For a recap of today’s women’s action, click here.
The fourth day of the 2015 French Open brought us plenty of thrills but few real surprises as we concluded second round play. Roger Federer was untroubled by a tricky opponent and Stan Wawrinka met a slightly tougher test than most expected. Tomas Berdych was cruising other than a slight blip that cost him the second set. But these three look well on their way to the second week, though Steve Johnson could put up a surprising test for Wawrinka next round.
Who Looked Good:
Kei Nishikori (defeated Thomaz Bellucci 75 64 64): Bellucci is a tough opponent that should challenge Nishikori, who is often viewed as being subpar on clay. There was nothing subpar in the Japanese’s performance today, though. Nishikori played his aggressive game perfectly and met every challenge Bellucci could throw. He looks dangerous and on a crash course for a quarterfinal meeting with Berdych.
Gilles Simon (defeated Martin Klizan 75 62 63): Simon plays an often-boring brand of tennis, especially on clay. But you cannot den that it is effective. Klizan is a tough opponent in the midst of the best year of his career. Simon completely neutralized any weapons Klizan has, though, drawing 44 errors and winning 47% of the points on Klizan’s serve.
Pablo Cuevas (defeated Dominic Thiem 76(7) 75 67(5) 75): Cuevas very quietly pushed his ranking into the top 30 last year on the back of a few titles in 250s and Challengers. He hasn’t really done anything to stand out this year other than a win over a slumping Grigor Dimitrov in Istanbul. He gutted out a tough win over the rising Thiem today in four tense sets. He gets a tired and not-quite-in-form Gael Monfils next; if he wins that, he’ll hope it’s third time lucky this year against Roger Federer in Round 4.
Who Looked Bad:
Ernests Gulbis (lost to Nicolas Mahut 36 63 57 36): I don’t even know where to begin on this one. Sure, Gulbis is slumping. His year in 2015 has been poor, to say the least. And he will fall out of the top 80 with this loss and the 720 semifinalist points he was defending from last year. Still, this was a meltdown to end all meltdowns. He served for the third set at 5-4 and it all went downhill from there. Rackets were broken, obscenities were shouted, and the Gulbis resurgence we have slowly seen over the past few years is back to step one.
Fabio Fognini (lost to Benoit Paire 16 36 57): What are we going to do with you? Fognini game into this match like he didn’t care in the slightest, rushing out to a 0-5 deficit. Rumors were swirling of an illness on court and all of a sudden the Italian was down two sets. In the unexpected plot twist we all expected, Fognini started caring and took a break lead early in the third. He couldn’t hold it, though, and a mental letdown ended with a straight-sets loss for the inscrutable Fognini.
Roberto Bautista-Agut (lost to Lukas Rosol 46 26 26): Bautista-Agut earned an early break in the match. Rosol broke back at 4-2, though, and it was all in the Czech’s hands from there. Bautista-Agut could never get into his attacking game, letting Rosol completely dictate play. And when Rosol dictates play and does it well, you end up with scorelines like this.
Gael Monfils (defeated Diego Schwartzman 46 64 46 62 63): Schwartzman is certainly a talented and rising player. But he’s nowhere near as good as Gael Monfils yet. Monfils fell into his bad super-defensive habits and let Schwartzman dictate too much. Monfils stats looked good at the end (68 winners to 39 errors) but he did not look good for times during that match, especially in crunch time in those first and third sets. He survived and advanced today; he will have to do much better, though, if he wants to take out Roger Federer on Sunday.
Match of the Day:
A Frenchman going five sets at Roland Garros? That’s just asking to be our match of the day. The Monfils/Schwartzman match wasn’t such a classic, but it certainly was entertaining, especially for the French crowd.
The match started out very evenly, with the Frenchman seeming to have the advantage more often. He had a chance to break late in the first set and take control, but he failed and was immediately broken for the first set loss. The second set was a tense affair that Monfils took but he followed with a very poor performance in the third. However, Schwartzman seemed fatigued by the time the final two sets arrived and Monfils won them easily. Still, this was the first match we’ve seen the French crowd able to really create that famous Roland Garros atmosphere. It was great to see, even if the match itself wasn’t the highest-quality.
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