Tsonga Wins Against Monaco – To The French Delight!
The third day of my stay at Roland Garros was very much about French tennis players. The biggest match for the French on this day was the Tsonga – Monaco match which Tsonga won in 4 sets.
The atmosphere at the Suzanne Lenglen court was great and French fans were jumping from joy and disappointment, depending on what Tsonga did with the ball. 
Monaco didn’t play poorly but Tsonga was in his element; serving 63% of the first serves in and most of these were over 200 km/h.
It will be interesting to see if the long term statistics catches up with Tsonga on this tournament where he won’t be able to hit so many first serves and hit so many forehands on the lines…
My day started more boringly though…
Lourdes Domingues Lino : Alexa Glatch 7-6, 7-5
The reason why I watched this match was to get a good seat for the next match when Del Potro was playing.
But still, it was an interesting match since Glatch was a stronger player, but just didn’t know how to outplay the small Lino who is a master of clay court tennis.
Lino played high top spin shots, drop shots, slices, came to the net and did the scrambling passes to eventually outplay Glatch who was leading 5:2 in the second set.
Alexa needs to practice many non-standard shots and situations to be able to play on a higher level. Just solid groundstrokes and serves in typical situations won’t be enough.
Juan Martin Del Potro : Viktor Troicki 6-3, 7-5, 6-0
Del Potro hits the ball very clean and very rarely overhits. He is very disciplined in his speed of shots and doesn’t go too fast where he could lose control.
His first serve is very tough although Troicki returned Del Potro’s kick second serves on the rise with no problems.
Troicki hits the ball also very well and is a good mover. Perhaps he lacks some discipline and mental toughness to be able to win such matches.
Tommy Haas : Leonardo Mayer 6-3, 7-6, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3
I really enjoyed clean hitting of Tommy Haas and his excellent technique. He can play any shot in tennis but it was really the fighting spirit that won this match.
Leonardo Mayer has a monster forehand and points in this match were very short. The server hit his serve and then attacked with the big forehand (both Mayer and Haas) and immediately got into a better position.
Lots of points ended just after a serve, return and one forehand that forced the error. Definitely the most aggressive tennis I’ve seen so far at Roland Garros…
I couldn’t get to the Phillipe Chatrier court since I had the tickets for Suzanne Lenglen court so the closest I got to Federer was watching the match on the big screen.
Roger was in big trouble against Acasuso but just managed to scrape a 4 set win. Hopefully I’ll see him in the next round…
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