Roland Garros - Draw

the main draw is coming out tomorrow.

Here's the qualies one:

http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/draws/index.html

So...no Roger...who is going to win it?

Rafa or Nole?

Or someone new?

And are Nole and Rafa going to be in the same half for the third time in a row this clay season?
I reckon not.


ALLEEEEZ TENIIIIS!

The draw is at 11am, will be live on eurosport... not a big deal.

I just realised Sharapova is not playing RG, I thought she was going through the qualies...shame, maybe FTF wanted to give Mladenovic a chance.

Guy Forget was funny with his moralistic reasoning...at the same time having Nadal go for his 10th title there...

So that's 10am our time I guess.

No 11am our time, 12 cet.

Just watching the draw live, women's atm...three annonymous characters (at least to me!), incl a pregnant young black woman and some tall black young guy (the father?)

Who are they?

I like AO's draw where they have defending champions turn up.

The seeds are drawn manually the rest all by computer...

As long as Zverev, Djoko and Thiem are on Nadals side i am fine.

Looks like Murray has an illness but he still should be fine for RG.

Tenez wrote:As long as Zverev, Djoko and Thiem are on Nadals side i am fine.

Looks like Murray has an illness but he still should be fine for RG.

Murray has an elbow injury. Somhasn't practiced much. Hence poor serving, lack of confidence etc.

Not expecting much from him.

Wow, Ivo at 39 - 24th seed!

Kokkinakis playing.

Looks like Nadal is in Nole's half.

A super cool first round match Brown-Monfils.

Kyrgios playing Kohlschreiber.

Cilic-Gulbis.

Thiem-Tomic
Murray- Kuznetsov
Pouille-Benneteau
Djokovic-Granollers

Nadal-Paire!

Chance for instant glory!

That should interesting considering how nervous Nadal is.

Projected QFs

Murray-Nishikori
Stan-Cilic
Raonic-Nadal
Thiem-Djokovic

It's been a long time since the QF line up looked so dull.

not an easy draw for Nadal. But he is certainly the man to beat....again! 12 years after his first win.

Here it is in full bloom:




http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/scores/draws/2017_MS_draw.pdf


With so many injured and off-form players, this RG looks the weakest slam in many years.

The most interesting thing will be seeing Agassi & prob Steffi  in Nole's box.

Only the top half there......


Nadal avoids Zverev or Thiem; the former goes in the top half and the latter in Djokovic quarter. He's hopeless against Djokovic so that him neutralised.

Murray unlikely to make the final so looks like a Nadal/Djokovic semi (final) unless Zverev really comes all the way through.

The draw looks unrigged...even Pouille and Goffin are in bottom half...

I don't know Stan's health card, but the top half is his for the taking.

BB,
if you want to see the whole draw, click on the link, I don't know why only top half got pasted...happens every time.

Serbian media speculating Murray may withdraw frim RG due to shingles (still feeling the consequences).

He probably pushed his body well beyond its limits chasing number one last year plus relentless physical prep for 2017 in the off season and seriously disturbed his immune system.

Not to mention the TUEs.

I wonder who Federer fans consider a bigger threat to his legacy, between Nadal and Djokovic, at this point in time.

Or to put it another way - would you rather Nadal or Djokovic win RG?

Normally it'd be a no brainer. Nadal has been the threat for so long that one would automatically prefer Djokovic over him. However, I find it harder to see Nadal adding to his GS tally outside of the FO. Djokovic, otoh, if he wins RG, he'll probably be on a role and we know he can also beat Federer at W. And of course he'd be a big threat to win on the HC's. Federer also seems to have solved the Nadal problem outside of clay whereas we have no real idea of how a Federer-Djokovic match will go if the latter re-finds his mojo.

Furthermore, in terms of longevity and fitness, out of the two Djokovic would be favoured over Nadal to maintain form longer into his thirties and thus have more realistic opportunities to add to his slam tally.

I have always disliked Nadal...organically!

I would have disliked him the same even if Nole and Fed didn't exist.

