hail rafa, the undisputed king of clay!

not since 1999 has roger federer been handed a bagel (no games won) set at a grand slam. in a completely lopsided final that lasted only 12 minutes longer than the previous day’s singles women’s final, rafael nadal showed world number 1 roger federer how he has elevated his clay-court game to unreachable heights. the forehand was on fire, the backhand was lethal, the running was ever on top form, the drop shots deliciously timed, the sliced serve punishing, the passing shots sublime. there was nothing roger could do.

and all i could yell in the third set, with the score standing at 5-0, was, “bagel him, rafa! bagel him good!” the final score of the match: 6-1, 6-3, 6-0. attaboy, rafalito, attaboy. you are the man! woohooooo! now onto the grass of wimbledon and beyond!

          

blockbuster semifinal day

as far as i’m concerned the battle for number two between rafael nadal and novak djokovic in today’s first semi-finals match is the only match that matters to me.  i’m pretty certain roger federer will cream gael monfils’ baguette before the frenchman can break into a sweat — and i’m being kind here already.

what are the possible predictions for such a match?  some people have said this will be a straight-sets affair with the first set being the tightest one played, similar to the hamburg semi-final played two weeks ago.  others say that nole’s talent will enable him to take at least one set off the king.  more optimistic predictions have a five-set thriller which rafa eventually takes.  personally, i want a thriller without the physical consequences, so maybe the four-set prediction is a happy balance out of the three scenarios.  if nole wins?  then he becomes the new world number 2 and my heart will shatter into a thousand pieces for mi rafalito.

happy birthday, rafa!

rafa turned 22 yesterday, 03 june and before he got his birthday cake, champagne, and picture gift from the french tennis federation, he handed his good friend nico almagro a sound beating in their quarterfinal match. the embarrassing (for nico) scoreline read: 6-1 6-1 6-1 after only an hour and forty minutes of play. as roger would say, “aiaiaiaiai!” nico has won more clay tournaments than anyone on the atp tour this year and was rated as one of the top 5 claycourt players by rafa in his pre-quarters interview. the other quarterfinal between ernests gulbis and world number three novak djokovic proved the more exciting match. i saw this early on and decided to “abandon” mi rafalito for the two buddies battling it out on suzanne lenglen.

up tomorrow: ladies’ semi-finals at philippe chatrier!

up first is the all-russian semi-final between svetlana kuznetsova and dinara safina, the comeback princess of this year’s clay season. she overcame compatriot elena dementieva earlier today on chatrier with an eerily similar scoreline to that in her match against maria sharapova — down one set and battling for her life at 5-2 in the second set. she herself said that if she could do it once, why not twice? at the same time, she knows that she cannot always do things these way. “It’s not easy to come back every time, because once it’s going to be too late. But I guess how it’s goes now, these matches.”

the second semi-final is an all-serbian line-up featuring two exciting players, world number two ana ivanovic versus world number three jelena jankovic. mostly everyone has pegged ana as the favourite but i’m putting my bets on jelena, who has admitted that she plays best on clay and that this might work to her advantage. you can get a match preview HERE.

from 14.00 tomorrow, i will be stuck in paris once again, so life will have to happen before then. enjoy the tennis!

quarterfinals at RG, inter unveils mourinho!

so much exciting tennis is happening at roland garros and the biggest headline tomorrow will probably be “world number 1* is knocked out by marat’s younger sister“. fantabulous match and interesting articles have already sprouted up about it, notably from the USA today and tennis.com. both are enjoyable reads — chime in with your opinions if you are so inclined.

tomorrow is the beginning of the quarterfinal matches for the bottom half of the draw at the french open. there are many interesting line-ups tomorrow and if i were to choose a match of the day, on the men’s side the gulbis-djokovic match trumps the nadal-almagro match by a hair, and on the women’s side, the jankovic-navarro match might have more surprises, mainly owing to jelena’s penchant for the dramatic in her matches.

the ivanovic-schnyder match could either be a scintillating winner-filled affair or a crazy rollercoaster match reminiscent of last year’s sharapova-schnyder quarterfinal. what is the common denominator? you see, these swiss misses are firecrackers indeed.

with maria’s defeat today at the hands of sizzling dinara safina, the credible women clay-courters remain. it will be three-setters from hereon out. svetlana kuznetsova and victoria azarenka will be completing their fourth round match on court 1, and if sveta takes it in straights, that won’t count since it’s not yet a quarterfinal match. one thing is for certain: the #1 ranking is up for grabs and the chances either serbian or sveta makes it to the final means that come monday, maria’s reign at the top of the roost will come to an end. three’s a charm, they say, so maybe maria’s third time at #1 might actually have her winning a match to get there!

