Well not long now till the French Open begins at Roland Garros stadium in Paris, which will be two weeks of fabulous tennis hopefully, plenty of 3 set battles on the ladies side, and 5 set epics on the guys side. Who will emerge victorious??? We'll see!
It looks very interesting though, on the men's side of the draw, there are few tough customers, first off for Rafa there is the US giant John Isner, well shouldn't be too tough for the king. Andy Murray will face a qualifier, we don't know who yet, but thankfully form wise he is miles above what he was back in those terrible days in his hard court season this year. Another interesting and tough draw choice for Novak Djokovic is Juan Martin Del Potro, who might meet in the 3rd round. The Argentine who has recently come back from a year off due to a wrist injury, has made a very impressive return to form himself, having already won two ATP 250 events in the USA at Delray Beach and Estoril in Portgual. Already having won a grand slam himself at the US Open in 2009, Del Potro will be no pushover, but I'm fairly certain Novak will overcome him. I quite liked BBC Scotland sports reporter Kheredine Idessane who interviewed Djokovic in Paris and said to him about his winning streak of 37 matches "This is getting ridiculous isn't it???".
On the women's side of things not so sure of the draw as yet, although it was good to see Heather Watson, British world no.3 come through her qualifier matches to play in the French Open for the first time. Elena Baltacha should be playing in the first round against qualifier Sloane Stephens and Caroline Wozniacki will play Kimiko Kate Drumm, a Japanese player who is the oldest on the tour, and is twice Caz's age!! Kim Clijsters of course returns to the scene at the French Open too, which will be really good, as she had a torn ligament in her ankle after an injury when attending a wedding (perhaps she had one too many???) which since has been taped up and is on the mend.
Speaking of the women's tour, there was a really good match today between Caroline Wozniacki and Francesca Schiavone, as the two went head to head in the semi finals at the Brussels Open. The two went at it, despite a slew on unforced errors on either side, Caroline prevailed in 3 sets, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. Schiavone of course being the defending champion at Roland Garros, will be disappointed no doubt, but her form has been really up and down lately, so it remains to see how well she will do this year. Tomorrow Caroline will face the Chinese player Shuia Peng who defeated Vera Zvonareva in straight sets 6-3 6-3, so I do predict a fourth title win on the cards for Caroline. Good on her, as she has struggled in her last 3 clay court tournaments to get a win, obviously clay isn't her best surface, but hopefully she can do well this year at the French Open, and she did get to the quarter finals last year, so maybe she can do better this time.
On another WTA tournament in Strasbourg, which unfortunately isn't televised, Andrea Petkovic is through to the final and will play French nutter Marion Bartoli, both of which are two of my favourite players (plus Petko is a bit of a honey). Just a shame I can't watch but I will follow scores on that one, as far as I know Petkovic has only won one title in her career so far, so this would make for a good second. But Bartoli is no pushover throughout this tournament going by her results so far, she has straight set ploughed her way to the final, so has Petkovic for that matter until today when she had a tough match against Daniella Hantuchova. But their final should be a tough one, so it will be a close call whoever wins and will be worth following.
Ahh and finally I got tickets to go to see the Davis Cup at Braehead Arena in July, so really looking forward to seeing it, as it will be the first tennis match I'll have seen live so to speak. In the Davis cup event at Braehead, Great Britain will play a rubber round against Luxemborg, so I think its a case of each top player from both countries will player another, and there will be a doubles day in between. To be honest I have no idea who the number 1 from Luxemborg is, and even more to the point I don't know if Andy will play at the event, as he usually hasn't showed up much in the past, so it will probably be Jamie Baker, the British number 2, who will play. Britain aren't however in the world group, they are further down in the Europe/Africa zone, probably out where the bins are so to speak as Malcolm Tucker might say. In otherwords there won't be much chance of Britain winning the Davis Cup this year! But again when do win anything?????! :-( :-)
An update for the WTA tour in Brussels, the final between Caroline Wozniacki and Peng Shuai was a very good match and fierce battle from both players. It also featured one of the best games I've seen in recent matches during the 3rd game in the second set, that gave Caroline the crucial lead she needed to get ahead after being a set down in the first. In the end Cazza came through in 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, which means she now has 16 titles under her belt and its the 4th title of the year for her, so well done. Its good to see her win after having struggled badly to win in the last three tournaments in Stuttgart, Madrid and Rome, so this should give Caroline a confidence boost going into the French Open. Although at one point she did sustain a thigh injury in the 3rd set, but hopefully it won't be anything serious for her going into Roland Garros next week.
On the other WTA tournament in Strasbourg, Andrea Petkovic claimed her second title of her career as she won against Marion Bartoli who had to retire due to injury in 6-4 1-0. Since I quite like Petko myself I was quite pleased to see her win, this will also give her much confidence going into the French Open. The French Open for the women's tour is more exciting this year as there is no clear favourite who might win. It could be Wozniacki, Sharapova, Clijsters, Azarenka (if she doesn't retire again) maybe even Schiavone, or someone else. It is up for grabs and no one knows what will happen. So it will be interesting to follow going into the next fortnight.
And that's it for now!!
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