Day 2 Qualifying Report From Roland Garros 2015
Stefano Berlincioni for Tennis Atlantic

What a long day once again! As tennis was played at Roland Garros for over 12 hours on court from 10 am to 9.30 pm when last match was suspended due to darkness.

I will begin by discussing a match played at the end of the day: Andrea Arnaboldi – Pierre-Hugues Herbert has been (and still is!) a pretty epic match. Arnaboldi started playing great attacking tennis (*5-2 up), I left on 6-4 and it was clear that the Frenchman had stepped up his level. I came back later on 5-5 third set and players kept holding quite easily. Arnaboldi missed a really feasible passing shot when he had the one and only match point. Match will be resumed tomorrow from 15-14 Arnaboldi.

I didn’t watch many other men’s matches, just the end of Norbert Gombos-Yoshihito Nishioka (The Japanese saved 2 mps, the second one with an incredible dropshot, and after that Gombos lost his compsure, and the match in abrupt fashion),  and the third set of Radu Albot- Liam Broady with the Moldavian being more consistent and pulling out a win. I also caught the the end of Aleksandr Nedovyesov-Yuki Bhambri, as Bhambri won again, forcing his opponent to play too many risky shots.

Nishioka d. Gombos 2-6 6-2 8-6
Albot d. Broady 6-7 7-6 6-2
Bhambri d. Nedovyesov 6-3 3-6 9-7

Luca Vanni against Thomas Fabbiano was a strange match, until the beginning of second set Fabbiano looked like he would bet the winner, but then some clouds helped Vanni, because without the sun he looked fresher, and started playing more aggressive. Fabbiano was just defending and Vanni had an easy time winning the match from a set down.

Vanni d. Fabbiano 3-6 6-3 6-2

I don’t follow WTA that much but I know women’s tennis is famous for being full of drama, and today we had at least two epic matches.

First one was Michelle Larcher De Brito against Clothilde De Bernardi. I admit that I went to this match just because some Portuguese fans asked me on Twitter. To my pleasant surprise it was a great match with both players hitting hard and looking for winners! I didn’t expect De Bernardi being so good and I thought she was done when she went from *2-1 40-15 to 2-4 during third set. The great support fo the public helped the Frenchwoman who refused to give up and managed to go *5-4 up when it started raining. Larcher De Brito was desperate for the De Bernardi comeback and started crying, asking the umpire to stop the match for the rain. The umpire rejected her request and a few seconds later the Portuguese woman was crying again but going off the court.

De Bernardi d. De Brito 4-6 6-2 6-4

While I was watching Vera Dushevina against Jelean Ostapenko I heard a rumour of racquet breaks, I turned on the next court and I saw the score Paula Kania-Alla Kudryavsteva 7-5 0-0 15-0

I noticed a racquet broken

I spotted Kudryavtseva abuse http://t.co/Pzy6D6OPzW—
Stefano Berlincioni (@Carretero77) May 20, 2015

so I understood the Russian had a penalty point. My interest in this match suddenly raised and it was a real drama, with Kudryavtseva complaining loudly with herself and then crying

Kania obviously won and here is a short video that shows how that happened

Kania d. Kudryavtseva 7-5 6-4

Earlier I watched Anett Kontaveit against Kat Stewart and I have to say I was very very impressed by the Estonian Kontaveit. She has stunning power and Stewart was outplayed there. When I was on the stands I heard a guy telling to Kontaveit’s coach “It’s over” on 6-3 3-0, the coach replied “Never say that!”. That was pure jinxing because Stewart fought and came back but Kontaveit managed to win the second set tiebreak.

Kontaveit d. Stewart 6-3 7-6

I watched also first set of the 16 yo Tessah Andrianjafitrimo and the girl has been quite impressive: short and with a pretty weak serve but she moves very well and from baseline is dangerous. Surely one to watch in the future, she beat Patricia Mayr-Achleitner in straights.

Andrianjafitrimo d. Mayr-Achleitner 6-2 6-4

Quick impressions also in regards to Nastassja Burnett (outpowered Lin Zhu), Elizaveta Kulichkova (far from being impressive against Yi-Fan Xu), and Naomi Broady (great performance on serve against Cagla Buyukakcay).

Burnett d. Zhu 6-2 6-1
Kulichkova d. Xu 6-2 6-2
Broady d. Buyukakcay 6-1 7-6

I watched the second set of Veronica Cepede Royg-CiCi Bellis and that set was surprisingly a bagel. Bellis didn’t play bad tennis at all but on clay she didn’t manage to find a way to hit through the short girl from Paraguay. Cepede Royg played an excellent match, perfect from baseline.

Cepede Royg d. Bellis 6-4 6-0

It has been another crazy weather day: sick wind, then rain, then cold, then sun. Tomorrow and on Friday should (should!) not feature rain.