players to watch: ernests gulbis and nicolas almagro

one is a teenager from latvia (gulbis), the other a man in his early 20s from spain (almagro).  both are young, exciting players with explosive games to match. they couldn’t have chosen a more interesting coming out party than their first quarterfinals matches against novak djokovic (for gulbis) and rafael nadal (for almagro). interestingly, both matches will be played between friends, between players who know each other’s games quite well.

nole and ernests both trained at the pilic academy for three years and the latvian prodigy often beat nole during their practice matches. how they have traversed the rankings, however, has shown opposite journeys. nole has shot up to the top three in the world in the last two years while gulbis has had to pick his way through challengers and qualifiers to find his game and, more importantly, the right mindset in order to craft a consistent and winning formula. gulbis has been impressive so far, taking out guillermo cañas in the first round and james blake in the second round. today, in front of a partisan parisian crowd, he stole the thunder from michael llodra in three convincing sets. in his post-match interview, he revealed that the key to his win against the french doubles expert was to keep hitting the ball low to llodra’s feet and not backing away from the baseline after a serve; this would, he said, deprive llodra of several opportunities to use his serve and volley game with lethal efficacy. obviously, the tactic worked.

three serbs and three spaniards

philippe chatrier is the place to be today — at least for this avid tennis fan *takes a bow*. for a serbian fan, you can warm your seat, lay out the picnic blanket, and drink wine all afternoon with the top names in your country’s tennis all strutting their stuff on the biggest court at roland garros. if you happen to like spain’s tennis players, you can be sure of a lively all-spanish match at the end of the day. let’s check out the fourth round match-ups on centre court today below:

up first at 11 am (and as of this writing, already concluded with a laughable 6-0 6-0 scoreline — ajde ana!) are ana ivanovic of serbia and petra cetkovska of the czech republic. ana owns the czechs is all i can say. after she trampled lucie safarova in the second round, she did more with today’s offering, burying her six-feet under with her pathetic strokes and tremulous drop shots with the dreaded double bagel. i could not even summon any sympathy for the voluptuous czech, who could only smile after winning a handful of points, and most of those off ana’s errors. go, ana, no mercy! kill them! of the top seeds in the tournament, ivanovic and svetlana kuznetsova are playing as their rankings suggest, ruthlessly and without any let-up in crushing their opponents. in memory of justine, that’s the way to go! ajde, ana!

playing as i hurriedly type this entry is serbia’s number two wta player, jelena jankovic against poland’s exciting agnieszka radwanska, who just came off a clean and lovely victory over france’s petulant yet feisty alizé cornet (no, i am not sold on the red-hatted frenchie — i sense a petulance, an aura of entitlement, in her demeanour that endears her Not to me). this is a personal favourite match-up as neither girl is a power player so expect to see a lot of variety in shots and wide court coverage. if radwanska beats my favourite serb, i will not mind as much. i will always thank radwanska for taking out sharapova at the US open last year.

the third match brings out my second/third atp player, novak djokovic of serbia against the resurgent paul-henri mathieu of france, conqueror of guga, oscar hernandez, and edward schank. expect a fiery and noisy match with the french supporters coming out in full — the serbian fans are no pushovers so the match umpire will practice his “silence”, “merci!”, and “les joueurs sont prêt!!!” throughout. ajde, nole! if he gets through this, we might see an interesting quarterfinal match-up between nole and ernest gulbis of latvia, a fast-rising star with the looks and game to match.

the last match of the day promises to be an all-spanish fiesta and rally-ful affair with my favourite rafael nadal going against compatriot and fellow southpaw fernando verdasco. i expect rafa to get through this one but maybe not as easily as he has previously owing to the persisting blister problems on his right foot. vamonos, españa! vamos, mi rafalito!

ok, off now to camp out on my futon for today’s chatrier matches. over and out! lenglen matches feature exciting new faces in latvian ernest gulbis, frenchman jeremy chardy (goran, anyone? this is the guy who ground nalby to the dust when i was there), and spaniard nicolas almagro.

delayed gratification

after being denied last year, finally, finally, i’m going to paris for the french open. i have tickets to suzanne lenglen for two days and the chances of my seeing rafa play live are pretty high. i will have access to courtside seats on the outer courts, get to see players on the practice courts, and if i’m patient enough, wait for people leaving centre court (philippe chatrier) to give me their tickets. who would i like to see live, if possible?

on the men’s side, apart from rafa, there will be roger federer, marat safin, novak djokovic, andy murray, james blake, david ferrer, juan carlos ferrero, tommy robredo, janko tipsarevic, nikolay davydenko, tomas berdych, radek stepanek.

