Alcaraz v Djokovic is de facto final
Medvedev is out, courtesy of the free hitting Brazillian Thiago Seyboth Wild. It’s left the bottom half of the draw wide open, which means the winner of a potential Ruud v Rune Quarter will be there on the final Sunday.
The top half is setting up for a Alcaraz/Djokovic semi final, it’s a de facto final. These two are clearly the best players left in the draw, especially on clay. The winner of that barnburner would be heavy favorite to win Roland Garros.
The Womens big 3 are still alive
Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka are still in, which is no surprise. The winner of the tournament will come from these three. The question is, which one? I picked Rybakina before the tournament, but Sabalenka has looked the best so far even though the Ukraine/Russian war keeps swirling around her in the press conferences. I won’t change my Rybakina choice as champion but I won’t be surprised if the Russian Sabalenka uses this as fuel as the second week trundles on.
It’s Fritz vs the French
American Taylor Fritz went full commando on the French crowd in his 2nd round match against Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech. The crowd started singing their national anthem at change of ends in an attempt to get their man home. It didn’t work in a four set loss, but it did fire up Fritz. He ‘shushed’ the crowd multiple times, who rained boos down on him, and then he went next level. After winning he ‘shushed’ them again yelling ‘C’mon, I want to hear it’ as the boos got louder.
A on-court post match interview never happened, as nobody could hear it. Fritz is lucky there’s no Frenchman left in the draw.