The infamous red clay of the Roland Garros claimed two Australian Open champions on Monday and Tuesday. The unprecedented first round losses in men’s and women’s singles champions from the immediately preceding major became historical first-time incident for the Grand Slam tournament. After three days of play, most of the other top seeded players in men’s and women’s categories made their ways to the next rounds, while a couple of other seeds had to bite the red dust.
On Tuesday, 2014 Australian Open champion Li Na succumbed in her first round match 5-7, 6-3, 1-6 against Kristina Mladenovic of France. In 2011, Li Na became the first Chinese player to win the French Open, when she defeated Francesca Schiavone of Italy 6-4, 7-6. The disappointed Chinese admitted that she played below her usual game against a player, whom she had beaten in the first round in 2010 at Roland Garros. So it was some kind of a sweet revenge for Mladenovic but she didn’t say that in her post-match interview. Instead she said that it meant a lot to be winning against a player of Li Na’s stature. After 14 years, Li Na wrote her name alongside Lindsay Davenport, who had won the Australian Open championship in 2010 and followed that victory with the first round loss at Roland Garros.
On Monday, 9th seeded Japanese Kei Nishikori was eliminated in his first round match against Martin Klizan of Slovakia. More than an upset, Nishikori’s loss was attributable to his less than 100% physical condition. He has been plagued with a hip injury since the Madrid Mutua Open, where he had to retire in the final against Rafael Nadal, a fortnight ago. Nishikori’s match began with losing the first set tie-break but Klizan got the better of the Japanese in the next two sets with Nishikori’s movements becoming sluggish. The Slovak finally won 7-6, 6-1, 6-2 to enter the second round.
Another seed to fall early at Roland Garros was Grigor Dimitrov. The 11th seed from Bulgaria lost in the first round to the Croat Ivo Karlovic in straight sets 4-6, 5-7, 6-7. This year, Dimitrov had reached the quarterfinal stage in Australian Open but his best Roland Garros performance has been reaching the third round last year. Two seeded men’s singles players; Germany’s 16th seed Tommy Haas and Spaniard 21 seed Nicolas Almagro retired from their matches. A former top-ranked player Lleyton Hewitt also lost in the first round. Denmark’s 13th seeded player Caroline Wozniacki lost to 64th-ranked Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 6-7, 6-4, 2-6. The story of her first round defeat was accompanied in the media with her broken engagement news with Rory Mcllroy, the two time major golf champion.
Barring these upsets on the first three day, all other men’s and women’s seeded players entered the second round at the end of day 3 at Roland Garros, where the biggest news was Monday’s marathon match between Argentinian qualifier Facundo Bagnis and French veteran Julien Benneteau. It was one hell of a match that lasted for 4 hours 26 minutes, in which the Grand Slam debutant Bagnis defeated Frenchman Benneteau 6-1, 6-2, 1-6, 3-6, 18-16. Bagnis was down a match-point at one stage but displayed remarkable tenacity in pulling off a major victory. They played more games in the fifth and final set than the total of all games in their first four sets.