Well, I have watched both the men's and women's French Open finals this weekend. On the women's side Justine-Henin was the winner over Svetlana Kuznetsova. Pretty good match, and some tense moments with the chair empire over a point.
It wouldn't be the French Open without someone causing some controversy and disputing a call lol. It was a good match but I wouldn't say it was surprising.
I would have been more surprised if Kuznetsova had won it. Justine beat her pretty easy 6-4 6-4 and won her 5th grand slam and 3rd French Open title.
On the men's side Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in 4 sets completing his 60th straight clay court victory and second French Open title. Not bad for a 20 year old guy. I'm a little disappointed since I wanted Federer to win his first French title.
Him being a Swiss like Martina Hingis:). We had an all Belgium semi-final this year, personally I'm waiting for an all Swiss final with Martina and Roger as the victors. Well I guess there's always Wimbledon on June 26:D.
Here is an article with more details on Justine's match
http://www.tsn.ca/tennis/news_story/?ID=168400&hubname=tennis
and here is one on Rafael Nadal
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_ylt=AknMCHSX47EDUstu6vQxMmo4v7YF?slug=ap-frenchopen&prov=ap&type=lgns
Showing posts with label French Open 2006. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Open 2006. Show all posts
Monday, June 12, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Henin wins over Clijsters again
I know, I know, I'm late again Blogger was having some more issues yesterday and I couldn't post.
In any case I watched the Semi-final between Justine-Henin and Kim Clijsters and I have to say I was disappointed.
I really expected Kim to win. I mean she was playing so well the whole tournament, heck she played better against Hingis then she was in this match against Henin.
In all her previous matches she was making a lot less errors but yesterday it was one error after another. It's really too bad I wanted more of a rivalry, maybe a 3 setter.
Instead Justine beat Kim in 2 very easily at that 6/3 6/2. I wanted Kim to win so that she could get her 2nd grand slam and so she could take the #1 ranking from Amelie Mauresmo.
Now Justine will face Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final on Saturday. Who knows maybe Kuzntsova can pull it off.
Maybe Kim will have more luck at Wimbledon, than again I'll be rooting for Martina:). Oh, and it looks like on the men's side there will be a final between Federer and Nadal.
I'm thinking of checking it out to see if Federer can win his first French Open. I'll certainly be rooting for him.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Clijsters prevails over Hingis at Roland Garros:(
Well Kim Clijsters has once again won the head to head for the second time this year in the quarters, the first time being the quarters of the Australian earlier in the year. Now you gotta give credit to Martina because she hang in there the best she could.
And when Clijsters was leading 5/2 she came back and evened things out. No doubt to Clijsters making some unforced errors. Then Clijsters won the tie break 7/6. In the second set Kim made hardly any errors dominated and won it easily 6/1. With the way Clijsters is playing I'm really surprised she still plans to retire in 2007.
I honestly think Martina just had an off day, she didn't seem to have much energy today. There are reports about her not feeling well, the French Open site says she had food poisoning. The ESPN commentators say she has the flu. Well whatever it was it definitely effected her performance.
Because she was not playing the way she was prior to the quarters. She was just not able to run down the balls like she has been doing. And like I said in my post yesterday she did look tired to me even in her last 2 press conferences.
And if she was sick well that would certainly explain it. Martina herself did not confirm nor deny any physical illness. But obviously she did not want to say anything, because she didn't want to blame her loss on an illness didn't want the players to think that I guess.
That's the way she is. The only thing she mentioned that was tough on her and I wholeheartedly agree is the tough schedule of having to play 4 straight matches in a row with no rest and not much time to recover. I think that was really one of the biggest factors
Having said all of that, I am very happy with her result at The French I mean yes I'm disappointed and I'm sure Hingis is too.
But she can definitely be proud of what she accomplished. She made it all the way to the quarters of Roland Garros with a horrible draw, a tough schedule and she's only been playing for 6 months.
In those 6 months she went from being ranked in the 300's to number 15 in the world. She has won the Italian Open, and beat several players in the top ten. All in a very short span of time. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at.
