Roland Garros - June 3

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Probably it's safe to say tennis is not what it was once and this in the good sense of the world. Yesterday was the day for the second round and it was interesting. Let's start with the most ... match.

Marin Čilić vs Roger Federer

I left the space unfilled above as I don't even know how to characterize the match. We've been waiting for the legend to come back and show up how high quality tennis is played. Well, at this point I have to say we have to wait some more as id did not happen yet.

In an interview before the match Federer said him and Čilić are friends, they often train together, which led me to believe they are going to make a show on the court. They did indeed but not what I was expecting.

The quality of the match was far from what we are used to see these days. At some point I had the impression I'm watching two pensioners killing time. I'm saying this without wanting to hurt anyone or take away from the fame of either of the player. These days we're used to seeing long games as the new generation is playing a high quality tennis. Yesterday on the other hand they hit the ball twice and the point was already over.

If this wasn't enough, in the second set Fererer got a warning, for not serving in time. He did not like it and got vocal with the chair umpire, which transformed into a fight of 5 minutes or so. Then Čilić joined as well and the two player engaged into a hated argument. When this whole argument ended, it looked like their friendship ended, if there was any. Čilić showed a lot of frustration after the fight. Then the wheel turned and Čilić got a warning as well for wasting too much time before serving. He was indeed pushing it to the limit, it was visible even for the new ones.

The match ended after four sets and Federer won but it was the most boring and disappointing match. I wanted to see high quality tennis and I got a slow and boring one.

Mikael Ymer vs Gaël Monfils

This was the other interesting match worth mentioning. Mikael Ymer is a young Swedish player, the best at the moment, who got to play at Roland Garros. This is a huge thing for Sweden as there was no Swedish tennis player at the Roland Garros for a long time. I believe Björn Rune Borg was the last one.

I've seen Gaël Monfils playing quite a few times. He is a good player but not a spring chicken anymore, so he has good days and bad days, depending n who knows what.

The first set was a strange one. Mikael Ymer won to 6 - 0. Right after the first set ended, Monfils requested medical assistance as he was not feeling well. After that, he was like a changed player. Everyone was surprised how can someone change so fast, but it happened and he won the second set.

Mikael Ymer was better all along, so Monfils had little chance, but he did everything he could, that's why witnessed a good quality match. What Monfils did in this match is still a mystery and not a good one

Aslan Karatsev wasn't able to defeat Philipp Kohlschreiber and the tournament ended for him, which is a shame as he's a good player and would have granted us a good few matches. Maybe next time.

Matteo Berrettini needed a minimum of 3 sets to win against Federico Coria. This is good news as we need him in the next few rounds.

Jannik Sinner on the other hand needed five sets to defeat Gianluca Mager, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that he's qualified for the next round.

The Argentinian Diego Schwartzman was also able to qualify for the next round as he won against Aljaž Bedene in three sets.

Another disappointment was that I could not watch the Cameron Norrie vs
Lloyd Harris match. None of the players were important enough to get screen time, unless you have Eurosport player to watch whatever match you want. The South African Lloyd Harris was defeated in four sets and I will not see him in this tournament.

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There's an ongoing poll on Eurosport regarding who do we thing will win their first Grand Slam tournament. Tsitsipas is leading by far, followed by Medvedev. Zverev is only third and I'm pleasantly surprised to see Sinner on the list. He's still very young but has a chance.

Finally some sad news I have to mention. The Russian professional tennis player, Yana Sizikova was arrested yesterday in Paris. She's been under investigation regarding last year's tournament. She is accused of losing at the Roland Garros intentionally agains the Romanian team Mitu/Țig. This is unprecedented for me, I've never heard anyone being arrested for this reason. There was a male player, who got fined two years ago as they said he showed lack of interest in playing, which is gain odd to say the least. It's sad we got to this point. Looks like every sport has its bad apples.


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