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Season II Roland Garros

SirBloody Idiot

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
Oh boy.

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

  • Season I finalist Sven Oxenstierna is out. Those seven words were enough to put the tennis world into a state of shock as the World No. 4 was bundled out in four sets by 27th seed Sanchez Emelio. Less than a month ago, Oxenstierna trounced Emelio 6-2, 6-1 in the third round of Monte Carlo; but he faced a far more determined opponent here in Paris with Emelio coming off back-to-back straight sets victories. While many noted that those victories had come against substandard opposition, it was clear that Emelio was not one of those people as he took the first set off Oxenstierna with some consistent baseline tennis. Oxenstierna was continually frustrated by Emelio's deep ball-striking that left him camped on the baseline against a player in his element, and his attempts to take the ascendancy hurt him as he was passed at the net by a cool cross-court backhand from Emelio to fall a break behind in the second set. There was always a feeling of inevitability as Oxenstierna broke back immediately to level the scores at 3-3, but just four games later he was stunned into submission as Emelio played an extremely brave drop shot to bring up three set points on the Oxenstierna serve. The World No. 4 needed a big first serve and didn't get it; Emelio taking advantage of a nothing second serve to crack a flat winner off the forehand side to seal the second set and to move to the cusp of an extraordinary victory.
But Oxenstierna wasn't done yet as he got the jump on Emelio in the third and this time held on as his usual swagger started to return as he pushed to the net more often for a 5/6 result. Taking the set 6-2, he looked like he could be another player to stage a miraculous recovery. But the gravity of that task against a player of Emelio's class made itself immediately apparent in the fourth set as he was broken in the second game to give Emelio the 2-0 lead. The 27th seed knew all he had to do was to hold serve four more times, but he gave Oxenstierna a glimmer of hope when serving for the match at 5-3 as the World No. 4 got the set back on the service at the last possible opportunity.

It was all for nought. A mistimed forehand caught the frame of Oxenstierna's racquet to give the Spanish No. 2 two match points. He needed just one - after an extended rally the Season I finalist framed a backhand out of picture to hand Sanchez Emelio a monumental 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 victory and perhaps the biggest upset of the clay season.
​
  • There was better news for West CWLand fans as Brett Read advanced to the fourth round in his second five-setter of the week; picking up his second win over Miroslav Brdar in as many weeks to set up a final 16 showdown with Emelio. Ranked outside the top 100 due to the amount of tournaments he's played, Read started like a shot to take a 4-1 lead over the sixteenth seed. While Brdar fought back, Read still took the all-important first set to give him a shot of confidence. Or so you'd think; Brdar dominated the second set with some whipping forehands from deep in the court as he continually overpowered Read whose grafting style relies on a lot of errors from his opponent. Despite the second set result, it is the perfect style against the lanky Croat who struggles for consistency; an issue shown in the third as he wilted to a 2-6 result before rebounding in the fourth 6-3 to take the match to a decider. Both men had taken their first round matches thanks to comfortable fifth sets, and it was a nervous start from both as they gave up a service break each. But the first to crack outright was the sixteenth seed as the relentless returning of Read began to take its toll in a nineteen minute fifth game of the set to hand Read a 3-2 lead. That was something he never gave Brdar the opportunity to get back as he advanced to the fourth round with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 win.

  • Scotland Rivers, meanwhile, surrendered a useful start to bow out in four to eighteenth seed Diego Hurtado. In a tough first set, it was the unseeded Westerner who claimed the early ascendancy as he fought back from 3-5 down to take the set in a tiebreaker (albeit blowing three set points in the process). Despite the shaky start, Hurtado started to come into his own and show his full fitness with a ground game that Rivers struggled to deal with. It was a recurring issue right throughout the next three sets as Hurtado created a torrent of chances on the Rivers serve and showed off his blistering forehand to the tune of twenty third set winners. Rivers, meanwhile, couldn't match Hurtado's power while camped on his back foot and ultimately hit too many short shots to Hurtado's forehand side as the Colombian advanced to the fourth round 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. Hurtado meets unseeded local Jean-Christophe Genghini who completed a trio of top five upsets on Court Phillipe Chatrier with an impressive 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over an uninspiring fifth seed Darcy Cowan.

  • A trio of top five upsets? World No. 1 Jason Hall's chances of a maiden French Open crown will have to wait another year as he was ousted in straight sets by an extremely impressive Javier Villaneuva. The young Spaniard, who struggled through his first two matches in five sets, looked full of youthful freshness as he bounded around the court to crush Hall's hopes. The American's chances looked great early as he took a 5-2 lead before Villaneuva's tactic of shooting for the lines paid off as he claimed five games on the trot to take the set 7-5. Hall could never really recover from that start and despite a brief third set fightback he ultimately bowed out to a shocking 5-7, 3-6, 5-7 defeat to the World No. 50.

  • Seeded players out:
    Miroslav Brdar;
    Darcy Cowan    ;
    Jason Hall;
    Danijel Micic    ;
    Sven Oxenstierna    ;
    Zoltán Varga.
---
​
:-O

That gives us top half fourth round matches of:

Villaneuva/Altman
Hurtado/Genghini
Emelio/Read
Bachunelli/Boros

Yep, we're getting a finalist from there. fmd this is anyone's game.
​
 
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morgieb

morgieb

Request Your Custom Title Now!
This feels like the actual French, with Fogini and one of Chela/Falla making the QF's.
 
SirBloody Idiot

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
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

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
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

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
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

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
HeathDavisSpeed said:
Any chance of a peek at the doubles draw? No probs if not, I'm sure I can wait!
Click to expand...
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

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
SirBloody Idiot said:
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.
Click to expand...
Cheers mate.
 
SirBloody Idiot

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
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.
 
HeathDavisSpeed

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
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.
 
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