Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – the two favorites in the men’s tournament – were ruthless in their first-round matches. Garbine Muguruza showed some good progress and is now one of the favorites to lift the women’s trophy.
PARIS – While Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic absolutely dominated their first-round opponents, day two at Roland Garros entertained the French crowd with a few electrifying encounters, including David Ferrer’s win over Donald Young with the score of 13-11 in the fifth set and Diego Schwartzman’s victory over the talented Russian Andrey Rublev for 9-7 in the fifth as well. One of the most talked about local players at this year’s French Open is Kiki Mladenovic, who was on the brink of defeat against the American Jennifer Brady before prevailing 9-7 in the third set. Amelie Mauresmo – one of the most decorated French players of the last few decades – never performed at the best of her abilities in Paris as she suffered the weight of expectations performing in front of the local crowd. It will be interesting to see if Mladenovic will go through the same emotional stress at this year’s championships.
Defending champion Garbine Muguruza prevailed in an interesting battle against 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone, showing some good progress after a shaky start in her 2017 season. In my opinion, either Muguruza or Halep will lift the trophy two weeks from now. If the Spaniard were to capture the French crown for the second year in a row, she would join an elite group of past champions who were able to win back-to-back championships: Court, Evert, Graf, Seles and Henin. The road ahead is still long though, and surprises – especially in the women’s tournament – are always around the corner. “There are a lot of players who can win the tournament. When the draw came out, I realized that I had plenty of tough matches ahead of me: Francesca in the first round and then Kontaveit in the second. I have recently lost to Kontaveit in Stuttgart, she is definitely a very in-form and dangerous opponent,” Garbine said in her post match press conference. The Spaniard also mentioned how she doesn’t think that she will be able to play until 36 years of age like the Italian veteran, who has a very different physique compared to Muguruza’s.
Day three will feature plenty of intriguing matches: Brown and Monfils will certainly put on a show, while anything can happen between Kohlschreiber and Kyrgios. It will be interesting to see Kokkinakis back on the court against Nishikori, hoping that they both will be able to finish the match without getting injured.
World No.1 Andy Murray will face a tough task against Kuznetsov, who has recently beaten Bellucci and Ramos Vinolas before losing a close battle to Wawrinka in Geneva. If Murray continues to play as poorly as he has done this year so far, he will be in danger of losing the match. Many wonder if Ivan Lendl’s absence in Murray’s box is contributing to the Scot’s poor performances. Lendl was seen in the stands only at the Australian Open and his replacement Jamie Delgado doesn’t seem to be as convincing. The last time that a world No. 1 statistically lost as many matches as Murray this year was Pete Sampras in 1999.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )
