this is a thread for the only sporting event worth following in the coming month, ie ROLAND GARROS 2006

Shame about Wimbledon huh :-)

my Roland Garros q-f predictions:

Mauresmo v V.Williams
Safina v Kuznetsova
Henin-Hardenne v Petrova
Hingis v Clijsters

Federer v Acasuso
Nalbandian d Davydenko
O.Rochus v Ferrer
whoever wins the Gonzalez/Safin opener v Nadal

Hard to see Nadal losing, innit?

There's a new espn blog with an entry about the perspective of Nadal's streak from a couple days ago. Blog is sort of apologist so far, like 'take your medicine', here's why you should care if you normally watch baseball.

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=goldstein_paul&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fespn%2fblog%2findex%3fname%3dgoldstein_paul

As for the World Cup, I think we can forget about Wimbledon BBCi extra courts/live scoring if there are any clashes with England matches - all that precious bandwidth will be needed for Alan Green R5L commentary and tedious stats.

BUT TENNIS ON CLAY? UGHHHHHHHHHH

BUT NEVER CLAY!

Geez, don't you know any tennis terms? Go back to the concrete courts or stick to the Strawberries & Cream, will ya?

Maybe McEnroe's problem with clay was that the ball tends to leave a mark, so less room for disputes (though it does lend an extra edge for the paranoiac - "You're looking at the wrong mark, man! You KNOW that wasn't the shot I'm talking about!").

not that i saw any of it today, suffering from a triple whammy of a) forgetting it was starting early this year, b) inability to move from bed until 4pm due to hangover and c) er not having a tv let alone the right channels anyway.

i'm shocked that sharapova had so much trouble with washington even despite her lack of preparation - washington has been awful all season and got even worse when the tour hit clay. i think safarova will take the shazbot out in the third - if she doesn't safina will destroy her in the fourth.

though i wouldn't be surprised if benesova gets her first! benesova is one of those players i can't figure out at all, she has so many bad, heavy losses every year but every so often pulls something big out of her sleeve eg beating pierce in australia this year.

londoners, do you know of ANY pubs in this city of ours which might conceivably show this on tv?

oh look fabrice santoro in marathon five-setter SHOCKER!

the finals are on the 10th and 11th - i assume every pub will have the world cup on :-) xp

Massu blew a two-set lead vs Malisse but then recovered from a double-break deficit in the decider to nudge through 9-7; Kirsten Flipkens beat Virginie Pichet in the cutesiest match-up of round one - they both sound like characters in a whimsical CBBC exchange-student drama. Or bunnies. Greg R is offering token resistance vs Mink DeVille while our Golden Wonder Starace is out, blowing a two set lead like a berk.

myskina through in easy straight sets over mirza: relief! mirza is shit on clay but lately there has been no match so easy that anastasia can't manage to fuck it up. hingis through in straight sets: hurrah! also hurrah at the unblunted tongue - in the press conference she was asked to gauge her level, and her reply was along the lines of "when you're playing someone like lisa raymond you can't tell very much".

haas shuttles schuttler out of the tournament in straight sets - that australian open final seems a long way away now, doesn't it rainer? - while the most famous cypriot in the world (possibly) also off to a good start over portas. robby ginepri's slump continues - maybe that us open semi-final last year was the worst thing to happen to his career, as he's won all of three matches this year so far.

kaia kanepi was a junior i expected to break through about four years ago - she didn't do this at all, but now she finally gets a win at a senior slam, over peschke.

Oh look, Ivo Karlovic is involved in some tie-breaks. The first twelve games of each set must be such a unfathomable nuisance to him. "Do we have to?"

(she's played pretty badly all year. though given that fernandez has played pretty badly for two years now, The Law should still be winning...gah)

Can we anticipate round one downfall for Rodders this afternoon vs Not-Todd Martin? He's having a wretched year but seemed to have picked up his clay-court game a notch recently. I actually thought he was going to skip Paris, injured.

Ivo won 8-6 7-1 12-10. A real beggars' banquet.

i totally hope not-todd can win today! but i've never been impressed with his game, not even on clay...still, dickhead should definitely lose in round 3 to le petit rochus.

holy shit, nadia petrova is a set and a break down!

The Loiterer comes good in the end and is through in three.