At least now Martina will finally have time to recover a bit, before heading off to Wimbledon in 3 weeks where she can start fresh. So I wish her a speedy recovery and all the best in the upcoming tournament.
And I'll just end this with what one of the French reports said at Martina's post match conference. The fans don't care that you lost they're just happy to see you back playing tennis again. And that's exactly how I feel.
And when Clijsters was leading 5/2 she came back and evened things out. No doubt to Clijsters making some unforced errors. Then Clijsters won the tie break 7/6. In the second set Kim made hardly any errors dominated and won it easily 6/1. With the way Clijsters is playing I'm really surprised she still plans to retire in 2007.
I honestly think Martina just had an off day, she didn't seem to have much energy today. There are reports about her not feeling well, the French Open site says she had food poisoning. The ESPN commentators say she has the flu. Well whatever it was it definitely effected her performance.
Because she was not playing the way she was prior to the quarters. She was just not able to run down the balls like she has been doing. And like I said in my post yesterday she did look tired to me even in her last 2 press conferences.
And if she was sick well that would certainly explain it. Martina herself did not confirm nor deny any physical illness. But obviously she did not want to say anything, because she didn't want to blame her loss on an illness didn't want the players to think that I guess.
That's the way she is. The only thing she mentioned that was tough on her and I wholeheartedly agree is the tough schedule of having to play 4 straight matches in a row with no rest and not much time to recover. I think that was really one of the biggest factors
Having said all of that, I am very happy with her result at The French I mean yes I'm disappointed and I'm sure Hingis is too.
But she can definitely be proud of what she accomplished. She made it all the way to the quarters of Roland Garros with a horrible draw, a tough schedule and she's only been playing for 6 months.
In those 6 months she went from being ranked in the 300's to number 15 in the world. She has won the Italian Open, and beat several players in the top ten. All in a very short span of time. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at.
At least now Martina will finally have time to recover a bit, before heading off to Wimbledon in 3 weeks where she can start fresh. So I wish her a speedy recovery and all the best in the upcoming tournament.
And I'll just end this with what one of the French reports said at Martina's post match conference. The fans don't care that you lost they're just happy to see you back playing tennis again. And that's exactly how I feel.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Hingis through to the Quarters at Roland Garros!!
First off I apologize for the delay today, but Blogger was having some problems and I could not log in. But enough of that lets get to the good stuff. Martina Hingis pulled it off and she's through to the quarter finals of the French Open:D .
Where she will face her biggest challenge yet in this tournament Kim Clijsters. This quarter final match will be a re-match of The Australian Open earlier this year where Hingis lost to Clijsters in a tough but very close 3 set battle.
Much like the one she played against her opponent Shahar Peer today. This match was a continuation from last night, the match was suspended due to poor light. Hingis was totally in control in the first set dictating all the points, moving her opponent around and making all kinds of drop shots at the net.
That was of course no doubt due to her opponent feeling intimidated with having to play someone that she admires. Hingis won the first set very easily 6/3.
But in the second set Peer seemed to calm her nerves and the intimidation factor wore off. She started hitting a lot more winners and Hingis a lot more errors. Martina started to go for too much and getting frustrated she ended up loosing the 2nd set 6/2.
Hingis started the 3rd set today a little shaky, still very unsure of what she should do to beat this player. This set was a grueling battle the first point of the match took 14 minutes with Hingis as the winner.
But her opponent manged to hold her own and come back a few times during the match. I think it was finally when they were at 2 games all that Hingis decided enough was enough. And changed her strategy from playing long rallies to playing aggressively and keeping the points short.
Making some amazing shots along the way. I didn't see Martina smile too much today, she was in full concentration mode.
Martina has once again shown the amazing talent she has for reading her opponents and her anticipation and craft at the net. This was Hingis's best match thus far at the French Open, and certainly a much bigger challenge then her previous 3 opponents.
Martina won the 3rd set 6/3. The whole match including yesterday took just over 2 hours so it was Martina's longest match thus far as well.
Later in the evening Martina was scheduled to play mixed doubles against veteran Martina Navratilova with her partner Mehesh Bhupathi, but she pulled out stating she was not feeling well.
