TENNIS:THE SUN showed up for most of the day after a week of spitting rain and thunderstorms and Roland Garros was finally transformed into the hot and dusty coliseum that makes the winning of it a protracted yard-dog scrap to Wimbledon's Crufts.
For a few the red dirt on the first day of week two required sweat and toil, while for others the warmer, faster ball sang around Philippe Chatrier Centre Court.
Ana Ivanovic's 6-0, 6-0 scamper onwards took her just 54 minutes against the 77th-ranked Czech, Petra Cetkovska.
Her urgency to dust down her opponent with haste returned only the second "double bagel" of the competition so far, the other to-love defeat coming in the second round. The second seed, a callow, dumbstruck finalist last year against the now retired Justin Henin, could become the world number one if she wins the title and Maria Sharapova does not reach the final.
Ivanovic was also the first of a parade of Serb players through the quarter-final gates, two others, Jelena Jankovic and the third-seeded male, Novak Djokovic, following with varying amounts of stress and anxiety.
Jankovic, with her reconstructed nose looking rather beautiful but apparently reconfigured purely to aid breathing, treated the audience to disturbing bouts of the yips on match point. Playing against Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska (19), the third seed won the first set 6-3, coasted to earn three match points in the second set at 5-2, then coughed them all up before engaging in an ugly decline that almost cost her the set and derailed the match.
Looking a little shook throughout, Jankovic finally retrieved the set and match in a tie-break 7-6. A few tumbles during the frustrating joust as well as treatment to her right arm have now cast doubts over the 23-year-old's ability to compete fully in the last eight against a 19-year-old from Gran Canaria, whom she has never played against and, before this year's first French Open shock against Amélie Mauresmo, had never seen either.
"No," said Jankovic replying to being asked if she knew the qualifier Carla Suarez Navarro. "I never saw her play before. I just saw her name when she beat Mauresmo."
Ivanovic will know a great deal more about her quarter-final opponent, Switzerland's Patty Schnyder. Leaner and playing with more authority, the 20-year-old has worked hard in her Switzerland base to transform herself physically from the naturally rounded teenager of last year into a tough-looking athlete.
There are still questions about her movement but the power she generates for her ground strokes has concentrated minds.
Jankovic wobbled badly yesterday, as did top seed Sharapova in the first round against Evgeniya Rodina. The Australian Open finalist, Ivanovic might rightly sense this as her breakthrough Grand Slam year.
