I said, he was broken because he was hitting short. And usually when he hits short it is nerves.
In Rafa’s last service game when he was broken serving for the match, 12 of 22 shots or 55% landed at or short of the service line.