Elsewhere - Tommy-Jo is crushing The Other Rochus, Crayfish getting gutted by Yakimova, and Gisela Dulux is a set up but a break down against The Long Awaited Return To The Grand Slam Scene Of Julia's Bagel Time!

And now Rova's two breaks down to Moggy.

JHH dismisses Ani (From Estonia) 6-3 6-0, and Mog's serving at 5-2 up against Rova.

Elsewhere, Dicko's 4-2 down against Marty, Bagel Timer gets the second set against Dulks.

On Court 3, Bobby Vik and Florent Serra are tearing strips off each other - 1-6 6-1 1-1 at the moment. Both games in the third have gone against serve.

Dulux-Bagel 8-8. The Ukrainian lass just tossed away a break point there.

Kooky-Lovin' Klara is a set up on Garbin. Klara's the 30th seed this year. Well done her.

Safin leads Gonzo 5-0 in the second.

Also, Chris Roc is on the verge of a remarkable turnaround against Johansson - he now leads 3-6 5-7 6-4 6-4 4-1.

If yr in the UK, like.

...i am guessing i fooled precisely no one, there. fedge through obviously.

god i CANNOT. COPE. WITH. COMPUTERS. TODAY.

i bet vivi didn't find it so funny you little minx!

Bandy, meanwhile, is just starting to drag himself back into contention vs Tursunov - down two sets to one.

MariO, RobredO, DavydenkO and GaudiO through to the last 16; ArguellO is on the verge of joining them, at which point they'll all overlap, Olympic rings style, against a photomontage of novelty mints, shuttle disasters and David Rappap0rt.

Top half of the 4th round looking good in both singles draws - particularly Sharapova-Safina and Fedz-TheFellaThatBeatHimInTheOlympics.

And, in me-pleasing news, Anna Lena Groenfeld, who I've been convinced was about to do great things is finally going to actually GO SOMEWHERE IN A GRAND SLAM, a set away from the fourth round. Well done, Lena GR, it's been a BLOODY LONG TIME COMING, unless it only seems so.

Chewy Llewis looking home, two sets up. The Radical Stepladder a set up on the United Colours of Benneteau and YES, the Graceful Gazelle charged straight through Shenay Perry, and probably looked quite elegant while doing so.

Needing to raise her standards at the moment: The Diva! Lost the first set to the improving but still beneath her Shahar Peer, but has a break in the second. And El is awfully strong on that serve, isn't she now. The Belgians through easily enough.

Really, how is Jiffy Ljub seeded #4? It's amazing the things that slip by between slams if you take your eye off the rest of the ATP tour.

Has far does James Blakes have to get in this event to displace Rodders as US #1 I wonder?

safina does it! 6 games in a row from 5-1 down in the 3rd!!

Blake-Monfils on serve in the 5th.

Monfils breaks and serves it out - 6-4 in five.

Nadal will have to improve by a touch between now and that possible (almost inevitable) final against Fed. Somehow not quite there yet.

Sharapova-Safina: I left it when it was 3-1 in the 3rd then I checked 20 mins later expecting to settle down to another match and there it still was...5-4 about to become 5-5.

saw the end of blake v monfils - i love monfils, he has an AMAZING bodyis very charismatic did you SEE IT when he took his shirt off after the norman matchand i like his game! blake seemed to be throwing a hissy fit at the umpire afterwards - anyone have any idea what it was about? there weren't any controversial calls in the last game.

GO BATTY PATTY! (Tho I've got mad love for the V-ster too)

mauresmo just hit the most exquisite one-handed backhand drive volley against vaidisova, who is looking flummoxed at having to play someone who is using tactics on court. if you though sharapova was just dumb power-hitting, vaidisova's game is even more of a lowest common denominator.

Okay, I think I'm rooting for her crazy ass, too.

Although you can't see the ball in the low-res highlights clip on the Rolandgarros.com front page, Mathieu & Son vs er, Tea for the Tillernadalman looked like a cracker. In fact, seeing as you can't see the ball, it was at least as good as the match in Maryon Park in Antonioni's Blow Up which the Pinefox and I re-created in 1999.

I really couldn't fully process that Wh1te M1le site. I didn't know what the bloody hell it was on abaht, but I did only have 15 seconds to look at it before my daughter started crying. Which might not have been unrelated.

