[Brian Swartz]

French Open

Girish Girsh had a very tough match at the outset. The opponent was Argentinian Robert Garcia(36th), one of the toughest if not the toughest unseeded 'floaters' in the draw and a clay specialist. I had Garcia slightly favored actually, which would be a disappointing result for Girsh to lose right away. After an epic first-set tiebreak, he managed to narrowly pull through, 7-6(10), 6-4, 6-4! A huge win, and one that really shows he belongs now if he can beat players like Garcia on clay.

Australia's Robert Minson provided only token resistance, but Girsh met up with Iglar in the third round. A triple-breadstick later, he was on his way home having been thoroughly dismantled by the legendary Czech. He's not near that stratosphere yet, but another third-round finish is a solid result here.

Mehul had virtual walk-overs in his first two matches, and then met up with Eric Gorritepe for the first time in some while during the third round. By this point in time it is no contest. The legend is only a shadow of his former self and took just three games. In the fourth, it was a clash of two players that rolled through their opening matches, with Viktor Goncharenko on the other side of the net. On the whole Mehul has surpassed the Russian but clay is Goncharenko's best surface relatively speaking. Even in a down year last season he made the semis here. I had this pegged as a real 'pick-em' affair that could go either way.

Unfortunately Goncharenko clearly had the upper hand in the first two sets. The third went down to a wild tiebreak with Mehul taking the first two points, then losing four straight only to save triple match point and level it! After that it went back and forth, both players with many chances to take it, eventually Goncharenko prevailing to end it in straight sets. 6-2, 6-2, 7-6(14) in the longest breaker I've yet seen. Goncharenko was much better on 2nd serve points on both ends, using his clay expertise on those occasions, while Mehul converted only 1 of 5 break chances. Overall this is a mildly disappointing result, losing a round earlier than he did last year and falling in the round of 16 after a semifinal and two quarterfinals in the clay Masters leading up to it. But still it's a very successful clay season overall.

The business end of the tournament was a bit unusual, with only three of the top 8 seeds reaching the quarterfinals. Marcel Bahana is indeed sharply on the rise this year and was there, moving up to 17th after a straight-sets loss to Iglar. Julian Hammerstein met the same fate after reaching the first Slam semi of his career, enough to vault him up to a new best of 8th as Elder tumbles out of the Top 10. The most shocking was Argentinian Max Benitez, just 31st coming in to the tournament. The 24-year-old had never surpassed the third round in a Slam before so this is, at least for now, a career-defining moment for him. He's up to 24th after making it to the final 8 and giving Alvarez a surprisingly competitive match once he got there.

During the second week at Roland Garros, Prakash Mooljee had a disappointing tier-3 outing. He exited quickly in doubles and as the 3-seed lost to top-seeded Paul Veal(GBR) in what I considered to be a very slight upset at the semifinal stage.

Coming Up ...

Mooljee will have a few weeks off still before his next event. Mehul once again got enough matches in that he'll be skipping the grass-court warmups, but Girsh will be playing his first 250 the week before Wimbledon. As always it's a short turnaround of a couple weeks in between the Slams here. Mehul slid to 7th just behind Marcek, while Girsh is back at his career-high of 29th. They'll be looking to improve on 4th and 1st-round finishes respectively from a year ago.