Friday/ spectacular tennis

There was spectacular French Open men’s tennis on TV today.
The youngsters Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece, 22 yrs old) and Alexander Zverev (Germany, 24) went first, with Tsitsipas overcoming a mid-match slump to win 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3.

Then the legendary King of Clay, Rafael Nadal (Spain, 35 yrs old, won 13 French Opens* in 16 years) took on the world’s No 1 Novak Djokovic (Serbia, 34). Djokovic won 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2.

Officials decided to suspend the controversial Covid-19 curfew in Paris, that had them empty out the stands at 9 pm on Monday & Tuesday night, and at 11 pm later this week. The Nadal-Djokovic match was still going at 11 pm. There would have been a French Revolution II in the Philippe Chatrier tennis stadium, had anyone attempted to chase the rabid tennis fans out.

*The French Open is a Grand Slam tournament, with 128 players in the main draw. (Regular tournaments have 32). For 4 of the 128 spots in the main draw, there was a qualifying tournament.  To win, you have to win seven matches in a row, all guaranteed to be against a fierce competitor in the game of tennis.

A Nadal fan waving the Spanish flag, as the players came onto the court. [Still from NBC Sports broadcast].
No ball is too wide, or too short, or too high, for Nadal to run down on the slow red clay courts of the French Open. For this one, he was all the way up at the net, and had to run back to retrieve a high overhead shot. He invented a shot on the fly, lobbed the ball back into the corner of Djokovic’s court, and won the point and the opening game. [Still from NBC Sports broadcast].

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