Roland Garros: Day 2

Hot, hot, hot! Or "il fait chaud." (Actually that means "it is hot" and what I should be saying is "it was hot" but I don't remember the past tense of faire.)

Anyway it was hot at Roland Garros on Monday. And crowded. And one does not realize this when watching on television. One also has a tendency not to perceive the full impact of how long clay-court points are. Sure they are long; we see this on television. But when it's hot and crowded (crowd control is definitely an issue, worse than the US Open in NYC and of course worse than Wimbledon where they are all about the queue) and you are waiting to get into a court to see Agnes Szavay play an Italian player I had never heard of, length of points becomes important. Showed up at 40-15 the game before a changeover. Didn't get in until 20+ minutes later. A guy next to me, who I believe worked for Wilson, said something about 1) how he hated this tournament and 2) how ridiculous it was that the game was going on so long and attributed to "women's tennis." Dude, there's like a zillion other men's matches going on. Plus I attribute men's tennis--or rather the 3 out of 5 format to why I didn't get to see either Patty Schnyder or Radwanska play in the evening. (I was just burned out by 7.) [Turns out I would not have seen Schnyder anyway because they moved the match to court Lenglen.]

But since I am in Paris and it seems kind of ridiculous to complain, I will stop now and say that I saw some good matches, caught glimpses of players I rarely see or hear about.

Here's what I saw:

The aforementioned Szavay beat the Italian. (Oh coaching from the stands is rampant here. The Italian's coach, whom I was sitting right in front of, was constantly talking and she was talking to back to him when she was on our side.)

Saw American Alexa Glatch (picture forthcoming) cream Italian Flavia Pannetta in the first set. When I left to see if the Kirilenko match had started yet (it hadn't) and then came back, it was over. She must have won quickly.

Did see Kirilenko practice though. As well as some of Schnyder's practice. She ended up losing though later in the day to Kateryna Bondarenko. She was also practicing with Anna Lena Groenfeld--not sure if they are doubles partners for this tournament.

Saw Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro win her first set. (She won in 2.) And, yes, she does have a very nice one-handed backhand.

Saw Sabine Lisicki and Lucie Safarova split sets (Safarova went on to win it in 3).(pics forthcoming)

Saw Chazvedatze win her first set and thought she had everything under control. Apparently not. She was upset in 3. (pics forthcoming)

Not too much else to report. Except that pink seems to be the color of the moment. Almost every brand has some in this season's outfits. Some of it is not that attractive.