TENNIS: The French Open so far

[feather_ghyll]

Ah, it appears that Eurosport has the UK broadcasting rights to the French Open, and I no longer have access to that, so it’s been headlines, highlights on YouTube and Radio 5 Live Sports Extra (which seems heavily Brit biased) for me.

Auger-Aliasseme had a tough draw in Fabio Fognini, who beat him in three sets. I heard part of the Medvedev match, where the no. 2 seed, after his best preparation ever for this slam, was beaten in five by a South American qualifier with a name that does not sound like how it's spelled.

Meanwhile there was yet another situation in a Cameron Norrie match where everyone would have benefitted from a screen with a video replay on it.

I don’t have as much to say about the women’s side, the big three marched on, and where there were ‘upsets’, the seeds usually lost to good-quality players who weren’t as well ranked for various reasons. On both sides, young players were doing well.

And, having just checked, I see that Norrie is out, Rybakina has withdrawn because of illness, but Swiatek won with a double bagel, while Gauff won in three after losing a tiebreak in the first. [Edited for a typo 20/12/25.]

Comments

[callmemadam]

Did you watch Gods of Tennis yesterday evening? I actually remember that Ashe/Connors match and how thrilled I was when Ashe won.

[feather_ghyll]

Sorry for not responding to this sooner, I hadn't checked my e-mails. I did watch the first episode and posted about it. As I said, Ashe and Connors were before my time, so I had very vague notions about them, although I knew Connors was considered a 'bad boy' - certainly what he did to Everett in the semi-finals that year seems petty, and perhaps suggesting he didn't respect her as an athlete. I don't know how revolutionary Ashe's strategy was against Connors - had anyone else analysed his game like that before? Perhaps not since Connors was so young and world no. 1. Did others follow his tactics? Were they succesful?