The french open day 2 saw people lining up to witness some great tennis action after a rain-hit day 1 in which many of the matches were left cancelled.
The day 2 of French open saw some riveting action take place and we had our first share of upsets, starting from the women’s singles draw. Roberta Vinci, the US Open 2015 finalist bow out of the tournament after her loss to Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko 6-3 6-2.
The 2012 runner-up in Sara Errani who has a game apt for French court did not have a memorable French open 2016 after losing to Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova 6-3 6-2.
Day 2 after completion of a few matches too was hit by a rain delay which left the fans disappointed with some big players set to make presence at the clay court and play their first round of matches – a few matches however were completed in bits (with rain intervals in between).
One of such matches was that of Stan Wawrinka, the defending champion at the Rolland Garros. Wawrinka took on Rasol (an unseeded entry into this year’s French open), the first set was shockingly won by the unseeded entry to the tournament and Wawrinka was pushed on the back-foot, not for a minute it is to be suggested that Wawrinka was playing badly, it’s just that Rasol was playing wonderfully.
As it’s often the case, Wawrinka fought back in the 2nd set and grabbed it 6-1, making his star presence felt on the clay court. The 3rd set went to Rasol and now he was ahead a set, leading Wawrinka 2-1. The match was formulating into a roller-coaster ride with Wawrinka having the upper edge at times and at times the momentum was with the young Rasol – the 4th set however was grabbed by Wawrinka who found crowd’s support, as they wanted the match to step into the 5th set.
Knowing the physical strength and mental strength of Wawrinka (ranked no.3 in the world), it was going to be difficult for Rasol to fight back once the momentum shifted to the Swiss and that’s what transpired in the 5th set, with Wawrinka breaking Rasol’s 1 serve and winning the set 6-4 and thus game set and match Wawrinka.
An upset in the men’s draw came in the eviction of Cilic, winner of US open 2014. Cilic went out of the tournament in the very 1st round and with him having an ATP ranking of no.10 in the world; this marks the first big upset in the men’s draw.
Cilic fell to qualifier in Trungelliti who won the first set tie-break 6-7 (4-7), Cilic showed glimpses of his aggressive game in the 2nd set and fought back winning the 2nd set 6-3. The qualifier though broke Cilic’s serve in the 3rd set and won 4-6, finally seizing the match in the 4th set 2-6, evicting Cilic from Rolland Garros 2016.
Day 2 stopped at bad light but Murray’s fans had their hearts in their mouth with Murray losing to Stephanek 2 set down (2-1), will he be able to fight back on Day 3?
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