WavyDavyDenkoMenko is defending a lot of points here having been thwarted only in last year's semi by drug-guzzling cheat* Pu3rt4. (* - has this been confirmed/refuted yet? Are things ever in tennis?) Probably Bandy next. Fedz vs Ancic in the quarters! Shades of Wimbledon 2002? Probably not.

a joy to see Hingis' ease. she's become rather cuet.

she won a pretty good first set and then basically went MEEP MEEP MEEP I CAN'T COPE for the rest of the match.

Henin was walking all over Myskina and then, 5-0 up on the 2nd she suddenly got out of the locker room to win the next four games! Henin finally did successfully serve it out to win 6-4. The first point of that final game was one of the great great rallies.

But its all about Hewitt-Nadal.

nastya is a ridiculous player. she was functionally not present until 1-6 0-5 down and THEN she starts to play well?! idiot girl. however - JHH is the woman to beat here, and in my mind still the heavy favourite.

Now, Vaidisova's next match is going to be an interesting one.

also, ironically, it's due to the increasing depth in the women's game. in the past there'd be a couple of elite players who towered above the rest - which meant that though there'd be the same four names in the semis every time, the other top 20 players were more likely to be upset by non-seeds. now, you've got about 20 women playing at a higher level to the rest of the field, which means that most of the seeds follow form. the move to 32 seeds has also meant that there's less chance of an upset.

I really was going to post about how Mathieu could really give Nadal some grief, but every time I say something like that it's two, love and one in about 55min.

Nadal saved a couple of break points in his last service game. On serve so far in the 3rd.

I think that might be my favoured scenario if the #1-#2 battle doesn't come off.

Nadal has just broken Hewitt with a magnificent drop-shot. Now he serves for the 3rd.

MEANWHILE: there's a tie-break, it goes to 5-5 apiece... and Force-9 blinks first. NoDjo takes the first set 7-6.

$15 was on offer pre-tourney.

Monfils is, I think, about to lose - he's blown a 3-1 lead in this set and is now facing three break-points...

No Djitters for Djoko - two points away...

Federer vs Ancic
Nalbandian vs Davydenko
Benneteau vs Ljubicic
Djokovic vs Nadal

Vaidisova vs Williams
Safina vs Kuznetsova
Henin-Hardenne vs Groenefeld
Hingis vs Clijsters

Roger Federer v Mario Ancic
David Nalbandian v Nikolay Davydenko
Julien Benneteau v Ivan Ljubicic
Novak Djokovic v Rafael Nadal

Nicole Vaidisova v Venus Williams
Dinara Safina v Svetlana Kuznetsova
Justine Henin-Hardenne v Anna-Lena Groenefeld
Martina Hingis v Kim Clijsters

I think I will be boring and safe and go for Fedge and Double H as champs, with Nadge and Venus the losing finalists...

Kuznetsova through to the semis.

Williams double faults, Vaidisova (spelt her name wrong uphtread) breaks. She has never let her intensity go and it looks like she'll go through now.

5-5 in the 1st between Hinge and Braijket.

hingis is back to her bitchy best incidentally - after beating ondraskova in round two, her interview afterwards went along the lines of "i almost felt sorry for her, i was winning so easily". note 'almost'. mary joe fernandez told a story about how, the week after hingis/novotna beat seles/fernandez in doubles, 7-6 in the third, she was surprised to learn that hingis and novotna were splitting up - she asked hingis about this, and hingis replied "well, we almost lost to you, we had to".

Things going with serve between JHH and Annie-Lennie.

Looijks lijke Kim.

JHH gets the first break of serve against Algie, serving at 4-3 up.

"Matt" Groenefeld won't lie down - breaks back via Pristine.

Oddly, Cornet-Wozniacki has just vanished from the pop-up score tracker. Oh, no, it's back again - Mademoiselle lost the first set 6-3, currently 2-1 up on serve in the second.

And Russian Dave's just gone 3-1 up on Argentinian Dave

In a not-massive shock, Ancic didn't hold that break for very long - Fedz was soon back at him and took the set 6-3. They're 1-1 in the third.

Course that probably makes no difference given Fedge straight-setted SBCE 6-4 6-3 6-4.

