A review of the French Open from the sofa !

I can honestly say that as much as I love tennis I probably have not watched the French Open for about ten years. This partly due to been busy with work and getting married and having a child. However this year I made time to catch a few of the games.

Men

I have only recently started watching the Men’s game as I got bored with Roger Federer’s style of tennis and I much prefer Rafa Nadal’s style of tennis.  So I was very happy to see watch Rafa win but disappointed that Jon Wilfred Tsonga could not beat David Ferrer. Tsonga played a terrible match in fact I have never seen him play so bad. Tsonga normally plays tennis like he is enjoying it and has a big smile on his face. So it was a bit of a shock when I saw him looking so miserable and questioning line calls. I noticed that his back hand let him down and his fore hand was shocking. Normally Tsonga plays the type of tennis that I could watch all day.

His tennis against Ferrer was just awful and I think it was the burden of expectation that made it difficult for him. We in the UK see it all the time with football and tennis stars who  fail to live up to the hype and when we are expecting them to be their best they go into their shell and perform terribly. So it was interesting to see this happen to sportsperson outside of the UK. I am hoping that Tsonga will put the disappointment of French Open exit behind him and play well in the grass court season as he has done well in the last few years.

Rafa is the man I am so pleased that he has come back from injury to win the French Open. I have to admit after his loss to Lukas Rosol in last year Wimbledon I was worried about his career. As I thought that his injury was career ending so I am pleased to see him back.

Women

I was disappointed with the performance of Heather Watson and Laura Robson and I know that Heather had glandular fever. However as she made the effort to come to the French Open she must have come with better expectation than a first round exit.  She desperately needed some match practice and it would have been wiser of her to at least have played at one tournament before going to the French Open. I am hoping that the grass court season is going to be kinder to her as her game his built on her movement around the court the grass court season should be good for her.

Laura Robson was another disappointment and I am not really her greatest fan but I wish her well and yes she had a tough opening match but she played very well against Serena the week before. I think not having a coach has hampered her success and she has now decided to work this British coach and I have seen this in the past with British tennis players.  They have the talent and then they get the wrong coach and it sets them back years and I am hoping this does not happen to Laura.

 I was impressed with Serena her game seems to get better. I was worried about her serve as she seems to be getting a lot of double faults and few aces but in the semi final and final she proved me wrong and there were less double faults and more aces. As she gets older she may need to rely on the serve to give her cheap points.

 I also noted that her drop shots had improved as before they were a little embarrassing to watch. But her semi final match against Sara Errani was probably the best I have seen her play in about seven years! So I am pleased that she played well against Maria to win the title for the second time.  

I  really enjoyed watching the French Open and the crowd did not annoy me like they normally do and I am hoping that the French have learnt that keeping quiet means you get the best players winning the tournament.  After all they spend a lot of money so they really should want to see the most talented players in the final.