Season II Roland Garros

[morgieb]

Blanco to get upset

[morgieb]

This feels like the actual French, with Fogini and one of Chela/Falla making the QF's.

[SirBloody Idiot]

It's a really lopsided draw at the moment. Basically all of the seeds are alive in the bottom half while the top half is completely ****ed. Hard to see anyone stopping Blanco here other than maybe Murdoch.

[SirBloody Idiot]

Roland Garros II - Men's Doubles
GRAND SLAM - Thursday (Day Six) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)

• Second seeds Heath Davis and Jojo Mustard made light work of Australian Open quarter finalists Toby Brookes and David Champion in a straight sets victory to move to the third round. The World No. 2 pairing were always aware of the imposing presence of the red-headed giant Champion whose limitations in singles are covered in the pairs game, but comfortably accounted for the Aussie duo 6-3, 6-1. They meet the winner of the Varga Brothers and Ivan Češljar and Nilikar Midid who play tomorrow.

• Also through are unseeded duo Henry Charles and Spas Delev after their three-set win over twelfth seeds Artem Krohmal and Merab Shvelidze. The Georgian-Ukrainian pairing started strongly to take the first set 6-2, and lead by a break early in the second before the Charles/Delev combination stormed back to claim six of the last seven games of the second set. After a one-sided start, the two teams went tit-for-tat in the deciding set with Charles and Delev failing to close out the set twice as it went to a deciding tiebreaker. There a backhand from Delev passed Krohmal at the net and Shvelidze at the baseline to bring up three match points; Charles converting with an overhead smash to set up a third round meeting with either Andrej Konc and Evgeny Maximov or Danijel Micic and Dusko Miloševiç.

• Seeded players out: Artem Krohmal & Merab Shvelidze.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Haha Ox and Hall

Bring it on ****s!

Echo these sentiments precisely.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

And great to get through another round of doubles. Aiming for the World #1 ranking. Speaking of which, how are the #1 seeds getting on in the doubles?

[SirBloody Idiot]

And great to get through another round of doubles. Aiming for the World #1 ranking. Speaking of which, how are the #1 seeds getting on in the doubles?

Pretty well, but they are playing nobodies. Third round will be their first real test.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Pretty well, but they are playing nobodies. Third round will be their first real test.

Any chance of a peek at the doubles draw? No probs if not, I'm sure I can wait!

[SirBloody Idiot]

Any chance of a peek at the doubles draw? No probs if not, I'm sure I can wait!

I'll post it up along with the singles after today's day of play. Have already simmed the matches and can't actually remember which ones I did yesterday and which ones I did today...

IIRC, both Machado/Rodrigues and Harmel/Parmentier made it through in straight sets yesterday, so winner of that in the quarters presuming you guys make it that far.

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I'll post it up along with the singles after today's day of play. Have already simmed the matches and can't actually remember which ones I did yesterday and which ones I did today...

IIRC, both Machado/Rodrigues and Harmel/Parmentier made it through in straight sets yesterday, so winner of that in the quarters presuming you guys make it that far.

Cheers mate.

[Mister Wright]

Go Davis & Mustard!

[SirBloody Idiot]

Roland Garros II - Men's Singles
GRAND SLAM - Friday (Day Seven) - Paris, France - Clay (Red)

• Fourteenth seed Jojo Mustard has got a measure of revenge for his third round loss in Australia to Spas Delev as he beat the East CWLand native in four-sets in a seriously tight contest on Court Suzanne Lenglen. Neither player gave an inch in the three-and-a-half hour affair as both created numerous chances or their opponent's serve through some fine returning. After dropping the first set in a tiebreaker, Delev raced ahead in the second with an early break as he smacked a one-handed backhand from the back corner of the court to pass Mustard at the net. While Mustard continued to chip away at the Easterner, he couldn't earn a break back as Delev served out the second set with an ace right down the centre 'T'. Mustard, however, didn't lose his cool and remained composed despite being down two break points in his first service game of the third. While Delev was cracking some of his insane winners, Mustard did not lose sight of his goal and stuck with his consistent brand of tennis - taking advantage of some errors from his unseeded opponent. Serving at 4-5, Delev collapsed at the wrong time as he served a pair of double faults to hand Mustard a set point; the fourteenth seed showing great composure to put away an overhead smash after a routine volley was chased down by the East CWLander.

Delev had won his second round match in five, and, after breaking to lead 3-2 in the fourth, he looked like he could do it again. But Mustard broke back immediately by drawing a backhand error from Delev who was clearly feeling the strain of the long time he spent on court on Wednesday. Holding serve to make it 6-5, Mustard left it to Delev to serve to stay in the match. He couldn't do it as the West CWLander picked up a confidence-boosting win 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to move into the round of 16.

• His opponent will be eighth seed Jefferson Drake who survived a horrific start to beat Finland's Lari Färkkilä in four sets. Heavily favoured to comfortably beat the Fin, the World No. 8 was on the receiving end of a first set shock as Färkkilä romped through the first set 6-1. Having already witnessed the torrent of seeds to fall on the somewhat politically incorrectly named "Tsunami Thursday", Drake was determined not fall in the same way as Hall, Oxenstierna and Cowan. Getting over his early rattling, Drake began to work his way back into the match with some trademark groundstrokes and soon lead by a double break in the fourth. There were some jitters as he failed to convert two match points before being broken, but he soon found a third and was into the fourth round 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. He can't afford a similar start against Mustard on Sunday with the West CWLander playing some very fine tennis.

• Finally, the horrendous season of Radivoj Daneu continued overnight as the former World No. 2 was bundled out in straight sets by the rampaging Heath Davis. Daneu had found the going easy in his first two rounds against low-level opposition, but was convincingly trounced by the 24th seed who claimed the first two sets 6-2, 6-4. Just when it looked like things couldn't get any worse, the Serb capitulated at 5-1 in the third to lose six games on the trot to the big man who has played the fewest amount of tennis this week with a third straight sets win - taking this 6-2, 6-4, 7-5. He plays local favourite Jean-Alain Depuis who, at 38 years of age, continues to have a fairytale run with a 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 win over 32nd seed Dmitry Orlov.

• Elsewhere, there are just two Frenchmen still in the draw and both are unseeded after nineteenth seed Patrick Pascaul was sensationally dumped in five by Johan Ortiz of Colombia. Pascaul came from two-sets to love down to take the match to a fifth, but was thwarted by Ortiz who advanced to a fourth round clash with Rasmus Olesen 7-6(3), 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 7-5. Also out was 31st seed Pierre L'Estrange who managed to take a set off second seed Daniel Paez Blanco before falling 7-6(3), 2-6, 4-6, 5-7. That sets up another meeting between Blanco and ninth seed Dwayne Murdoch who thrashed 22nd seed Davis Kennedy 6-0, 7-5, 6-1 in Kennedy's first real test since returning from injury.

• Seeded players out: Radivoj Daneu; Davis Kennedy; Pierre L'Estrange; Tiago Matías; Dmitry Orlov; Patrick Pascaul.

[ripper868]

Go the Heef

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Whoah. I did not see that coming. Fantastic victory. But playing in front of a feral crowd in the next round will prove to be a tough proposition. Great to see Jojo steam through in a toughie. He'll have an epic match against the Hero of the East next up. Seeds dropping like flies all around.

[Johnners]

Dire, Western scum!