Emancipator wrote:Or to put it another way - would you rather Nadal or Djokovic win RG?

Supporting Djokovic makes no sense, one has to be serbian/drunk russian to support him, otherwise his copycat Nadal tennis, has brought nothing new to tennis world. A Fed fan will support Djoko only out of fear that Nadal will equal of pass Fed on GS numbers, and a Djoko fan will never support Fed (unless he/she wants to date me).

A new face will win this RG, Djoko obviously sucks (Pepe), Nadal don't think has the power to win it.

Jahu wrote:

Emancipator wrote:Or to put it another way - would you rather Nadal or Djokovic win RG?

Supporting Djokovic makes no sense, one has to be serbian/drunk russian to support him, otherwise his copycat Nadal tennis, has brought nothing new to tennis world. A Fed fan will support Djoko only out of fear that Nadal will equal of pass Fed on GS numbers, and a Djoko fan will never support Fed (unless he/she wants to date me).

A new face will win this RG, Djoko obviously sucks (Pepe), Nadal don't think has the power to win it.

It makes more sense than supporting Nadal and Murray "tennis wise". 3 ugly games but the least "steroidal" of the 3 and therefore slightly "gutsiest" of the 3.
But sure, nothing to be excited about. I personally would not mind Djoko to have 14 slams like Nadal and a better H2H. But it won happen.

Yeah tennis wise not much to choose.

Andy's on court behavior has always been a joke, fighting with himself, swearing, etc.

I'll give Djoko credit for becoming the one who beat the other top 3 comprehensively, but he also done his silly court behaviors with t-shirt rips, swearing etc.

Nadal for me stays the original moonballer, pusher and slugfest tennis innovator, with help of magic dust and plasma space blood, god knows what.

Tenez wrote:That should interesting considering how nervous Nadal is.

Could he actually do it?

I think he is not injured.
I can i agine him win a set, two...just not sure if he could get over the line.

I think he is the only French player that doesn't get crushed by home crowd's expectations.

Jahu wrote: I'll give Djoko credit for becoming the one who beat the other top 3 comprehensively, but he also done his silly court behaviors with t-shirt rips, swearing etc.

No doubt, scratch the surface of of nice applaud and friendly handshakes he has also been pretty hot tempered. But all in all I don;t mind as much his behaviour. It's his game which I find very frustrating....cause probably the ugliest of the 3 actually.

Nadal for me stays the original moonballer, pusher and slugfest tennis innovator, with help of magic dust and plasma space blood, god knows what.

Yeah, the Frankenstein of Tennis.

... wrote:

Tenez wrote:That should interesting considering how nervous Nadal is.

Could he actually do it?

I think he is not injured.
I can i agine him win a set, two...just not sure if he could get over the line.

I think he is the only French player that doesn't get crushed by home crowd's expectations.

yeah maybe. The row power is the main thing Nadal fears....but he also loves the unconsistency and Paire has simply plenty of it.

Yes, spot on diagnosis...very similar to Tsonga in a way that his game depends heavily on his serve.

Def one to watch.

About time Paire did something meaningful.

Order of play out for tomorrow:



http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/scores/schedule/p_schedule7.pdf

Rublev the lucky loser. He lost his 3rd qualy round very close.

Ouch. SCHARTZ in the first round.

Tenez wrote:Rublev the lucky loser. He lost his 3rd qualy round very close.

Brilliant!
I saw the score and sighed: again!...and knew even before the the Jappo was going to grind him out.

Paire is one of the trickier opponents from among what Rafa could have seen in Rd1.  The only way a low-ranked player will beat Rafa is if they blow him off the court, and Paire at least has a game that can - in theory - do that.

In practice, the chance that it will happen is very low because, unfortunately, Paire is usually not very consistent.

I have not seen him play in a while but I seem to remember that his FH was perhaps the worst FH in top 100, and his BH is also overrated - he can hit it nicely but he is not all that consistent with it.

Still, Paire will have a better chance than some lightweight guy like maybe Schwartzman would have had.