RG Diary Saturday May 28

 

Originally published on: 28/05/11 17:57

It may be a Champions League football final weekend in Europe, but at Roland Garros today Andy Murray twisted his right ankle at 2-1 in the second set, in a fashion fit for a footballer. “Ouch” was the response when you look at the replay and it was a serious injury for the No. 4 seed, who collapsed in agony afterwards and got the ankle strapped really tight by the Tournament trainer.

Murray went on to win the match against German Michael Berrer, 62 63 62, but he was clearly in a lot of pain. Talking about it afterwards he said.  “I don’t know if I’ll be playing the next match.  I don’t know if I’ll be at 100% fit.  Maybe I will be.  You never know with these things”.

While Murray struggled with the injury, icing it straight after the match,  Berrer beat himself up for not capitalising on his opponent’s injury “Like in Germany we have a saying that an injured deer has to fall.  So that was what I should have done today.” But he couldn’t muster the mental strength to test Murray ‘“I’m feeling sorry for him, and it’s like my mentality is like a little bit… I should have hurt him when he’s down, but that’s difficult for me”.

If Murray is fit he will play Victor Troicki in the last 16 who today beat Alexandr Dolgopolov 64 36 63 64.

Dolgopolov didn’t have a great day, as he was defeated in the doubles too, playing with partner Xavier Malisse, the pony tailed pair were beaten by German pair Dustin Brown and Michael Kohlmann 63 63 76 (5) in an enjoyable match on Court 6. We couldn’t help but notice that Kohlmann was the only player on court without “big hair”.

But back to the singles action Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro resumed their match on Court Suzanne Lenglen. It finished one set each last night and today Novak notched up a 40 match -winning streak despatching the Argentinean 63 36 63 62. He gets to play Richard Gasquet next. Rafael Nadal made light work of Croatian qualifier Antonio Veic 61 63 60 in one hour and forty-one minutes. Mansour Bahrami was spotted in the crowd watching.

And on the subject of oldies (relatively speaking), Patty Schnyder today announced her retirement at 32 years of age after 17 years playing tennis. Her best memory was winning the title in Zurich in 2002 but the durable Swiss player will now spend some time thinking about what comes next. She has seen the game change enormously in her time on the tour “Tennis itself is changing, and the girls were not the athletes they are today 20 years ago when I started”.

That was obvious today on Court 1 where Andrea Petkovic defeated Australia’s Jarmila Gajdosova 62 46 63. Although for the normally athletic German, the Petko dance was reduced to a Michael Jackson backward shuffle and one detected with such a subdued celebration that maybe she was a just a bit off colour.

But on a day when the sun shone, the tennishead award for innovation at Roland Garros goes today to the person who purchased the job lot of straw hats, given out to those mostly enjoying hospitality, creating a neat photo opportunity befitting of the Grand Slam staged in the stylish city of Paris. You certainly wouldn’t catch a football fan wearing one of those tonight.

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