A quick look at the French Open:
Thursday’s Winners
Seeded winners in the men’s second round: No. 1 Andy Murray, No. 3 Stan Wawrinka, No. 7 Marin Cilic, No. 8 Kei Nishikori, No. 15 Gael Monfils, No. 21 John Isner, No. 22 Pablo Cuevas, No. 24 Richard Gasquet, No. 28 Fabio Fognini, No. 29 Juan Martin del Potro.
Seeded winners in the women’s second round: No. 2 Karolina Pliskova, No. 3 Simona Halep, No. 5 Elina Svitolina, No. 9 Agnieszka Radwanska, No. 14 Elena Vesnina, No. 17 Anastasija Sevastova, No. 21 Carla Suarez Navarro, No.26 Daria Kasatkina, No. 28 Caroline Garcia.
Thursday’s Losers
Seeded losers in the men’s second round: No. 13 Tomas Berdych, No. 18 Nick Kyrgios, No. 30 David Ferrer.
Seeded losers in the women’s second round: No. 12 Madison Keys, No. 16 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, No. 20 Barbora Strycova, No. 29 Ana Konjuh.
Stat of the Day
Forty — Number of Grand Slam five-setters played by Fernando Verdasco, making him only the third player in the Open era (which dateas to 1968) to participate in at least that many (Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt are the others). The 33-year-old Verdasco beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday.
Quote of the Day
“I don’t know if that’s the best role model you want.” – Kyrgios, discussing his racket-breaking during a four-set loss to Kevin Anderson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gu7VZJbV0A
Look ahead to Friday
For Rafael Nadal, his third-round matchup against Nikoloz Basilashvili on Court Philippe Chatrier will be the 100th best-of-five-sets match on clay of his career. Care to guess his record? A rather remarkable 97-2. Both losses came at the French Open, in 2009 (Robin Soderling) and 2015 (Novak Djokovic). Defending champion Djokovic is also in action in the main stadium, trying to reach the fourth round in Paris for the eighth year in a row. He faces Diego Schwartzman, who has lost all 12 matches he has played against top-10 opponents. The defending women’s champion, Garbine Muguruza, faces a potentially difficult matchup against 27th-seeded Yulia Putintseva. Seven-time major champion Venus Williams plays 60th-ranked Elise Mertens, while a trio of other Americans takes on seeded players: 18-year-old CiCi Bellis vs. No. 11 Carolina Wozniacki, Shelby Rogers vs. No. 13 Kristina Mladenovic, and qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands vs. No. 22 Samantha Stosur.
