The Spaniard went 7-3 on the clay prior to the French Open to gain momentum following a tough start to the season and she began her tournament by beating Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 3-6 6-3 6-3.
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World No. 1 Serena Williams enters Roland Garros in a different spot than she was past year.
The job for his team will be to ensure that the pressure of trying to break his French Open duck does not weigh too heavily.
Heavy showers have stopped and play has resumed under still overcast skies at the French Open.
Djokovic, with 11 majors under his belt, has come closer than all of them.
Wawrinka and Rosol played four times previously, with Wawrinka winning each one, most recently Friday at Geneva.
Djokovic has beaten him seven consecutive times since that 2014 final – crushing him in three sets in the quarterfinals here previous year and beating him twice more on clay, most recently in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open.
World number 57 Kovinic had the opportunity to serve for the match at Roland Garros on Sunday, but two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova dug deep to win 6-2 4-6 7-5 on Court Philippe Chatrier.
This year he is seeded second for the first time, meaning he can not play Djokovic until the final, while Nadal is also in the other half of the draw. While the chatter has mostly subsided, the French Open revoked the wild-card entry granted to a French player, Constant Lestienne, because the Tennis Integrity Unit said he violated a rule. “What scares me is that I’m really not finding a way and usually I’m pretty good at bouncing back”. World number two Murray is shaping up as Djokovic’s greatest threat.
Kerber suffered successive opening match defeats in Madrid and Rome before withdrawing from last week’s Nuremberg Open with a shoulder injury. His 6-3, 6-3 win over Djokovic at the Foro Italico came on his 29th birthday. Roland Garros has become the white whale for the Serbian, losing in the final three of the last our years. He faces 37-year-old Czech qualifier Radek Stepanek in the first round with a potential semi-final against Wawrinka. He made the final three times (2012, 2014, 2015) but has never been able to lift the trophy. Murray said after Stepanek headed to the locker room following the third set.
That figure, just a shade under 40 percent of the 128-man field, easily eclipses the previous high of 41 from this year’s Australian Open and could have been higher if not for the withdrawal of 17-time Grand Slam victor Roger Federer.
In his quest to complete a career Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic could have to beat nine-time champion Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.
Nadal has been paired with big-serving Australian Sam Groth. However, she is one of the most consistent players around.
Rising Austrian Dominic Thiem, the man who knocked Federer out in Rome, is lying in wait in the round of 16.
“Maybe hard court is becoming my worst surface as I’ve got older, which at the beginning of my career was my best”. That is what has been nice for me the last couple of years in the clay season. I haven’t done anything competitive with her yet, so I don’t know if she is going to have my genes there.
2015 Men’s Singles Champion: Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland.
Fifth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan was one of the players who had a match halted by the rain.
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The Bulgarian said: “I’ve lost a lot of confidence in myself. So I’m OK – I’m OK with that”, said the top-seeded Williams, who took the last 10 games after a so-so start.