Oh, and Cornet scooped the Danish lass 8-6 in the third.

Tomorrow, the eyes of the French rest on Julien Benneteau...

Incidentally, if Ivan makes it to the semis, he'll have done so without having faced a single seeded player in the tournament so far. And then he'll be taking on Rafa. Oh well.

Still, Benny can be pleased with his tournament overall - a quarter final, taking out Stepanek and Baghdatis along the way - not a bad fortnight's work.

Yr men's semis, then, are Federer-Nalbandian and Ljubicic-Nadal. The 'dream final' appears to still be on.

(this adds grist to my theory that women's tennis in the mid-00s = men's tennis in the late 90s)

It's probably happened quite recently in a Slam...

And Bandy surely must win one slam!

wish i could be watching them but work has been so hectic i've barely had time to look at the scores. kuznetsova took a 5-3 lead - when i came back from lunch that had turned into 5-7 0-2. vaidisova in turn led 7-5 5-3 but kuzzie's pulled back to 5-5...

svetlana takes the second set on a tiebreak!

WANT. TO. SEE.

come on Henin!

it's been far too long that i've unreservedly loved both players in a slam final - i think i will cheering sveta though.

FORGET THE FRENCH OPEN THE WORLD CUP IS HERE!!!

The semi-finals might just clash with today's opener, not that it matters coz its only germany-costa rica. Is the men's final clashing withe Serbia Montenegro-Holland? That might just kill me a little..although of course I'm not missing the final.

Can't bring myself to cheer for Bandy today, as much as I like him. The prospect of that final and a men's singles grand slam (albeit not a calendar year one) in my lifetime is too hard to resist.

which is why I am definitely supporting Federer here - to be honest I like both Fedge and Nadge so much that I still haven't decided who to support in this rivalry yet! - but y'know HISTORY in my LIFETIME and all that.

Though the term was originally restricted to the winning of all four tournaments in the same calendar year, the International Tennis Federation declared the official term as a player holding all four titles simultaneously, regardless of the calendar year.

Agassi achieved a "Career Grand Slam".

i remember wondering, at the end of 2001, whether Venus Williams or Martina Hingis would complete the Full House first - Hingis only had RG to go, and Venus had RG and the Australian but seemed so dominant that it was surely inevitable. Five years on both are in exactly the same position, and have been basically lapped by Serena Williams and nearly lapped by Justine HH! Ah, tennis.

Bandy a break up!

But on the 2nd set he went on to play ONE GREAT, MAGNIFICENT, NEVER SEEN BEFORE SHOT! Really - tape that, show it to the kids and maybe in a generation or two it might become common. After that he was suddenly at his very very best and broke Bandy.

Into the 3rd Bandy had a recurrence to an old injury (to his abdominal muscle, i think) and that was that. If Bandy tried to stay with him that level he might've dropped off and then we're into you-never-know territory. xp= yes.

Ah, summer, etc.

Can't wait..

...when, implausibly, he played a flicked forehand to a deep approach and conjured a cross-court winner. What Nalbandian assumed would be 30-all was 40-15 and, little did he know it, his match was over.

Federer described it as a squash shot. “It’s paying off, all the squash I played with my father early on, it helped me out in the semi-finals of the French Open, that’s not bad,� he said.

If that shot was something remarkable, in the process of winning five games in succession, he played one even more special, leaping off in pursuit of a drop shot and, with his face to the back of the court, fashioning a reverse sweep of a forehand winner down Nalbandian’s forehand wing. He raised one arm in the air, Alan Shearer-style, as the crowd erupted in rapture.

So squash, then. Talked to my brother about this (he has seen much more squash than me). He said that it explains the 2nd but NOT the 1st special shot.

Ladies final is live on BBC2 and only highlights of tomorrow's encounter, which i thought they'd change to live coverage.

First woman since Steffi Graf to defend at Roland Garros!

McEnroe described the first as a squash shot on the rebroadcast

Henin didn't lose a set during the whole two weeks!!

It's somewhat misleading though - Nadal was very nervy and made a bundle of uncharacteristic errors at the start, and found himself down 0-3 0-40 in no time at all - then he played a typical Nadal grinding point, 25 shots or something, and then it all seemed to click. Too late to rescue that service game, but Federer had a mighty struggle in his last service game, and it's definitely MATCH ON now.

