Czech Mate in Paris

Lucie Safarova caused the upset of the womens tournament so far when she humbled French home favourite Amelie Mauresmo in Saturdays 3rd round encounter. The Czech teenager used her powerful groudstrokes to force Mauresmo to make too many errors. It wasnt all plain sailing for Safarova though as Mauresmo broke serve to lead by 3-0 in each of the sets, only to be pegged back each time by Safarova. It was a disappointing day for France overall as Jean Paul Mathieu fell in straight sets to Igor Adreev of Russia and Thierry Ascione put up a brave fight before losing in 5 sets to Novak Djokovic. Maria Sharapova gained a 4th round spot at the hands of a fellow russian, however Sharapova looked far from her best during her 6-1 6-4 victory, indeed she found herself 4-1 down in the second set before rallying late on.

Tommorrow sees the womens 4th round take place and each winner will gain a quarter final berth. My pick of the matches will be rising star Shahar Peer of Isreal against last years finalist Svetlana Kuznetsova. The match will be close and I think the Isreali will spring a suprise!

Roger Federer will play against Mikail Youhzny which looks the best of the mens 4th round clashes!

Rising Stars of British Tennis

The grasscourt season is upon us and its time for the Lawn tennis Association to decide which British players will get the chance to have a 'wildcard' into Wimbledon. Its fair to say that the grass does allow the 'Brits' there best chance of winning a few matches in the tennis calendar, however its surely time to see youngsters get a chance to play rather than allowing the 'oldies' to earn a few extra dollars courtesy of the wildcard system. A player can earn over £10,000 just by entering into the singles and doubles tournaments at Wimbledon and losing in the first round! Perenial under achievers such as Delgado, O'donoghue, and Mackin need to be turned away from these tournaments if there ranking is not high enough to enter directly and youngsters should be given the chance to show how they can perform. For once Britain genuinely has a rising star in the womens game in the form of Naomi Cavaday. Narrowly losing to the experienced Ai Sugiyama in last years tournament, Cavaday has risin over 300 places in the rankings in less than a year and is on the verge of entering the ladies top 200!, quite an achievement as she is still only 18!. Only 3 British women lie inside this barrier these being Keothavong, O'Brien and South all of which have struggled with consistency this season. Cavaday however has won her first $25,000 ITF challenger title as a qualifier in the USA in February and has had consistent performances on this level of tournament, a step up from last years more regular $10,000 tournaments (the lowest on the WTA tour) Cavaday has been working at the Nick Bolleteri Academy and if she can have a consistent performance at tournaments in Surbiton, Edgebaston, Eastbourne and Wimbledon this summer she could become the next British number one player and get closer to that elusive top 100 spot, which would allow her direct entry into most of the top tier WTA events. Other names to look out for this year are Georgie Stoop, Natasha Khan and Anna Fitzpatrick all youngsters in the British camp eager to impress on home soil. Elena Baltacha is also back to full health and after good success in recent weeks in Korea is steadily improving her world ranking. On the mens side, hopefully Alex Bogdanovic will beable to show his full potential soon and join the likes of Henman and Murray in the worlds elite. Bogdanovic is a consistent performer on the challenger tour however has struggled to gain wins on the ATP full tour. Other men to look out for are Jamie Baker and Richard Bloomfield. It could be in doubles where Britain finds most success this summer with both James Auckland and Jamie Murray have had lots of success this year. Although they have both recently struggled on the clay, the grasscourt season should suit then more.


Lets hope the rain stays away for the British Grasscourt Season and come on you youngsters!

Jankovic improving with every game!

Jelena Jankovic again showed her increasing pedigree on the womens tennis circuit with a battling 3 set win over Venus Williams in the 3rd round of the French Open in Paris on Friday. Jankovic has had an excellent start to the year which has seen her move into the worlds top 5 for the first time and a mixture of baseline winners and errors from her opponent allowed Jankovic to set up a 4th round clash with home country favourite Marion Bartoli, a match which she surely will start favuorite for. Jankovic along with Novak Djorkovic and Ana Ivanovic is continuing to put put Serbian tennis firmly on the map. Bartoli herself had an execellent straight sets win over the 13th seed Elena Dementieva. Former finalist Dementieva could not cope with Bartoli's fierce return of serve and made too many unforced errors to beable to be competitive in the match, struggling especially on her own service games. Saturday sees the completion of the womens and mens 3rd round draws and hopefully the rain will stay away so the french crowd can cheer on Amelie Mauresmo. The former world number one hasnt been playing particularly well on the red clay this season and has been upset by outsiders such as Annable Medina Garrigues of Spain and Ukranian Julia Vakulenko in recent weeks. Mauresmo has a very tough match against rising Czech star Ludmila Safarova. The youngster who reached the quarters of the Australian open earlier in year will surely fancy her chances against a player who has been known to choke with the pressures of her home crowd support.

More news on Saturday with all the results and comments from day 7 at Roland Garros.