Tennis - The French Open

[Fanatic277]

Is anyone looking forward to the start of The French Open tomorrow? Tennis is the only sport I watch so I'm looking forward to it! I mainly watch women's tennis and I hope that either Venus or Serena Williams win.

[AIWANNABE]

I am excited too!

[Mariner]

Wow! I was watching this morning while getting ready for work (the ESPN coverage starts at 5 am out here). Agassi got smoked by some French guy I'd never heard of before. This could be a crazy tourney.

[unexplained]

I was wondering of opening a thread. But you already did Fan (can i call you that. ). Finally a sport we both watch.
But I watch mostly the men's matches.

[Fanatic277]

Sure you can call me fan! I agree, finally a sport we both watch . I wanted Andre Agassi to go far but I kind of expected him to go out fairly early due to lack of matches! There's so many injuries in going around (Juan Carlos, Andy, Serena, Venus, Justine...) and I have a feeling a lot of high ranked players are going to go out earlier than expected.

[unexplained]

Men who shocked me so far. Agassi and Philippoussis defeated in the first round.

The 34-year-old Agassi was outrun and outgunned by the 23-year-old Haehnel, who was making his Grand Slam debut.

"I probably got what I deserved," Agassi said. "You always want enough matches. But I’m not at that stage in my career where I have a lot of options. I have to choose carefully and hope a few things fall my way to find everything I need to have a chance of winning. It was certainly not to be with this preparation. That’s probably the most obvious thing when you don’t like the way that you are feeling out there."

Agassi added that he’s focusing on the big picture this year and didn’t feel like he had enough of a realistic chance to win Roland Garros to spend a lot of time preparing for it. A father of two, he believes he has a more realistic shots at winning Wimbledon or the US Open and is vowing to get enough matches in to prepare for them.

He isn’t sure whether he’ll return to play Roland Garros next year as a 35-year-old.

"It’s hard to say," said Agassi, who’s eyes welled up when considering the question. "You want to come back, but you just don’t know. It’s a year away and that’s a long time for me now. The chances get less every year, that’s for sure."

[unexplained]

The official website for those who are interested: http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/index.html

[Mariner]

Did anyone see any of the Santoro/Clement marathon? The longest match ever in French Open history at 6:33 over two days. I only saw part of the 5th set on the second day of the match but it was compelling to watch the two of them keep slugging it out.

[Fanatic277]

Justine Henin-Hardenne the world number one and the defending champion has been knocked out in the second round. Tathiana Garbin, ranked 86, beat her in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4. Personally I'm happy as i never liked her!

[unexplained]

I was so shocked. I like her actually.