Last Week At The French Open Was Chaotic...Lets Talk About It

we are well into the second week of Roland garos and it's been a wild tournament already but I think we might have just witnessed one of the most chaotic weeks in tennis last week impossible comebacks emotional meltdowns strange incidents with the crowd both tours went fully unhinged in week one of Roland garos but I found a way to put together all the action here's everything that happened in tennis last week the tears were rolling down everyone's cheeks as we witnessed what could have been Rafa's last match at Roland G only two men had beaten him in the 115 matches he played in the tournament Novak jokovic twice and that memorable Robin soderling fourth round win back in 2009 let me say this Rafa got the worst possible draw and had to face ziv in round one yet we hoped for one last miracle Novak alcaraz and IGA sponch all took time out of their busy schedules to honor the King of Clay by being in attendance despite Rafa going down an early break we were treated to moments of Brilliance like this Zev took the first set but Rafa came to compete so he did this to hold serve Rafa then broke Zev and would have chances throughout the match but just couldn't convert Zev took the second set with a narrow win in the tie break being the fighter that we know him to be Rafa continued to Soldier on bringing the crowd to their feet with this play right here but in the end Zev was just too hot to handle he was clutch on his first serve winning about 72% of points while Rafa could only manage 58% and that right there made the difference in the end a straight set defeat for the King of Clay in my opinion zov showed a lot of class and respect for Rafa with his muted celebration and Rafa had this to say after the match you know it's difficult for me to talk I don't know it's uh going to be the the last time that I going to be here in front of all of you it had me thinking about what being in Rafa shoes might actually feel like it's like you want to do a proper goodbye ceremony for him but then he says stuff like this might not be my last roam this might not be my last role in garos but there's a huge chance that it is it seems to me that he wants to leave the door open and then move the goalpost depending on how he feels on the court because after the loss he mentioned that he's been pleased with his physical progress so far but what do you think of the situation honestly the whole uncertainty thing is really just nerve-wracking for many fans hopefully by the time the Olympics come around we'll have a little bit more clarity on the situation but speaking of the Olympics someone wasn't too happy with being snubbed from his country's lineup so Pedro Martinez thinks it's unfair that players get to use their protected ranking to qualify to play in the Olympics and since Rafael Nadal and Pablo corinho Busta might both be using their PRS Martinez will likely miss out on a spot despite being among the top four Spaniards the other two guys guys being caritos and davidovich fokina now let's clear the air here Martinez mentioned that as a fan he would love to see nidal at the Olympics but he feels hard done by missing out on his end he might be thinking that Rafa's goat status is understandable but probably not kinho busta even though kusta is actually an Olympic medalist in fact he actually did beat jokovic to win the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics Martinez said that he deserved a spot as well in his words quote I don't see it as entirely Fair it's as if I get injured now and in four years I use the protected ranking in the Los Angeles games end quote does the 27-year-old Martinez have a point in your opinion be sure to let me know because I've seen arguments made on both sides should Pablo coroa who's barely played competitive matches in the last year due to a right elbow injury actually deserve a spot and this begs the question should protected rankings be used in the first place personally I think we all want to see nidal play at the Olympics either way speaking of Spaniards a certain guy has been killing it all week at Roland garos our boy caritos has now reached six consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals although he admits that quarterfinal appearances aren't enough I think his French Open run this year has been really impressive considering the physical struggles and bumps along the road that he's had to deal with alcarez came into the tournament saying that he no longer felt pain in his arm but still had doubts about taking big cuts at the ball Carlos brought the Heat against JJ wolf in the first round totally annihilating wolf with shots like this [Music] wolf managed to win only four games the entire match alcaraz faced Jesper dang in the second round he started the match well and was really cranking that [Applause] forehand but then alcaraz began to give away points like he was doing a charity donation the 23-year-old dong troubled alcaraz with his consistent depth and it paid off big time in the third set alcaraz even trailed by a break in the fourth set but managed to regain concentration and take care of business in four sets alcarez hit 35 winners but committed 47 unforced errors in that match and he knew he had to improve if he wanted it easy with Seb Corda in the third round alcarez put some pep in his step against the American who also didn't play badly albeit this bad Miss right here cost court of the first set the rest of the match was close and I was impressed with the fight that CA brought but at the end of the day Corda improved forehand and aggression weren't enough another straight sets win for Carlos by the time he faced Felix in the fourth round we were already seeing the best of alcaraz and let's just say that Felix was no match oh you should totally see this beautiful pickup from alcaraz right here [Music] that pickup was followed by a number of Drop shots and ridiculous passing shots alcarez played front foot tennis the entire match dispatching Felix in 2 hours and 20 minutes to bring their head-to-head level