French Open First Day Highlights

Schedule truncated by bad weather.  Here’s what did happen:

The Men:

Finished:

Nick Kyrgios beat Marco Cecchinato in straight sets.  A good sign for Kyrgios was that he controlled his temper fairly well and stayed focused after being hit with a questionable verbal abuse misconduct warning for speaking rudely to a ball boy(!).  Regardless of whether the warning was justified, Kyrgios deserves credit for not going completely off the rails (he did get pretty angry).  Nick’s brother watched from the friends box.  After what that guy said about Donna Vekic, I can’t help getting a little nauseated every time I see him!

Benoit Paire survived a 5-setter against Radu Albot.  He shouldn’t let matches like this one be so close.

Unfinished:

Nishikori is dominating Bolelli and looking very tough.

Sock is into a fifth set against Robin Haase.  Sock is a lot of fun to watch and a good sport.  Hope he wins so we can see him again!

The women

Finished:

Petra Kvitova prevailed in 3 sets against Danka Kovinic, ranked 57.  A typical Kvitova match, where she looked unbeatable for a set and a half, then dropped her level abysmally to lose the first set and find her opponent serving for the match in the final set.  Luckily for Petra, Kovinic took a very short ball at 5-4 deuce and, instead of putting it away to gain a match point, hit it softly to Kvitova’s forehand.  Petra promptly hit the passing shot, went on to break serve, and turned her game back up to ultimately win.  Kvitova can never dominate the tour if she persists with this “Jekyll and Hyde” pattern of play.

Lucie Safarova, a finalist last year, looked strong in a straight set win.  That’s nice to see, as she has been beleaguered with health problems that have hampered her play for quite some time.

Unfinished:

Nicole Gibbs is in a third set with Heather Watson.  Gibbs is beginning to show signs of strong play. 

Svetlana Kuznetsova is also in a third set with Yaroslava Shvedova, a physically strong player who is largely unknown to the casual fan.  She’s good though.