Now I don't know if that's true, but I'm glad either way because obviously the singles mean a lot more to her and she wants to rest up and have chance at winning that illusive French title.
And after seeing her post match interview she did look quite tired. So I think it was a good move on her part, and she certainly deserves some rest after having to play 4 days straight.
All the best to Martina tomorrow, here is hoping she wins a spot in the semi's:). And just in closing once again I have learned to never count this player out.
Here are some great article links that provide more statistical details of this amazing match.
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_ylt=ArMelC_iXirK8pHiW.2HMXI4v7YF?slug=reu-openhingisdc&prov=reuters&type=lgns
http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/news/articles/2006-06-05/200606051149508601804.html
http://www.hingisonline.com/martina.html
Where she will face her biggest challenge yet in this tournament Kim Clijsters. This quarter final match will be a re-match of The Australian Open earlier this year where Hingis lost to Clijsters in a tough but very close 3 set battle.
Much like the one she played against her opponent Shahar Peer today. This match was a continuation from last night, the match was suspended due to poor light. Hingis was totally in control in the first set dictating all the points, moving her opponent around and making all kinds of drop shots at the net.
That was of course no doubt due to her opponent feeling intimidated with having to play someone that she admires. Hingis won the first set very easily 6/3.
But in the second set Peer seemed to calm her nerves and the intimidation factor wore off. She started hitting a lot more winners and Hingis a lot more errors. Martina started to go for too much and getting frustrated she ended up loosing the 2nd set 6/2.
Hingis started the 3rd set today a little shaky, still very unsure of what she should do to beat this player. This set was a grueling battle the first point of the match took 14 minutes with Hingis as the winner.
But her opponent manged to hold her own and come back a few times during the match. I think it was finally when they were at 2 games all that Hingis decided enough was enough. And changed her strategy from playing long rallies to playing aggressively and keeping the points short.
Making some amazing shots along the way. I didn't see Martina smile too much today, she was in full concentration mode.
Martina has once again shown the amazing talent she has for reading her opponents and her anticipation and craft at the net. This was Hingis's best match thus far at the French Open, and certainly a much bigger challenge then her previous 3 opponents.
Martina won the 3rd set 6/3. The whole match including yesterday took just over 2 hours so it was Martina's longest match thus far as well.
Later in the evening Martina was scheduled to play mixed doubles against veteran Martina Navratilova with her partner Mehesh Bhupathi, but she pulled out stating she was not feeling well.
Now I don't know if that's true, but I'm glad either way because obviously the singles mean a lot more to her and she wants to rest up and have chance at winning that illusive French title.
And after seeing her post match interview she did look quite tired. So I think it was a good move on her part, and she certainly deserves some rest after having to play 4 days straight.
All the best to Martina tomorrow, here is hoping she wins a spot in the semi's:). And just in closing once again I have learned to never count this player out.
Here are some great article links that provide more statistical details of this amazing match.
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_ylt=ArMelC_iXirK8pHiW.2HMXI4v7YF?slug=reu-openhingisdc&prov=reuters&type=lgns
http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/news/articles/2006-06-05/200606051149508601804.html
http://www.hingisonline.com/martina.html
Sunday, June 04, 2006
The Swiss Miss continues her run at Roland Garros
Well, Martina Hingis waisted no time moving on to the fourth round of the French Open in just 35 minutes. With a win over Croatian Ivan Lisjak 6/1 6/1.
Unfortunately, I did not get to see this match myself due to poor coverage by NBC who chose to stick with men's matches only for their entire day of French Open broadcast.
But I have read articles and reports, and according to them Martina played magnificently. She had 25 winners and only 8 unforced errors. She even threw in a couple of aces. Again she didn't get much of a challenge this match either.
Tomorrow's match however might be a different story she's playing Shahar Peer from Israel. Who is having a very good week, and who ousted Elena Dementieva to get to the fourth round. Hopefully I'll actually get to see it. And since Martina finished her match so quickly she'll have plenty of energy tomorrow.