at three all Felix's serve and forehand his two biggest weapons weren't that effective against alcaraz boy he still needs to work on those double faults although there were only five this time you don't have to look back too far to see his 13 double faults and his loss to deor in Rome yeah I know Felix match his best result at roling garos by reaching the fourth round but even his win against Shelton in the third wasn't all that impressive because Shelton just looked lost at many points in the match with all those Shanks and errors Ben plans to play in stutgart in the next couple of days and he would be proud of some of the improvements he's made on Clay but before we talk about the other eye-catching performances from last week let's quickly touch on a rather weird subject the alcohol ban in the United States it's quite common to see alcohol being served particularly at the US Open and while I know there might be some cultural differences and how fans relate with alcohol I'm not quite sure what to make of Emily mormo's decision to ban it at Roland garos the decision came days after a disrespectful fan who was probably intoxicated spat chewing gum at David Goan in gan's five set win over pericard goans said that the crowd went too far and that soon there were going to be smoke bombs Hooligans and fights in the stands like in soccer in an emergency meeting amily emphasized that player safety comes first and that any fan who overstepped boundaries would be kicked out of the stands but now some are of the opinion that the crowds could be just as Rowdy with or without alcohol other fans thought that Emily Banning alcohol was a bit of an overreaction should they have just tightened the regulations on alcohol instead of banning it outright let me know because I'm thinking yes she overreacted drinking at these events can be a fun part of the experience it's just on the fans to control themselves and on security to police the bad apples but really the crowd has been a thing at Roland garos fiant complained about the screams earlier in the week take a listen to this I want to say one thing I'm sorry to even bring that I have huge respect for you guys and I know that we are playing basically for you because this is entertainment and we're also earning money because of you but sometimes you know under a lot of pressure when you scream something during the rally or right before the return it's really really hard to be focused ego was very polite in her request but not everyone agreed with it but Dosa responded by saying ego was lucky to be playing on the Main Court and that players had it worse on other courts personally I think it's going to be very hard to control crowds especially when they get excited during those long clay Court rallies another thing we couldn't control was the forcast last week at Roland garos was chaotic in terms of scheduling mostly because of some wildly bad weather it literally rained cats and dogs all week and a few fans thought it was time to rename the French Open to the drench open just because the s were soaked all week you could barely see the lines on some of the courts and players ended up in limbo and with the action continuing only under the retractable roof on court Philipe chatrier and on court Suzanne longlin which is also fitted with a roof we saw late finishes like that jokovic MTI match that ended past 3:00 a.m. by the way I am making a video about Novak's Roland garos run so far I did some analysis and talked about his clay season in general so I'm not going to talk about it too much right here that said it is interesting to see that jokovic has more wins at Roland garos than at the Australian Open or at any other slam but here's how much that win against MTI meant to his wife yena jovic just refused to give in you look at that fifth set meanwhile musetti is now two and seven in five sets at the moment and he'll be looking to fix that earlier in the year at the Australian Open he lost in five sets to Luca vanash in the second round at the US Open he lost to an unseated player tiu and drog in the first round of the US Open and then there was that five set loss to Lloyd Harris at the AO last year point being MTI needs to find more ways to get over the hump in matches that Go the Distance Switching gears let's quickly talk about some of the other top players from last week ninth seed Stephano cipas has been solid all tournament with win over fuvi altm Year Jen xien and Mato arnaldi the guy has been ripping four hands all week even his Infamous backhand has caught fire at times I mean just look at this point against fuvi in round one I love how the Greek has been moving freely around the court and then ripping the ball with First Strike aggression Marte arnaldi tried to throw a wrench in his plans in the fourth round after taking the first set and serving for the second however csas was up to the challenge thanks to this devastating forehand return csas went on to steal the set and break AR all these spirits and the Italian would only win four games in the remaining two sets after the match tias said this it was uh one of the craziest comebacks I've had for yanic sinner there were doubts about his physical condition with that hip injury that's on everyone's mind and with only 9 days to prepare for Roland Goos we all had our fingers crossed but so far CER has been in a league of his own he looked to be pacing himself in the first round but managed to save nine of the 10 break points he faced against Chris Eubanks for all his efforts Eubanks had nothing to show for it when he ventured forward this happened and when he remained on the Baseline he got smoked CER followed the straight set's win over Eubanks with a much better display against the veteran Rashard gase in the second round as you'd expect gase had a lot of fight in him but still lost in straight sets facing kotov in the third round was a little bit tricky because we no COV can be one of the cleanest ball Strikers on tour but a single break of serve in each set proved to be enough for cner to get over the hump sinner dropped a set