Play is being delayed on all courts at the French Open because of rain. Ivanovic’s only Grand Slam title came at the French Open back in 2008. Well, almost. Margaret Smith Court’s all-time mark of 24 is still within reach.
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Djokovic’s not alone in having never won at Roland Garros.
But Djokovic has come tantalizingly close.
Through the years, Rafael Nadal grew accustomed to a couple of givens at the French Open: He would arrive as the defending champion, and Roger Federer would be somewhere in the draw, often awaiting a showdown in the final.
Wawrinka takes Geneva Open: GENEVA – Top seed Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated No. 3 seed Marin Cilic of Croatia, 6-4, 7-6 (11) at the Geneva Open. Last year, she advanced to the round of 16 where she was outplayed by the crafty Timea Bacsinszky, who went on to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal.
After winning the Madrid Open this month, Djokovic was beaten by Andy Murray in the final of the Internazionali d’Italia.
“Obviously for me, if I’m not winning, I’m not happy about my year”, Williams said. “I know he’s going to be hard to have breaks against”.
That was not a sentiment shared by fellow ESPN commentator Brad Gilbert.
Not that Djokovic sounded too anxious by that result. However, she was 14-5 on clay previous year. Last year brought him his first clay court titles (Munich and Madrid) and this year he has improved again.
“It’s a tournament that I know I can play well”, said Nadal, who lost in the quarterfinals to Novak Djokovic a year ago.
After Murray, comes defending champion Wawrinka.
Play had begun on time after torrential early-morning rain relented, allowing some competitors including Nick Kyrgios and Petra Kvitova to move through to the second round.
In 2016, he is 37-3 with a tour-high five titles.
And it just wouldn’t be right to leave the King of Clay out of a list of contenders.
After dealing with health problems and a crisis of confidence last season, Nadal has been playing better on his favorite red clay of late. “I just hope that it’s going to work good for me to skip Rome and play good here”. We have adjoining rooms so I sleep next door during tournaments, but even when we’re back home she has been great. At age 34, however, Williams may benefit more from fresh legs and sound body. That was something I never, never thought we’d do and that made it more special. She struggled past year. Fitness is an issue with her too.
Murray, a three-time semifinalist at Roland Garros, faces Czech qualifier Radek Stepanek in the first round. “I need to serve well to beat the best players but I’ve made big improvements on that side of things and hopefully it keeps going that way”. “Even she’s serving for the match or something like that”.
Total prize money is about $36 million, an increase of about $4.5 million from 2015, with about $2.25 million each for the men’s and women’s singles champions.
Other matches that were interrupted mid-flow are also resuming.
Murray lost to Djokovic in last year’s semifinals at Roland Garros, but not before he frustrated the Serb by battling back from two sets down to force a decider.
She then won eight of the next 10 points. Still Keys has a little ways to go.
He’s already come quite close to adding the Coupe des Mousquetaires to his trophy collection, finishing as the runner-up in three of the last four years. But if he did it, you know, nothing really happened of it. Maria Sharapova’s positive test for meldonium and provisional suspension are keeping her out of the field at a tournament she won in 2012 and 2014.
Federer withdrew a few days before Sunday’s start of the clay-court Grand Slam tournament, ending his record run of 65 consecutive major appearances. “I have been nearly two weeks at home and really practising a lot”, she said.
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TV: Tennis Channel (3 a.m. -4 p.m. Sunday), weekend and holiday coverage on KXAS/5 (starting noon-4 p.m. Sunday).
