THE FRENCH OPEN

Tennis is a great sport to watch on television. One reason is that the court fits almost exactly into a rectangular television screen. I have been to Wimbledon a couple of times; but the matches are not as good live, either because you sit too far away or because the ball travels faster than your head can spin on your neck. There are also no sofas at Wimbledon that you can sprawl in while you watch.

This week and next it's the French Open, the only one of the four major championships that is played on clay courts. Clay is much slower than other surfaces, and the ball sits up more than on grass or hard courts. So it favours southern Europeans who grow up on it and disadvantages serve and volley players, who are otherwise dominant on grass. One reason why Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are considered two of the best players of all time is that they have won all four majors on three different surfaces. By contrast, although Bjorn Borg won six French Opens and five Wimbledons, he never won the U.S. or Australian Opens; while Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg could never master clay, even if they were brilliant elsewhere.

The first week has already produced some great tennis. Both the top seeds in the women's draw, Caroline Wozniacki and Kim Clijsters, are out, which paves the way for a new name on the trophy. In the men's draw, Federer has been playing sublimely while Nadal has struggled. This evening I saw the first two sets in the intriguing third round match between Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro. Djokovic hasn't lost a match yet this year, and will take over the number one spot from Nadal if he reaches the final. While del Potro is coming back from a long injury lay-off, and is a much better player than his current ranking of 25. It was one set all this evening, and they will finish it tomorrow; it would not surprise me if the winner of the match ended up winning the whole thing. 

Walter Blotscher