for the first time in the tournament against M following a shaky start in the first set but as soon as he found his rhythm M was no match for him oh and CER followed his Brilliance on the court last week with some hilarious press moments like this I'm not good in fashion guys they just give me the the things to wear and I wear it and then I just tried to look good me while M will take some solace in being the first French man to reach the fourth round since Gaston in 2020 but for CER he's now 32 and two this year and I'm looking forward to a possible semi-final clash with alcaraz for meddev we already know that clay isn't his best surface a fouret win against Dominic coper was followed by a kach manovich walkover his most impressive victory was that third round win over Thomas mahot meddev was up two sets in a break until mahat decided to give him a run for his money with some grueling Baseline exchanges that extended the match to four sets mahat also led by a break in the four sets but couldn't convert when needed meddev ultimately rallied back to win after 3 hours and 24 minutes of high drama but for all the action on the court the real battle According to some fans was between medvedev's leggings and mahat shorts we also need to talk about grigor demitro because he's just reached a new Milestone by entering his first roll in G's quarterfinal he breathed through his first two matches against kovachevich and Maran but we saw some cracks in his game against top 100 newcomers zizu bears in the third round demitro was double faulting A Lot in that match and had the lower win percentage on his second serve he also faced a total of 16 break points the entire match managing to save 11 of them now Klay hasn't been Grier's best surface so not many people saw him coming through against herkos in the fourth round however he had history on his side having won all five of his previous encounters against huie we already know that herkos loves those tie breaks unfortunately for him he fell short in the two tie breaks against demitro and ended up losing in straight sets after 2 hours and 51 minutes herkos did fire down 20 Aces throughout the match but it wasn't enough in the end a first quarterfinal birth at the French Open and his reward for that an opponent named Yanik sinner well dimitrov has now reached the last eight at each of the four grand slam tournaments and all of the Masters won, events and he's in pretty Exclusive Company here's what that means to him this time demitro had to do it against his good friend herkos however the match will also be remembered for a strange conversation between both friends herkos who seems to be entering his villain era wanted to get rid of the Umpire and swap her with another umpire because he thought some of the calls were controversial to his credit grigger found a way to somehow neutralize the situation you want to continue with the with the lady here but really it did look out of character from herkos I guess even the nicest guys have their off days now let me take you guys to that Andre rublev video I made a few weeks ago when we touched on his outbursts and meltdowns on the court in the video I pointed out the fact that many fans were worried about his self-sabotage but then he goes on to win Madrid and everyone is like yeah he's good well unfortunately what we saw on the court last week in his third round encounter against Matteo arnaldi didn't look good ru literally activated the nuke button on himself as he lost in straight sets to the Italian I can't remember seeing rublev in a worse condition after the match he admitted that he was disappointed in himself for his actions looks like there's still a lot of work to be done with his coping mechanisms and stress handling but hopefully he puts his nose back to the grindstone switching over to one of the tournament favorites Alexander Zev backed up his statement win against Rafa with a dominant display against deid Goan to reach the third round at Roland garos facing Talon Greek spor zov had a scare as the match went the distance Greek Spore was clinical in his serve with great numbers behind both first and second serves and his Serv and voling was equally as deadly and so were the Drop shots everything was clicking and before we knew it Zev found himself down 14 in the fifth set and was facing an upset until the wheels fell off from greeksport unforced errors missed volleys and double faults were enough to condemn greeksport to defeat the wait to enter the second week of a grand slam continues meanwhile Casper Roode has been flying under the radar he was Flawless on Tuesday when he began his rolling garos campaign with the convincing straight sets win against the Brazilian Felipe Alvis he had an epic five- set Thriller against davidovich faka and honestly that was one of the most animated versions of Roode I've ever seen I mean look at his response after stealing the first set tie break there was little to separate both players for large spells of the game with each player creating and converting five out of 14 break points rude got the W in the end and followed that up with a big win over Tomas Martin Neer in the third round how far can the two-time finalist go this time shout out to the old boys Andy Murray and Stan vinka who played each other in the first round just two three-time grand slam winners who have a combined age of 76 years old Stan brought back memories of those backhand winners one backhand at a time and here's how we put Murray to the sword back in the day when Stan was at the top of his game no one could stop him but at the end of the day no one can wrestle against father time is this the last time we see these Legends at Roland garos interestingly 12 of the top 13 seeds made the fourth round at Roland garos this year rublev being the only exception but Runa almost got beaten in the second round though facing Flavio caboi Runa let a two sets to love lead slip out of his hands and found himself down love five in the fifth set tie break before he managed to flip the switch in the nick of time caboi will regret his three