RG Diary: Saturday June 4

 

Originally published on: 04/06/11 17:00

It was another great day in Roland Garros. The ladies final which started at 3pm local time was an engaging match with Li Na finally getting her hands on a Grand Slam title. She becomes the first Chinese athlete (male or female) to win a Slam. Her victory over defending Champion Francesca Schiavone took one hour and 48 minutes and the score for the record was 64 76 (0).

There have been Grand Slam doubles victories before by Chinese players; Yan Zi and Zheng Jie won the 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon Championship, while Sun Tiantian and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic won the Australian Open mixed doubles in 2008. But this win today is historic and potentially very good for the sport with the potential to inspire a huge nation to pick up a tennis racket.
 
Rafael Nadal was also in good form in his pre final press conference. As everyone agrees yesterday’s semi final match between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic was one of the best tennis matches ever. Rafa is anticipating that it will have a positive effect on his opponent in tomorrow’s final “ But after the victory of yesterday he must feel very confident, no?  Was fantastic match yesterday to watch, in my opinion, so I had lot of fun watching that match”.

And on the prospect of rain tomorrow he says.  “I’ll log on the Internet and look at the weather forecast.  I have no crystal balls to tell me what the weather’s gonna be like.  If the conditions are very wet and if it’s very hot, then it makes me think that the rain is going to come. If the weather is bad, well, we’ll cope with it.  We are hoping it’s not going to rain.  If it does rain, well, then we’ll wait.“ He thinks both of them can handle the weather and all the other things a Grand Slam Final match throws at him. “As for me, I’m used to fighting.  I’ve been able to cope with difficult conditions in the past, so I will fight too”

We are looking forward to tomorrow’s battle, which starts at 3pm local time. For the record as well the weather forecast has been at odds with the actual weather all week, so we may be blessed with sunshine after all.

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