French Open '13 Point by Point Coverage

[falafaclese]

The draws are out!

Rafa and Djoker are in the the same half of the men's draw. I not at all sure that Djoker will be able to make it past Haas, Roger must have been doing a dance in his hotel room. I'll bet he threw in a little cabbage patch, and some crip walk.

The women's draw is a little lopsided with Maria, Vika, and LI all in the same half, and then Errani and Radwanska are the two next highest seeds in Serena's half.

[mooncreek]

The issue with Haas is making it to that quarterfinal match. He couldn't have asked for a better draw but I don't trust him best-of-five.

Thanks for the image of Roger doing the cabbage patch But, yeah, pretty sweet draw in which the only real issue to the final is Tsonga... but I actually have Jo winning that match because this is also the optimal draw for Ferrer. Berdych would have been a tougher QFist for Roger but it's tough to picture Tomas even getting out of the first week with that brutal 1-2 of Monfils (barring injury, he's going to stay on the court and give the French fans value) and Gulbis.

I see Errani as a SFist but that Kerber/Wozniacki section is going to crumble to dust. I hope it's Kuznetsova emerging from that mess.

[falafaclese]

I always root for Kuznetsova to make a run regardless of how maddening her inconsistency is.

[lt]

Thanks for the image of Roger doing the cabbage patch

Seconded.

I always root for Kuznetsova to make a run regardless of how maddening her inconsistency is.

Heh, that was my thought process when I was filling in the women's bracket as well.

[falafaclese]

Serena looked as good as she has these past few weeks on clay, but Tatashvili wasn't offering much resistance. Also, Venus and Serena are playing doubles, so maybe Venus' back has gotten better?

[skyz]

I'd be thrilled if Venus' back was healed, but I'm doubtful that it is. It's only been three weeks since Madrid, right? And it was affecting her in Rome too, so, I don't think so. Probably Venus is being her stubborn self and wanting to play either way. As for doubles... I don't know what the thinking is there. Especially for Venus since her illness exacerbates her back issues and doubles won't help for much if it screws her back up worse than it is already. Plus it's cold as hell in Paris, not good for the back either.

[lt]

Wowza. I saw Simon get to 5-1 in the fifth and then I left for awhile, came back to 5-5. That Hewitt is still such a terrier. I wonder if pulling out his first five-set match (after being down 0-2) and letting his opponent get to 5-5 will actually be the kick in the pants that Simon needs? That turned into a very gutsy win.

I heard Andy talking to Brad and Chris and I do wish that everyone would stop comparing other players's injuries to Roger's injuries. Yes, Roger guts out a lot of his pain but his game is completely different than other players's and so are his injuries. I'm glad that Andy pulled out of the French with what he has and I don't think it shows him to be a wimp at all. (For those that didn't hear, Chris didn't call Andy a wimp but he did question why Roger doesn't pull out with injuries and other players do.)

eta: since I don't have TTC I'm really hoping Roger can serve this set out in the next 15 minutes. I figure I'm skipping NBC's coverage completely since I can't see them showing any live tennis at all. I'll do the ESPN3 thing on the computer instead.

[GrandSlamGuru]

Good Morning fellow Roland Garros fans. It's showtime!

Did Serena even break a sweat?

I was never a Hewitt fan so not sad he fell to Simon. Roger seems to be cruising along.

[harry24]

I always root for Kuznetsova to make a run regardless of how maddening her inconsistency is.

Me too. She's just so darn lovable.

[falafaclese]

Hi guru! I can never get behind Hewitt either.

For anyone who's looking for live streams, espn3.com is working fine on multiple courts, and as loathe as I am to say anything good about it right now, tennischannel.com has a good multi-court feed on their website, and they seem to have launched a new app for apple and android that also carries the feeds.

[lt]

Thanks, falafaclese, ESPN3 seems to have gone down to one stream but I forgot about TTC's stream and it looks like I can get the Feli/Granollers match there.

[roseha]

hey fala and lt, thanks so much for the info on the tennis channel stream. I can watch it even though I don't have a cable TV account anymore!

(I think I made an attempt to do this with ESPN 3 but I won't give any website my date of birth! Not in this age of identity theft)

[GrandSlamGuru]

Anyone see what happened with Petrova?

[falafaclese]

Venus and Ursula are trying to beat each other to death out there right now.

[mooncreek]

It's weird watching a Hewitt GS match these days. When he was winning those first two sets, you're practically preparing for the other shoe to drop (or, in this case, for the foot to fail). So then Simon is up 5-0 or 5-1 in the fifth and Lleyton comes back/Simon chokes to get to 5-all but you could then sense that Lleyton was going to lose just due to serving second. Which, he did.

Here's the thing about Andy's injury - it's as if the commentators forgot what happened last French Open with him. The B.S. about calling him a drama queen in that Nieminen match? It's not as if the back was non-existent last year but he soldiered on. Yes, something needs to change when it comes to Andy's training on clay because there appears to be a difference since Lendl came on when it comes to this surface.

Fabrice Santoro as on-court interviewer? This could be fun with the right player.

ETA: Meanwhile, watching Venus is almost making me cry. It's tough because you don't know what you're going to get these days - but that champion spirit is still in her heart.