I’ve seen Rocchus play - determined little guy. & usually super fit.
Close call for Federer. He sure seems to have lost his confidence. It’s kind of sad.
Women’s winner - Jelena Jankovic
Men’s winner - Rafa Nadal (Gooo Rafa!)
Women’s doubles - Williams sisters
If that’s how he can play when he’s lacking confidence, they may as well give him the men’s trophy now.
Anybody who enjoyed my enthusiasm for an obscure Italian qualifier during the French Open might be interested to know that the same guy is now up two sets to none on Fernando Verdasco, the #8 seed. I thought Verdasco might do well here but it’s not happening right now.
Serena looked excellent against her hitting partner today, but when’s her first round match?
Sam Stosur went out in straight sets on the women’s side. I hoped she was going to ride some momentum but looking at her record I see she’s never done anything on grass. Clay is her best surface and she’s never gone past the third round at Wimbledon, which she did last year. I figured she could at least string a few wins together based on her ability. It drives home how hard it is to win on both surfaces, and how good you have to be to become really successful on both, like a Federer or Nadal or Graf.
Marcos Baghdatis is also gone. He lost to Lukas Lacko, who won that ridiculously long first round match in Paris. A few other seeded men were also dropped, but none of them were exactly grass court stars.
I’m sorry to see Stosur out, but I can’t say I am really surprised. As you pointed out, grass isn’t her surface. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think Sam will ever be a really dominant player.
Watching Serena now. Looks like vintage Serena, serves are buying her lots of free points and she is just overpowering De Brito.
No big surprises so far. Hewitt won easily, Roddick lost a set, and Jurgen Melzer became the latest guy to pull off a comeback from two sets down. Hewitt is cruising toward round three. Clijsters and Henin both won. Shahar Peer is out.
All eyes are going to be on Federer, who is about to play a Serbian qualifier named Ilija Bozoljac. He’s a journeyman ranked about 150 in the world and according to Wikipedia, Bozoljac is better known for dating a former Playboy model/Serbian Big Brother contestant and a former Miss World contestant. Did Federer put his problems behind him when he rolled Falla in the fifth set, or could he come out and struggle again? I think a bad match against Bozoljac - nevermind a loss - would be more troubling than what happened on Monday. Falla isn’t a household name but seems to be improving and he’s getting into majors based on his ranking, which is around 60. I know Federer owned him in the past but he seems to be improving. (It may have also helped him that they’d played three times recently.) Bozoljac has never been in the top 100 and he hadn’t even qualified for a major in two years.
Isner/Mahut is on serve at 26-25 in the fifth set.
26-25!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Holy crap, that’s NUTS! It’s 27-all right now. And De Bakker and Giraldo are at 13-all in the fifth set. Federer is up a break in the first set and it looks like he’ll have that one finished in the next few minutes.
For a match that is 28-28 in the 5th set, there is virtually no excitement in this match.
Yeesh, nearly 29-29.
After 30-30 in games, does it go to 40-30? 
The match is approaching 6 hours and 25 minutes and it’s 30-30 in the fifth set. Isner has hit 71 aces and Mahut has hit 63. I think the old Wimbledon record was 51, set by Karlovic. If this lasts a few more games Isner could break the overall ace record, which is also held by Karlovic - 78. Both guys have more than 200 winners.
That’s why this has lasted so long and there’s been so little drama beyond the endurace aspect. Isner is one for 10 on break points. Mahut has had only one break point this whole match, way back in the second set. It looks like Mahut played an almost equally insane set during qualifying - he beat Bogdanovic 24-22 in the third set during round two.
De Bakker beat Giraldo 16-14 in the fifth. That match lasted more than four hours.
If they didn’t play tiebreaks in earlier sets, they’d probably still only be in the third set…
What were the previous game scores in the Mahut-Isner match? The overall record for games in a match is apparently (per wikipedia) 112, pre-tiebreaker. If the previous scores were 7-6 6-7 7-6 6-4 or some such, they only need to get to 31-31 to guarantee this is the longest match ever.
With Isner first, the scores were 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6. So that’s 45 games, plus 64 in the fifth. So Isner will serve the 110th game in a minute.
45 (10,9,13,13) is the number of games in the first four sets.
I think they are averaging about 1.5 shots per point. Mostly aces, and service winners. Absolutely no rallies, so that “helps” in the endurance.
Incidentally, there was apparently a 39-37 set in a doubles match in Davis Cup play back in 1973 - that match went to 122 games total.
wishes he’d bought ‘total number of games’ on the spreads
Isner won the 65th game, and it did last about a minute, but I don’t think he hit any aces. He’s averaging more than one per service game, so does that mean he’s flagging? I wonder if this is good or bad for tennis. It’s freakish but this sounds like the worst kind of boom-boom tennis.
Edit 1: No! Isner gets two match points!
Edit 2: But Mahut saves them both!