A joy to watch obv, already several OMG shots!

Nadal totally has his number - limp end to the third set and Federer facing triple break-point at the start of set four.

So, what happened to the Federer backhand? He was hitting it so freely in the first set - it just seemed to get tighter and tighter as the match went on.

I've no doubt Federer will win the French one year, he is the second best clay-court player in the world after all - but it'll probably be a year Nadal is out injured.

The scary thing is that Nadal can beat Federer on hard courts too - leads the non-clay head-to-head 2-1.

The imbalance in the circuit's make-up has something to do with the gulf between them in the rankings - it's possible to play all year round on clay but only one of the majors is on that surface (and two/three of the Masters Series?) - but the head-to-head record is something else.

McEnroe lost something like seven times in a row to Lendl in the early-'80s when JPMcE was considered the best in the world (but this was before his 1984 dominance) before he figured him out (and switched from wood to graphite). Not the same though.

Quite incredible, shocking, etc. Like lurker said Matthieu put up far more of a fight than Fed did! His backhand did collapse against Nalbandian before he got his game back in the 2nd, but here its like he gave everything he could in the 1st and then proceeded to capiltulate.

And I'm sure most of us had such high hopes for this match!

I think Fed will probably have to beat him first in a tour match and try and build something, anything, from there. Or amazingly enough, Roger Fedrer might have to improve, somehow! That or hiring a sports psychologist instead of a coach. Wasn't Lendl obessed with winning Wimbledon, but I dunno my tennis history, will Fed end up trying to even re-model parts of his game? yes, I'm just ranting now..

Wonder how all this will play out for the rest of the season for him.

Lendl, in collaboration with Tony Roche, forced himself to become a serve-volley grasscourt player. He reached the Wimbledon semis twice without really deviating from his natural baseline game, but started attacking the net more from '85 onwards. Ironically, it was this new all-court game that destroyed McEnroe on hardcourt at the '85 USO but, with his volleying reflexes tested beyond their limit on quick grass, it never really worked as well at Wimbledon. Still, if it hadn't rained at 5-7 7-6 3-0 vs Becker in '89...

I don't think we can expect much from Nadal over the next month but when the North American hardcourt season starts, this rivalry will resume. I'd love to see a USO final between them...

If Nadal wants to do well on grass it's his grips which need to change - he has the ability to play first-rate attacking tennis (towards the end of the third set this was v evident) but he has such an extreme Western grip that his ability to deal with low-bouncing balls will be somewhat limited.

Men's singles: Rafael Nadal
Women's singles: Justine Henin-Hardenne
Men's doubles: Jonas Bjorkman and Max Mirnyi
Women's doubles: Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur
Mixed doubles: Nenad Zimonjic and Katarina Srebotnik
Boys' singles: Martin Klizan
Girls' singles: Agnieszka Radwanska
Boys' doubles: Emiliano Massa and Kei Nishikori
Girls' doubles: Sharon Fichman and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

in the women's doubles Raymond/Stosur beat Hantuchova/Sugiyama - has there been a doubles Slam final before where the four competitors were from not just different countries but different continents?

Last night I was quite disappointed that it wasn't a classic, more than anything. In a way, I didn't care who won...now i'm also feeling it was great (even right!) that Nadal won (also don't remember Nadal feeling the heat on clay as he did on that 1st set). Not only cuz its a great story: Nadal pretty much the last line of resistance (bar Safin or Bandy getting it together once in a blue moon) to total Fed domination of the men's game, and also reading all the complaints about Nadal's supposed time-wasting between points and fist-pumping. Well I like fist-pumping and I like how he keeps so much control over his emotions and then lets it go when he wins a truly great point! Besides, its a great last tester for Fed to overcome..

anyway, its been fun...Wimbledon will be here soon. Hoping to turn up again and watch some matches in the 1st week.

Agnieszka seems to be very good anyway - she made her senior WTA debut in Warsaw the other month and beat Myskina in three sets (this may have been partly due to Nastya being retarded but still v impressive). And she has a little sister, Urszula, who is apparently even better.

lol at Agassi being old.

Rolling ATP/WTA (/FC/DC/WTC/AMC/ITF etc) thread maybe?