It should be interesting to see how Martina handles this player. As I've mentioned before things will just get more and more difficult for Hingis in the second week. She'll be facing tough competition from Kim Clijsters to Justine Henin. It's gonna be a good week:).
Here are links to a couple of great articles that detail this match. One is from the French Open site and the other is from TSN.ca.
http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/news/articles/2006-06-03/200606031149355375081.html
http://www.tsn.ca/tennis/news_story/?ID=167722&hubname=tennis
And once again all pics belong to the Martina Hingis Message board.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Hingis through to 3rd round at Roland Garros
Well, Martina Hingis is through to the 3rd round. She was playing very well very relaxed, won the first set easily 6/1. It was a perfect set with something like over 40 winners.
It was great to see. But I think maybe she relaxed a little too much in the second set and allowed her opponent to get back into the match. But she held her serve and managed to close it out at 6/3.
She had a much better service game today she served at over 80% which is ten times better then her first match. So far she really hasn't had a challenge, I don't think she feels all that threatened yet.
But things will get very interesting next week, because it's looking more and more likely that she will play Kim Clijsters in her quarter final match on Tuesday. And if it happens that will certainly be a challenge for Hingis.
I expect her to get through her next 2 matches without a problem, and I really think playing mixed doubles is helping her, keeping her sharp and giving her confidence as illustrated in today's match.
After a day of rain this is what I like to see, great woman's matches one after the other. Kim Clijsters is moving on, Venus Williams still hanging around surprisingly. And if she hangs around then the other quarter final will be quite interesting as well. It might be Venus and Mauresmo.
Now if I had to pick I would rather Martina play Venus in the Semi's especially since she already has a win over Venus this year in Rome. Next week is going to be just chuck full of excitement.
Above pics taken from the Martina Hingis Message board already linked on this blog.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Rain delay at Roland Garros
Well, looks like a lot of matches got suspended until Friday due to rain. Including Martina's second round match. And I thought rain delays like these only happened at Wimbledon lol.
Darn it I was so looking forward to it because it was going to be on at a decent time.
Instead of 5am EST. Kim Clijsters match, Dementieva's and Kuznetsova's match were also cancelled. But of course since Justine Henin was one of the first matches out on court she's already through.
Yesterday Venus Williams made it into her 3rd round match as well.
So now Martina is going to have a full plate, since she was going to play mixed doubles tomorrow.
Now she'll have to play mixed doubles plus second round singles. And it gets worse, because of the rain delay she has no day off and plays on Saturday (3rd round match) and Sunday (fourth round match).
That's gonna be quite exhausting, I hope she's able to dispose of her opponents quickly so she can get some rest in between each match.
It'll be a challenge but I wish her all the best, hopefully since she's one of the fittest players on the tour she'll make it through.
Check out the Yahoo Tennis link for the latest news on this as well as all the latest scores.
Darn it I was so looking forward to it because it was going to be on at a decent time.
Instead of 5am EST. Kim Clijsters match, Dementieva's and Kuznetsova's match were also cancelled. But of course since Justine Henin was one of the first matches out on court she's already through.
Yesterday Venus Williams made it into her 3rd round match as well.
So now Martina is going to have a full plate, since she was going to play mixed doubles tomorrow.
Now she'll have to play mixed doubles plus second round singles. And it gets worse, because of the rain delay she has no day off and plays on Saturday (3rd round match) and Sunday (fourth round match).
That's gonna be quite exhausting, I hope she's able to dispose of her opponents quickly so she can get some rest in between each match.
It'll be a challenge but I wish her all the best, hopefully since she's one of the fittest players on the tour she'll make it through.
Check out the Yahoo Tennis link for the latest news on this as well as all the latest scores.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Just a small update
I've added the Yahoo Tennis Site to the links section a great source for tennis scores and news:).
Also some interesting developments at the French Open so far, Nadia Petrova is out as of yesterday. Someone who everyone expected to be a big contender in the second week and perhaps the final.
Sharapova and Mauresmo moved on today to the 3rd round, I'm hoping one of these two will get knocked out soon. Justine Henin as of yesterday has moved on to 2nd round, now she'll be a tough opponent for anyone really. Things are going to get very interesting in the second week.