on the women’s side, i’d really love to see the lovely serbs jelena jankovic and ana ivanovic, maria sharapova, the williams sisters serena and venus, svetlana kuznetsova, maria kirilenko, anna chakvetadze, vera zvonareva, the bondarenko sisters (alona is the only one whose name i can recall), the radwanska sisters agnieszka and ursula, elena dementieva, amelie mauresmo (i hope she wins today in her first rounder!).

if i see any of the oldies but goldies on tour, i would be happy. how cool would it be to see john mcenroe, pat cash, mats wilanders, martina navratilova, even cris evert? goodness, tennis heaven, indeed!

ok, so i’ll be away for two days. see you when i return! allez, paris! vamos, rafa! ajde, nole!

rooting for el mago

i am a sentimental old fart — having a thing for aging greats. i joined a contest with the prize of going to the 2009 french open IF i picked all the winners correctly on the atp side of the draw. so far i have messed up big time with the likes of carlos moya, seeded 16th, bowing out to some no-name and marcos baghdatis, seeded 17th, bowing out meekly in his first round match earlier today.  what is it with you guys???

i did think that guga would win over paul-henri mathieu, this in spite of phm’s great form over the last few weeks and oh, he’s just seeded 18th at roland garros and is one of the local favourites to boot. but i held out for him and of course my pick got beaten in straight sets. so if you were to place your bets through a middle person, i would be the last person on your mind. heee.

day 2 of the french open was an overcast affair that got rained on just before the marquee match of the day on philippe chatrier featuring rafael nadal against the brazilian thomaz bellucci (yes, count on these laddies to have names that are out of the ordinary, yez?).

speaking of aging greats, tennis is one sport where someone who turns 26 is already considered over the hill, past his peak powers, on the decline. think: roger federer at 26 is supposedly on the way down, marat safin at 27 is an old fogey of a tortured genius, tommy haas and lleyton hewitt are the walking dead on tour at 26 & 29 years old.

while in the midst of my student job this morning i was enthralled by the first match on chatrier between two spanish-speaking players, tommy robredo of spain and guillermo coria of argentina. robredo with his beautifully chiseled face and sexy body was up 5-2 in the first set before i switched off the tv to go to the other room. when i returned barely 10 minutes later, the players were in a second set but wait — the first set score showed coria had taken it 7-5! in a gutsy display of fiery offense, the argentinian showed why he had pushed rafa to the brink in their classic rome 2005 final lasting 5 hours and 11 minutes, only 8 more than next year’s epic thriller between rafa and roger, all of 5 hours and 3 minutes (dang, bring back 5-set finals already, atp!).

and man, coria is an exciting player! he looks a bit like mark wahlberg to me although the husband says he looks a tad short. i never noticed — i was enjoying his backwards baseball cap and long hair beneath, his powerful serve, amazing forehand, and wow, the hustle! robredo must have been thinking, “oh jesus, not another clay courter who runs like my buddy rafa!” robredo’s precision with his one-hand backhand undid coria, however, who fired off more unforced errors than his high winner count could overcome. a pity, really, as i could see why he had given gaston gaudio a scare in the 2004 french open final — i remember rooting for his compatriot, who eventually won, but is totally AWOL at this tournament.

i am just so happy to see coria back and blazing. he could have quit — i’m glad he didn’t! vamos, el mago!

*photo courtesy of taringa!

goodbye, guga

unlike justine henin, gustavo kuerten, the lovable and gangly brazilian former world number one and thrice-conqueror of roland garros, walked into the sunset an ageing warrior, enjoying the cheers of fans in his beloved centre court, scene of so much of his glorious successes in 1997, 2000, and 2001. his one-hand backhand, though lacking the sting of youzhny’s or kohlschreiber’s, were deliciously accurate and a joy to watch. if not for his nagging hip injury, his torque motion in hitting his deep penetrating groundstrokes would have had less error count and nobody can say the beloved champion does not have soft hands at the net.

but after three poignant sets of claycourt tennis in philippe chatrier, it was over. guga bowed to the 18th seed frenchman, paul-henri mathieu, and was greeted by a standing ovation and warm cheers. before he accepted his trophy showing a slice of the roland garros clay court, he thanked the crowd in faltering french, eyes red from being rubbed with a towel just a few minutes before to contain his emotion. it was priceless seeing him during the changeovers, drinking in the crowd’s love, a wide, trademark guga smile on his face, his shock of hair barely controlled by his blue headband, his tall, thin frame in his signature diadora shirt of familiar blue and yellow. how could one not have loved this cute, feisty, adorable man?

i am proud to say that i rooted for him in his maiden french open triumph in 1998 before steffi graf’s retirement in 1997 made me retire from the tennis world for 6 years — only another charismatic dirtballer in his maiden french open would bring me back, stronger a nut than before (and when he goes, it is an understatement to say that it will be a sad day indeed).

thank you for the memories, guga. you will be greatly missed.