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Year 101 Roland Garros: Opening Rounds
No obvious players missing. It seems, at least for now, that the guys from Cyprus have figured out it's a good idea to show up for the big tournaments. (26) Santino Consiglio was the lone first-round exit of a seed, a five-set struggle against regular spoiler Ignaci Saravia. In the second round it was time to name another Spaniard that I don't think has come up before, Fabiano Tibljas. Tibljas is 23, ranked 79th, and still improving. He took down (18) Andre Mexicano in four sets, while another of the low seeds was eliminated in five by Renato Delpin. Yep, another player from Spain. It's almost as if their reputation on clay is well-deserved.
The Top 16 all made the third round, and only one would fail to advance; Ale Ballok. Haven't heard from him in a while. He hasn't exactly been doing well, and here 21-seed Patrik Rask of Sweden got the better of him 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-3. Would we see more of a shake-up in round four? Ehh, somewhat. (14) Goya Banqueria pushed past (5) Oleg Urazov in five sets, a real missed opportunity here for the rising Canadian. Jochen Weigle managed to avoid another early loss in a strange match. Going against Swiss no. 2 (11) Dominic Stricker, he handed out three breadsticks to his countryman, 6-1 sets in the first, second, and fourth. And then lost the third set in a 12-10 tiebreak. Don't ask me what happened there. The only other drama was (8) Solitris Papadias losing in straight sets to (9) Ene Caballero, a result that isn't an upset esp. on clay.
Banqueria is really the only player who is even a mild surprise to see in the quarterfinals. We haven't mentioned any of the top players because they've convincingly handled their business. We'll see next week if Ben Faille has what it takes to hold off the others.
Elsewhere ...
Aparna Chandrasekharan's last outing was a disaster, losing in the first round of qualifying in both singles and doubles. He usually is able to skip qualifying, but yeah. It was close, but not a good look for him.
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