Another interesting development I just found out about apparently, Martina has chosen to play mixed doubles she drew Mahesh Bhupathi again. Who she won the Australian mixed doubles with earlier this year.
I guess Martina is trying to stay sharp by continuing to play more matches, I think it might be quite beneficial for her.
Also some interesting developments at the French Open so far, Nadia Petrova is out as of yesterday. Someone who everyone expected to be a big contender in the second week and perhaps the final.
Sharapova and Mauresmo moved on today to the 3rd round, I'm hoping one of these two will get knocked out soon. Justine Henin as of yesterday has moved on to 2nd round, now she'll be a tough opponent for anyone really. Things are going to get very interesting in the second week.
Another interesting development I just found out about apparently, Martina has chosen to play mixed doubles she drew Mahesh Bhupathi again. Who she won the Australian mixed doubles with earlier this year.
I guess Martina is trying to stay sharp by continuing to play more matches, I think it might be quite beneficial for her.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Hingis triumphant in first round return at Roland Garros
Well, Roland Garros has began and as expected Martina moved on to her second round today defeating Lisa Raymond pretty easily 6/2 6/2.
This is her first French Open since 2001. Previous to 2001 she was also at the French in 1997 and 1999. Reached the finals in both but lost to Eva Majoli in '97 and Steffi Graf in '99 and she lost to Jennifer Capriati in the semi's of 2001. As I've mentioned before this is the only grand slam title that eludes her.
As for this first match Martina seemed to have a lot of trouble with her serve, and didn't get a lot of first serves in. But the rest of her game was spot on.
Raymond really wasn't much of a threat, I didn't expect her to be. Martina seemed so relaxed out there, it was nice to see especially since I'm sure she had a lot of mixed emotions playing in the French.
Where she doesn't have good memories. If she was nervous or anything she certainly didn't show it and seemed very much in control. And the French crowds were curtious for once.
Martina seemed to have a good number of fans as well which was great to see.
A little funny thing that happened was apparently just after Martina came on court the wardrobe officials had a problem with a piece of apparel or logo or something on Martina's clothing, and she had to go and remove it.
I think maybe the French have regulations as to the size of the logo. I'm still unclear on what that was about, but it made the commentators Mary Carrillo, Dick Enberg and myself laugh. French officials are so darn picky lol.
So a fairly easy first round for Hingis, she made a few errors here and there but that's the thing with Martina her level of game rises with the opponent that she's playing so if she's playing someone who's giving her a challenge you hardly see her make any mistakes.
And that is what I'm hoping will happen as she goes on and the draw gets tougher. Next Hingis is playing some player named Zuzana Ondraskova whom I've never heard of I expect her to get through with no problems.
Things will start getting tough for her once she gets to quarter finals where she might have to face Kim Clijsters, after that might be Dementieva, Justine or Mauresmo.
There's also Venus Williams if she sticks around. But as in any tournament there are always upsets where the seeded players get knocked out by non-seeded ones so who knows. I will be very interested to see how it all plays out.
Here is a great article regarding the match from Yahoo Tennis
http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_ylt=AkT7ikdXtO1SH5mRapkkDEM4v7YF?slug=ap-frenchopen&prov=ap&type=lgns
Above pics belong to the Martina Hingis Message board.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Williams and Pierce out of Roland Garros
Well, looks like it's more good news for Martina Hingis besides Serena Williams pulling out of the French Open with a chronic knee injury.
It seems that Mary Pierce has pulled out as well due to a groin injury. But I have to say I'm a little disappointed I was looking forward to seeing her play. I haven't seen her play in a while. Hopefully she'll be back for Wimbledon.
Serena has already announced that she's out of the Wimbledon grand slam as well. I really think this could be Martina's year, this could be the year she finally wins that illusive French Open title fingers crossed:).
Here are articles from TSN Canada confirming the news.
http://www.tsn.ca/tennis/news_story/?ID=166998&hubname=tennis
http://www.tsn.ca/tennis/news_story/?ID=167020&hubname=tennis
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