missed break chances at four all love 40 in the fifth set that would have allowed him to serve for the biggest win of his career switching over to the women's side A lot has happened in the past week IGA celebrated her 23rd birthday earlier in the week and had the Parisian CR Serena her happy birthday to you after a routine win in the first round IGA found herself on the verge of what could have been the biggest upset of the tournament against Naomi Osaka in round two I made a deep dive about EGA a few days earlier and I touched on why she was so difficult to beat on Clay but boy did she look vulnerable against a version of Naomi Osaka that we haven't seen in a while EGA edged out Naomi to take the first set in the tie break however Naomi became an absolute Beast producing some of the cleanest and hardest ball striking you would ever see look at this the second set was over quickly and the queen of clay had just been dismantled and served a bread stick for good measure I didn't think it was possible by the third set Naomi was serving for the match and even held a match point however EA channeled her inner Rafa to save that break point and here's the spark that ignited the fire EA found a way to come back from 35 down to win the set 75 it was an early match of the Year Contender for me and while Naomi might have faltered in the end I don't think she choked that match it just wasn't meant to be after the match Naomi said this in her press conference and you could just tell that she's in a much better place mentally I cried when I got off the court but then um you know for me I kind of realized like I was watching ego like win this tournament last year and I was pregnant and it was just my dream to like be able to play her so um when I kind of think of it like that I I think I'm doing pretty well and I I'm also just trying not to be too hard on myself I feel like I played her on her better surface I'm a hardcore kid so um I would love to play her on my Surface and see what happens IGA cried after the match but she knew that she had her work cut out for her sponch breeed through her third round encounter against Marie bushkova before destroying Anastasia poova with a double Bagel in 40 minutes in the fourth round IGA only lost 10 points all match what a player meanwhile EA's closest competitors rebaka sabalenka and Goff have been on fire none of them have dropped a set yet and it'll be interesting to see how the later stages of the tournament play out for them but let's talk about some of the crazy upsets we saw on the women's tour in the first round elizabeta kerto came from a set down to beat last year's Roland semi-finalist Bia Hadad Maya while number six seed Maria sakur suffered the same fate against varvara graa it got even worse as the second round delivered a double dose of upsets 23 seed anak kinaya got bounced by a resurgent Bianca and rescue this was BB's first tournament since August of last year so you could tell that it meant a lot to her after the match she posted this but that was just the tip of the iceberg mea Andrea down 19th seed Victoria Azarenka in three sets while yena ostapenko suffered the same fate against claraa talson Payton Sterns got rid of 10th seed Dasha kazakina who could only manage a disastrous 38% win percentage on her second serve but perhaps the biggest upset of the day was Danielle Collins losing to Olga danovic interestingly I had just made a deep dive of colins's season so far so it sucked to see her lose did I Jinx her but really danovich played out of her mind and was taking clean cuts of the ball back in Madrid we saw colins Str against danovic in fact danovich served for the match but it was Collins who got the W in the end this time it was the opposite of what happened in Madrid with danovich doing everything right why does Collins struggle against Dan elovich's Lefty Strokes anyone there were some upsets on the men's side as well Niko jar lost to m in the first round and cam nory's five set loss to Pavo kotov but the biggest of them all apart from that rublev loss was Karen hainov his defeat to yev Koval after being up two sets in a break break hatov found a way to lose the match in what was truly an incredible collapse week one of Roland Goos was stacked but there was also plenty of action off the court John mackenro received the French Legion of Honor award from president Emanuel macron also 1983 French Open winner yanuk Noah who also happens to be the father to the former NBA star jokim Noah will succeed beorn Bor to become team Europe Captain for Laver Cup in 2025 meanwhile Andre Agassi will face Noah as captain of Team World following his appointment last week elsewhere Arthur Fe admits that his results this season aren't what he expected and splits with Sergey Bugera Sebastian groan stays in the team though meanwhile Terren Atman issued an apology for hitting a spectator with the ball during his first round match at Roland garos Federer continues to enjoy life after tennis while Belinda benit shares a new photo with her baby girl Bella earlier in the week yanic siner confirmed his relationship with Anakin skaya a few records were also created last week in tennis Aliza cornet played the final Tournament of her illustrious career as she extended her record for consecutive main draw Grand Slam appearances to 69 and on the men's side we had gu monf becoming the Frenchman with the most grand slam match wins in history Lea frogging the legendary Joe Wilfred sa and now to some of the craziest highlights from last week we have that Casper rude tweener passing [Applause] shot and also maha's two left-handed forehand in the same point against Med which other ones am I missing week one of the French Open was filled with insane drama on and off the court but let me tell you we are just getting started be sure to smash that subscribe button to keep up with all the action from both tours and help us towards our goal of 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year and if you missed out on last week's videos don't sweat it I've got them showing on the screen for you right here