TENNIS FRENCH OPEN:ANDY MURRAY, having won his first match in straight sets against Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela, will be looking to make another sharp and incisive start tomorrow against Italy's Potito Starace.
“There’s a little bit of extra pressure on clay,” the world number three admitted, “because I guess a lot of guys go into the match thinking they can beat me, whereas on other surfaces I’ve been very tough to beat over the past year.”
Starace achieved some notoriety last year when he became one of five Italian players fined and banned for off-court betting.
On court, he reached a couple of clay-court finals two years ago, though in his current form Murray will be confident of reaching the last 32, the point at which he lost against Spain’s Nicolas Almagro last year. “The more matches I play on clay the more I understand how to win, how to move and the best way to beat certain opponents,” Murray added.
Rafael Nadal, the four-time champion, and Roger Federer made comfortable starts with straight-sets wins yesterday.
Nadal, in pink with yellow wrist and head bands, defeated Brazil’s Marcos Daniel 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 and Federer, more soberly attired, beat Spain’s Alberto Martin 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.
Maria Sharapova, unseeded and playing in her first slam since Wimbledon last year after shoulder surgery, won 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 over Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus. Sharapova, who once described her movement on clay as “like a cow on ice”, may do well, however, to get past her fellow Russian, Nadia Petrova, in the second round.
Number three seed Venus Williams dropped a set as she progressed to the second round with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 win over Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Meanwhile, the renaissance of British women’s tennis, with three players in action yesterday, was pulled up short when Anne Keothavong, Mel South, and Katie O’Brien were beaten in the first round.
Keothavong could not have had a tougher draw. The problem was simple: everything Keothavong did, Safina did better, and there was never enough variety in the Briton’s game to upset the Russian’s rhythm.
“The court, the ball, everything suits her game style,” said Keothavong, who the previous week had reached the semi-finals of a clay-court tournament in Warsaw. “I had a great week there and I’m not going to slit my wrists or anything because she is the number one player in the world and the clay-court player of the season.”
The women’s ranking system has thrown up several anomalies recently, with Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic becoming the number one without having won a slam. Now Safina has reached the top without a major to her name, though that may be about to change.
Even when she was 6-0, 5-0 ahead, Safina, runner-up to Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic here last year, was still chastising herself when she missed a first serve, a clear indication of her desire to prove herself a grand slam champion.
South won her opening set to love against the precocious 16-year-old Michelle Larcher de Brito from Portugal, who is at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Florida, and served for the match before being beaten 0-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5. South was short of match practice, having spent seven weeks working on the physical side of her game with Murray’s trainer, Jez Green, and her serve in particular let her down. O’Brien, like Keothavong, was never in with a shout against Olga Govortsova of Belarus, losing 6-1, 6-1.
Guardian Service
