French Open Second Day Highlights

The Men:

Finished:

Kei Nishikori completed his dominant performance against Simone Bolelli.

Stan Wawrinka survived an entertaining slugfest with Lukas Rosol.  Rosol can be dangerous, as Rafa Nadal will attest to.

Marin Cilic was upset by Marco Trungelliti of Argentina (ranked 166).  Several umpire overrules contested in this one.

Jack Sock won the 5^th set against Robin Haase.  Sock received loud jeers after he yelled exultantly upon attaining a match point.  The fans were off base on that one.  There’s nothing wrong with being happy about reaching match point in the 5^th set of a major, and the point was not won on a bad error by Haase.  The fans should know that Jack Sock has shown a very high level of sportsmanship throughout the year (more on that later).

Unfinished

Andy Murray got down two sets to love against Radek Stepanek, then won the third set and is up a break in the 4^th.  Hard to believe Murray could go out to Stepanek, given the stages of their respective careers, but Stepanek is an experienced, crafty player, and nobody in the French Open is a bad player.  That one will be followed closely.

The women

Finished

Garbine Muguruza dropped a set (set #1) for the first time against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.  She had a chance to break back late in the first set, but forgot something:  When you have a better forehand, better backhand, better serve, better net skills, and comparable court coverage ability compared to your opponent, you should build points and work for easy openings rather than going for lines early in points.  Despite her amnesia, though, she prevailed. 

Nicole Gibbs went on to lose to Heather Watson.  Gibbs couldn’t find a shot with which to hurt Watson in the third set.

Halep and Radwanska breezed.

Some good wins for American women:  Sloane Stevens beat Margarita Gasparyan, Coco Vandewegh beat the hard hitting Naomi Broady, and the big one: Shelby Rogers beat Karolina Pliskova, a bad loss for Pliskova.

Unfinished

Nothing very dramatic here.  Varvara Lepchenko is likely to lose to Ekaterina Makarova.  No shame in that.