In a week when I've been lining my lungs with brick dust at home (Rewiring: it's like landscape gardening for your walls), it's kinda appropriate that Paris: Clay Like Cassius has rolled around again.
It's the first ever 15-day Slam (Zvonareva and Safina are playing right now on Chatrier) and it beats out Wimbledon this year by only slightly dipping into the shadow of globaler Fußball Behemoth.
On the men's side, everyone's expecting another final between the guy who's unbeatable on every surface except clay and even then only by this other one guy, and that one other guy. Rog and Rafe had the match of the year in Rome recently (Nadal edging it, by a couple of atoms, 7-6 in the 5th), leaving Rog on the wrong end of a 1-5 head-to-head against the Mallorcan.
Still, the likes of Ancic, Bandy and Ferrero lurk in RF's half, while RN has to deal with saucy customers like Baghdatis, Ljubicic and...well, a whole load of people who might conceivably nail him on something other than the red stuff. He's won 53 straight matches on clay, which ties Vilas's record. I doubt he'll have quite the same impact on scally couture as Guillermo's white Puma shoes did in the '80s though. His loss.
On the women's side - well, I'll leave that to Lex. Naturally, I like Henin's chances if she stays fit and Mauresmo's if she [JHH] doesn't. But...Hingis?
Thrilling live score update:
Safina 6-3 1-3 Zvonareva
Robredo 6-4 1-0 Zib
Danilidou 7-6 0-0 Sugiyama
― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Sunday, 28 May 2006 09:09 (nineteen years ago)