Murray’s Recap, Del Potro’s Prediction, Nick’s Clay Affair, Maxime’s Ban and Konta’s debacle

The French Open now reaches its fourth day of main round play and much has happened with even more to unfold.  Here are some recaps, predictions and coverage of some other incidents at the Roland Garros.

Nick’s love for clay

The two reasons why Nick avoids training on clay is because he is not a fan of running and clay makes his shoes and car dirty.  Now, those are two very good reasons and quite acceptable to me if Nick continues to win his matches on dirt.

Nick was quite convincing with 20 aces in his  6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 win over the veteran Philipp Kohlschreiber.  He had 40 winners and 22 unforced as compared to 27 winners and 24 unforced by Philipp.  Nick also made 70% of his first serves with an 81% winning percentage on those serves.  Nick is so talented and athletic that if he doesn’t let his mind come in the way of his tennis he would be one of the favorites on any surface and tournament that he plays.  However, as things currently stands it would be a risky proposition to bet on Nick in his 2^nd round match against Kevin Anderson, although he is the favorite to win that encounter.

Prediction on Kyrgios v/s Anderson:  Kyrgios in 4 sets

Maxime Hamsou’s ban

French player Maxime Hamou sexually assaulted Eurosport’s Maly Thomas when approached by her for an interview following his loss to the 22^nd seed Pablo Cuevas in the first round of the French Open.  Maxime grabbed and kissed Maly while studio analyst Henri Leconte chuckled and clapped through the incident!

Following the incident, the management of the tournament decided to ban Maxime at the French Open and revoked his accreditation.

Not only Maxime’s but also Leconte’s behavior is highly reprehensible and needs to be addressed by the French Tennis Federation immediately.

Konta campaign sliced to an end by Hseih

7^th seeded Konta was sliced to size by the 109^th ranked Hseih who just didn’t allow Konta to execute her powerful groundies by slicing and dicing her way to a 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory.  Konta was frustrated by not only the heavy winds but also Hseih Su – Wei’s unconventional style replete with forehand and backhand slices.  The short sliced balls from Hseih disrupted Konta’s rhythm and exposed her weakness to such balls, and Hseih added to Konta’s woes by using her quick movement to reach many unreachable balls and thereby applied even more pressure on Konta.   It is quite surprising that even players of the highest level don’t actually do enough prior research and pre-match preparation based on the playing style of their prospective opponents!

Hseih will be facing Taylor Townsend in the 2^nd round.  Taylor dominated her first round against Kato with a 6-4, 6-0 victory and will probably not make the same mistake as Konta and spend some time studying her opponent’s playing style prior to the actual meeting on the court.

Prediction on Hseih v/s Townsend – This is where Hseih’s 2017 French Open singles campaign could end; Townsend in 2.

Delpotro has an easy day at office

Del Potro’s first match at the French Open since his quarter final showing in 2012 was a dominant display with a 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 victory over his country and Davis Cup fellow Guido Pella.   There were hints that Juan Martin might not be able to play the tournament after his shoulder injury in Lyon last week; he however fired 13 aces and finished the match in less than 2 hours to quell any such doubts.  His next round opponent will be Almagro who beat Bhagdatis in a closely fought four sets encounter in the first round.

Prediction on Del Potro v/s Almagro:  Barring an injury, Del Potro would be the favorite to win against Almagro which could run into 5 sets if Almagro actually shows up.

Murray corrects himself in time for a win against Andrey Kuznetsov

Had Murray lost to Kuznetsov, he would have joined Kerber and Stefan Edberg as the only top seeds to have lost in the opening round of the French Open.  Murray was relieved to have avoided that fate but he did get a scare when in relatively windy conditions Andrey backed by a strong display of tennis on his part won four games in a row to win the second set 6-4.  However Murray corrected himself in time to win 12 of the next 14 games over the following two sets and closed it out quite convincingly with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 score-line.  Murray has not been having a good 2017 when compared to his 2016 season and his elbow injury around Miami Open did not help matters.  His lack of form lately resulted in 4-4 record on clay this year and even in this match his 58% first serve and 72% first serve winning percentages needs to improve quickly for him to be a factor in the 2^nd week of this slam.   Murray also needs to correct his tendency to stay 10 feet or more behind the baseline or his fate at this French Open will be no different than Alex Zverev’s.

So Murray moves on to meet Martin Klizan in the next round.  Murray and Klizan have played only once so far and Murray leads the H2H 1-0. And, Klizan had an interesting incident, to say the least, of his own at Roland Garros today.

Outcome of Murray v/s Klizan:  Murray has now got his feet working on clay with his showing against Kuznetsov and should also win against Klizan in 4 sets.

No hand shake for Martin Klizan

In a bizarre incident Laurent Lokoli refused to shake Klizan’s hands after their first round match which lasted 5 full sets and featured a verbal joust between the two after Klizan’s celebration on Lokoli double faulting a game away in the fifth set.  Klizan won 7-6, 6-3, 4-6, 0-6, 6-4 but was denied the customary hand shake upon converting his 4^th match point and will now face the number one seed Andy Murray as his reward for the win against Lokoli.

Other happenings

Halep quietly made short of Jana Cepelova with a 6-2, 6-3 drubbing in her first round, Elina Svitolina too lived up to her form and ranking by beating Shvedova 6-4, 6-3, while Radwanska eased past Ferro 6-1, 6-1, and Bouchard scored a win against Ozaki in 3 sets.

On the men’s side Wawrinka opened with a straight 3 set win against Kovalik and Nishikori managed to get past Kokkinakis in 4 sets.