Because clay is considered something of an equalizer, dulling hard strokes
and creating longer rallies than on grass or hard courts, Roland Garros often
turns out surprising results.
There was little stunning about Monday's happenings, though, with seeded
players going 25-3, including wins for Nadal's two immediate predecessors as
French Open champion: 2003's Juan Carlos Ferrero and 2004's Gaston Gaudio. No.
16 Jarkko Nieminen quit because of stomach cramps, and the highest-ranked woman
to exit was No. 18 Elena Likhovtseva, a 2005 semifinalist. She lost 6-1, 6-1 to
Karolina Sprem, who upset Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2004 with the help of
an extra point mistakenly awarded by the chair umpire.
There were no such glitches Monday for the 11th-seeded Williams in a 6-4, 6-3
victory over Sybille Bammer of Austria. Williams has won five majors, including
Wimbledon last year, but injuries limited her to 10 matches this season and
affected her ranking. Even she didn't realize quite how much.
"What am I ranked?" Williams asked at her news conference. "What am I
seeded?"
Duly informed, she said: "Well, I'll work on that. It's bound to go up."
Not if she keeps racking up 33 unforced errors, including seven
double-faults, as she did Monday. To be fair, a swirling wind made its away
across tree-dotted Roland Garros, kicking clouds of dirt into players' eyes and
making balls move oddly.
"It just blew all the clay off the court, and there was, like, empty spots —
you saw the concrete under the clay surface," said U.S. Open champion Kim
Clisters, who won on center court before Nadal. "It was almost like playing on a
hard court."
Maybe Nadal's victory shouldn't have counted toward the record, then.
Indeed, he appealed to the chair umpire to have more clay sprinkled on the
court. Yep, Nadal loves the red stuff, the way it lets him slide, the way it
holds balls up, giving him a chance to reach apparently unreachable shots.
"It's satisfying because he knows he's entered tennis history a bit," said
Nadal's coach and uncle, Toni. "We know that the main thing is not to break
these records, but to win tournaments."
