Help
2008-06-03 16:41:00
The first week of a Grand Slam tournament is so hectic that you seldom have a chance to just reflect on everything that’s been going on. At this year’s Roland Garros, the frustrating rain delays made the middle days of the first week packed with even more matches than usually. I don’t know if you felt the same way, but for me this provided a great dilemma as I wanted to stay up to date with everything going on. With play on 16 courts at once, this task became almost impossible at times, and I’ve probably ended up with a few grey hairs after Week One.
Jeremy Chardy has been one of the big stories of the tournament. He’s been a promising player for years and finished his junior career as the World No. 3 in 2005. My first sight of him was at Wimbledon that year, when he took down Donald Young and Robin Haase in the late rounds winning the junior title. Since then, Young and Haase have both reached the Top 100, but Chardy’s ranking hasn’t moved up as rapidly. Last year was a disappointment for the 21-year old from the French town of Pau, as he “only” advanced from 262nd to 188th position in the ATP rankings after numerous early losses on the Challenger level. Things started to go differently towards the end of the season, but even as we reached 2008, he was still throwing in some poor performances. I watched Chardy lose to Ti Chen in the first round of the Australian Open qualies, and was thinking that he hadn’t really developed his game since I saw him winning Wimbledon juniors. That’s a very worrying sign for someone at that age. Against Chen, he was hitting so many unforced errors and didn’t seem like he had a very strong confidence in his own ability. Well, what a difference during the second Slam of the year. Chardy proved that he’s a no-quitter when he came back in an extremely impressive fashion from two sets to love against David Nalbandian. It’s only a matter of time before France has yet another player added to their number of Top 100 players. This week, the count ends at 13, six more than USA and three more than clay court powerhouse Argentina. But all of them are beaten by Spain, who have 14 in the Top 100 and seven (!) in the top 25.
The home crowd certainly helped Chardy in many ways too. It’s hard to find a tennis crowd more partisan than the French. They are so eager to see success of their home players and love getting into the matches with their heart and soul. Some opponents have a very hard time handling this. At this year’s Roland Garros, the player that comes to mind right away is Robin Soderling. The Swede was in fantastic form going into the tournament and won the first two rounds in a very impressive fashion. His opponent in the third round, Julien Benneteau, had been down and out but won his first two rounds after epic five set battles. Now, many people expected a rollover win for Soderling. And the match did indeed start that way. Soderling won the first set 6-1 and was serving for the second set. After losing his serve there, he completely lost it. The excited French crowd saw a golden opportunity to get the W for their home player, and Soderling made it easy work for them. After losing the second set tiebreak, he was so down mentally that he threw away the remaining two sets, only winning nine points in the third and six more in the last set. And this was in one of the most important matches of his career with a chance to reach the Last 16 of the premier clay court event in the world and a match against World No. 1 Roger Federer. Here, you can watch how Soderling completely loses it after getting broken for the second time in the third set.
Tell a friend »
The clip has been removed from Youtube unfortunately. "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Federation Francaise de Tennis". That's funny, tons of other clips from the French Open are left untouched :)
Gameplay , 6/5/08 9:59 AM
Nobody really knows who he is, but he represents our eyes and ears on the tennis circuit. Every now and then he reports about the latest news, gossip ...
Wed 30/07 13:01
The Players Who Cant Behave On the Court
Wed 16/07 19:09
The Globalization of Tennis
Wed 09/07 22:12
A clay court specialist wins Wimbledon
Tue 01/07 18:33
Wimbledon confirms what we already knew
Thu 19/06 19:18
Nadal vs Djokovic the most entertaining match-up in tennis
Mon 09/06 22:33
Queens - A fascinating event
Thu 05/06 22:33
A Victory for the Sport of Tennis
Tue 03/06 16:41
Soderling Loses to The French Crowd
Mon 26/05 00:10
French Open Time - One Match at a Time
Tue 13/05 08:39
Costa smokes a cigarette of defeat
Thu 01/05 14:26
Rafael Nadal - the One and Only Clay King in Barcelona
Thu 01/05 14:19
Ramirez-Hidalgo Touches Federer - Then Crashes Down on Earth
Wed 23/04 10:23
No Joy to Watch Guga Anno 2008
Mon 07/04 15:53
A Masters Series title will not clean Davydenko's name
Sun 06/04 16:19
Another Disappointment for Roddick
View all posts
Did you know that... Thomas Johansson's boyhood idol was Mats Wilander.
gordana, Nov 20, 2008 11:28 AM
james007, Nov 20, 2008 8:03 AM
janhavi, Nov 20, 2008 4:04 AM
Avalaine, Nov 20, 2008 12:10 AM
arailic, Nov 19, 2008 7:29 PM
gordana, Nov 20, 2008 11:23 AM
tennisfan2, Nov 12, 2008 4:24 AM
elle, Nov 10, 2008 2:11 AM
Contact us
/ About us
/ Cookies
/ Recommended links
/ Advertise
/ Sitemap
Tennistalk v1.3.0
Subscribe to this blog
How right you are about the French crowd - they really do seem to be able to alter the outcome of matches sometimes, particularly when they get behind their own countrymen. The men respond to this but their expectations for their women players seems to have the adverse effect!
ed251137 , 6/5/08 5:33 AM