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ROLAND GARROS 2014 - MONDAY 26 MAY IP: 46.255.183.159 Posted on May 26, 2014 at 10:34:47 PM by David Barnes
ROLAND GARROS 2014 - DAY 2
MONDAY 26 MAY
Play started late here today due to the inclement weather; Kei Nishikori, for one, must have wished that it had rained all day and kept him off court completely, such was the hammering he took from the relatively unknown Slovakian Martin Klizan, ranked 59. The Japanese player is clearly still carrying some of the injuries that have plagued his recent performances (groin in Miami, back in Madrid where he retired in the final after taking the first set off Nadal, ankle here in Paris, by the look of the strapping), and he probably needs a prolonged stretch on the physio’s bench.
The match was out on Court 1, known as ‘The Bullring’ due to its design and the fevered and claustrophobic atmosphere that can obtain there. Spectators in the front rows sit inches away from the players, every breath audible, every movement delightfully but alarmingly close. Nishikori’s discomfort was all too evident, Klisan’s wiry 6’3” frame impressive in its resolve, even if he grunted his way unattractively through all three sets for his convincing 7-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory. Nishikori put a brave, if typically unresponsive and largely monosyllabic, face on his defeat afterwards, declining to blame past or present injury, and saying of Michael Chang, who recently joined his team; “For sure that Michael is helping my tennis to get better”. But even the diminutive if legendary Chang won’t be able to magic any kind of winning consistency from the broken and unwilling body that currently masquerades as the Japanese number 1, one suspects.
Maria Sharapova, another perennial loudmouth, cantered through her match against fellow Russian Ksenia Pervak like the thoroughbred filly that she is, winning 6-1, 6-2 in exactly one hour. I can’t watch a Sharapova match courtside, due to the damaging health effects of her screaming and shrieking; partly on account of this squeamishness I rarely attend the diva’s subsequent press conferences in case the vocal behaviour continues, but today I hurried along to hear what the 2012 champion had to say. Sharapova’s press conferences act as a magnet for journalists in the same way as the ‘reduced items’ counter at Waitrose does for cash-strapped shoppers, and there is something of an unseemly scrum among the [largely male] hacks to take their seats and ask a question. It is a worthwhile effort, however, as those eyes locate you behind the microphone and you feel yourself the sole and simpering object, for however brief a period, of the supermodel’s studiously rapt attention.
Today we covered an unusually wide range of topics, from finding yourself back at a Grand Slam, (“it’s just something different in the air no matter if you’re playing one set or ten”) and the thorny question of five-set Grand Slam matches for the women, via Sharapova’s participation, as a torch-bearer, in the Sochi Winter Olympics (“It was one of those just unique, unique moments”), to the continuing fall-out from the Chernobyl disaster, and lastly to her fondness for macaroons (“I usually allow myself a couple here and there, but on tougher occasions I allow myself more than usual”). Despite this, and to state the obvious, as John Inverdale might say in an unguarded hay fever-stricken moment, “You’re a bit of a looker, aren’t you, Maria?”
Qualifier James Ward won the first set of his match against the ‘veteran’ (he is 32, past middle age in tennis terms) Tommy Robredo, 6-4, before the rain returned in the early afternoon, lost the second by the same margin when play resumed, and then, more crucially and painfully, the third 6-2, before saving two match points at 5-3 down in the fourth and finding a glorious cross-court backhand to haul himself back to 4-5, with the Spaniard’s serve to come. However Robredo wrapped the match up on his service, in just under three hours of solid, gutsy, spirited play from both sides of the net. “I thought I played really well”, Ward said afterwards, adding that the Spaniard is “one of the toughest players to play on clay in the world. I put him up there, top 5 in the last ten years, so [I’m] pleased with my efforts”.
Over on Court Philippe Chatrier, meanwhile, Novak Djokovic was doing his best to endear himself to what may yet turn out to be ‘his’ public at the end of the fortnight, by having the ballboy sit down next to him at a changeover, giving him his racket and some water, and holding the umbrella for the kid rather than the other way round. Funny and whimsically delightful at the time, it seemed unwise when he lost concentration and went 15-40 down on serve immediately thereafter, but he recovered to win the second set 6-2 against his increasingly dispirited Portuguese oppponent, Joao Sousa, and triumphed 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in under two hours.
Rafa, who if he denies Djokovic the trophy in the final that many are envisaging, will become the first man in history (as the ATP Notes rather portentously put it) to win five consecutive titles here, was similarly convincing in his first outing, against the American wild card Robby Ginepri. He took the first set 6-0, the second 6-3, the third 6-0 again, for a resounding victory in little more than 90 minutes. Given that Rafa is sometimes troubled in the first rounds of a Grand Slam, and has been, by his standards, inconsistent of late, this was a suitably brilliant result.
David Goffin, who has not fulfilled the potential it was felt he had in 2012, his breakthrough year, when he had notable early round wins here and at Wimbledon, and who had wrist surgery in 2013, had a poor match against Jurgen Melzer, losing in four sets in a little over three hours. At the age of 33, the Austrian is even more of a veteran than Robredo, but equally tenacious and hard to beat, especially in the first round of a Grand Slam.
A number of matches, scheduled last on eight of the 15 courts being used today, were cancelled. There is more rain forecast tomorrow, so the auguries for the tournament are, at this stage, not especially encouraging. In 1973, Roland Garros had its longest-ever tournament, when Ilie Nastase had to wait until the Tuesday of the third week to lift the trophy. One doubts that it will come to that, but you never know. ‘Umbrellas at the ready’ is the mantra in the meantime.
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David Barnes/Topspin, 2014
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