Roland Garros 2008

[annie]

YAY DINA!!! Good luck in the finals!!!

[sabz]

So we have another Nadal v Federer at RG
overall on the 2 semis, apart from the last set, was a bit disappointed that nole didnt give rafa a big fight like everyone thought he would - but to be fair, rafa had an answer to everything
and as for monfils - what entertaining tennis he provided and took a set off the swiss - fabulous to watch whilst revising lol

Ivanovic vs Safina - 3pm local time

DAVAI DINA!!!! ;D

[Anne]

Ooh, I really hope Dinara wins! Come on Dinaraaaaaaa!
The semi-finals were indeed a bit dissapointing. But the Monfils-Federer match was pretty close in the end. Overall some good matches.
Good luck, sister of Marat:)!

[yarina]

well, well, well, here we are with the finals left only....

I enjoyed the SFs: I predicted Djoker was gonna lose in straight sets and he listened to me: I do think he played a good game, but sometimes Nadal does not get all the deserved credit, I think. He was quite amazing today - and I am still surprised people did not actually expect such a result and such a performance after he basically toyed with anybody else till now...About the Fed- Monfils, that was fun (as Maestro put it himself) and here are a few of Gael's statements which I find quite funny and nice at the same time - from eurosport.com:


However, he admitted he was completely bamboozled during most of those openings by the way Federer chose to execute an array of dropshots."I was pretty stupid on one of the breakpoints. Then there was another one when he came to the net, I tried a passing shot, and he caught it and he played a dropshot. That was difficult for me.

"But those are not dropshots. I don't know what they are, but these are not dropshots.

"His balls were not bouncing up at all. They had a spin effect. I'll ask him to explain to me, because I don't know what these were."

About the women's final, I am so rooting for Dinara: I liked Ana before this RG, but then I think that what Dinara did was quite amazing - beating 6 top ten players here and in Berlin is not exactly to be ignored - and Ana anyway got the no.1, so she can leave the title for Dinara

[jenhatter06]

Rafa all the way on Sunday baby! ;D


Congrats to the first winners of RG '08:

Mixed Doubles: Victoria Azarenka & Bob Bryan
Women's Doubles: Anabel Medina Garrigues & Virginia Ruano Pascual


Hope for a wonderful end to the tourney with women's singles & men's doubles final tomorrow and Rafa-Roger Part XVII on Sunday

[LaFFy TaFFy]

VAMOS RAFA
make it 4 in a row

[justsafin]

the result finally reveals
Dina is the runner-up and Ana finally gets herself the first GS title after two defeats in finals !

My dream of the brother-sister GS super combo will have to wait another year. Hope next year, Marat and Dina both win GSs and rewrite tennis history.

DAVAI DINA AND MARAT!

and of course, congrats to ANA! Well done. You are a true new No 1 in the world !

[arvind13]

If Marat improves enough by August, who knows, he could win the US Open this year !!

[Marwa]

I'm so sad for Dina....she seemed too tired
congratulations to Anna..she deserved it
Dinara was so funny when she said that Anna's box were annoying :-D

[sabz]

Dina should be so proud of herself! brilliant performance, but like she said in her interview, she ran out of steam. She can take this experience and use it for future GS finals, as I am sure there will be many
Congrats to Ana as well, new world no.1 and a GD title, what a day!!

Safina - I Ran Out of Steam

Dinara Safina said she had simply run out of steam after her first experience of a Grand Slam final ended in a 6-4 6-3 defeat by Serbian second seed Ana Ivanovic.

The Russian battled hard in the first set but eventually faded in the second as Ivanovic took her first Grand Slam title.

Safina, who had beaten three top-10 seeds, Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova and saved match point in two of them on her way to the final, said fatigue had been a key factor.

"I didn't have any more of that fire that I had in those matches," Safina said. "I was just, I think, tired, mental and physically.

"Even though I wanted to, my heart couldn't and my body couldn't do it anymore.

"If I had been just a little bit fresher, it would have been different, because I spent way too many hours for those two matches against Maria and Elena, because comebacks always take so much heart and mental strength."

Safina fought back from 4-1 down in the first set to level at 4-4 but once Ivanovic had taken it, the Russian never looked like recovering.

"With her, I had to be really aggressive," Safina said. "I was just missing by just a little bit and of course, she was much fresher. What I had to do to her, she was doing to me."

Despite the defeat, Safina, who is projected to equal her career-high ranking of ninth when the new list is released on Monday, said she now believed she belonged on the big stage.

"If somebody had told me before, after how bad a beginning of the season I had, that I would be winning a Tier 1 tournament and being in the final of a Grand Slam, I'd say, 'God, are you kidding? What you talking about?,'" Safina said.

"Now I have been in the final, so I just want to take all the experience that I had and just to even work harder. Because now I believe in everything, so I just want to be a perfectionist and to keep going."

Safina's one other regret was that her brother, twice Grand Slam winner Marat Safin, had not been in the stands to support her.

"He was not here. Somehow I thought that he might come, but unfortunately he didn't," she said.

He should have been there for his little sis, so he should prove to her that staying here in london was the right decision by doing well at Queens and Wimby and do really well this grass court season!

[jenhatter06]

Bravo to Ana -- but YaYs to Dinara for having a great past couple weeks.
... and lovely to see Justine make an appearance, which hopefully wasn't too awkward for her

And Congrats to Cuevas-Horna who took the men's doubles title over Nestor-Zimonjic

[maryb]

Well done wee sis on getting to a GS final - I'm sure it won't be her last.

Big Yin, you should have been in Paris! Tssk.

[jenhatter06]

Rafa wins #4 !

61 63 60 ... over Fed. In a final.

Yeesh.

*bow down*

Kudos to Rafa and his uncanny brilliance and magic on the clay ... although Fed didn't look 100% himself, especially in the 1st set - he didn't seem to be able to do anything right - you can't knock the King of Clay .... Wow.

[maryb]

Ruthless display. Poor Maestro - but well done Rafa.

[Alya10]

I was expecting Rafa to win but not with this scoreline.
What happened Roger? Even the ladies final lasted longer...
Congrats to Rafa for the #4 title.

Nice speeches from both