2011 has been a reasonably good year for Indian tennis players thus far - reason enough for fans to look forward to the French Open with some degree of excitement. But the year’s second Grand Slam is played on clay, historically considered the toughest surface for any Indian tennis player - reason enough to temper the expectations.
India’s top ranked singles players might have avoided drawing any of the 32 seeds when the draw for the French Open was released a few hours ago but they open up against tricky opponents, nonetheless.
Somdev Devvarman, currently ranked a career-high no. 66 in the world, will start off against world no. 36 Ivan Ljubicic, of Croatia, while Sania Mirza takes on the world no. 59 Kristina Barrois, of Germany, in her opener.
Somdev has had a breakout year. Starting January as world no. 110, Devvarman has racked up an impressive 13-10 record on the ATP tour (17-12 when you include results from the lower-rung Challengers). In February, he reached the finals of Johannesburg; and held his head high in straight set losses to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in Dubai and Indian Wells respectively. Given his counter-punching style of play, you would think that clay would be an appropriate surface for him. But until this year, the Indian has not had much success on the dirt.
Devvarman, whose bank account was hacked earlier this week, scored a commendable win over world no. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lope in Belgrade - one of his 4 clay events this year. The Indian won 3 of 7 matches on clay but goes into Paris with back-to back losses in the Zagreb Challenger (to world no. 232 Antonio Veic) and in the ATP event in Nice (to world no. 53 Adrian Mannarino). In his only previous appearance in Paris, Devvarman qualified for the event last year losing in the first round.
While Ljubicic may not be anywhere close to the form that took him to the top 3 of the world rankings a few years ago, the Croat has a wealth of experience on the Parisian clay courts to dig into – competing in his 12th French Open and being a semi-finalist here in 2006.
This would be the first meeting between the two. And if Somdev plays to his potential, he has a good shot at winning. A victory would move him into the second round against the struggling American Sam Querrey, seeded 24th, or German Phillip Kohlschreibber, with Fernando Verdasco and Rafael Nadal looming ahead.
Sania’s opponent is a tricky German, who unlike most other women these days, uses a slice backhand instead of a two-handed shot. Barrois is currently playing the best tennis of her life. Having recently graduated to the WTA tour, she reached her career-best ranking of no. 57 just last week – and comes into Paris confident, having won 8 of her last 11 matches (2 quarter-finals and 1 semi-final in her last 3 events).
Confidence is something that Sania is missing these days. The Indian, who has climbed from no. 166 in January to no. 74 thanks to an 18-11 record for the year, has won 7 of 11 matches on clay this year. But most of those were on the green clay courts of Charleston in the US – where she went through the qualifiers to reach the quarter-finals. Last week, Sania suffered an acute back spasm during practice, forcing her to retire in the first round of the Prague Challenger and she lost in the first round of this week’s WTA Strasbourg event to former top 20 player Alize Cornet.
Sania, who will cross $2 million in career prize money in Paris, will need to be fully-fit and play her patient best to defeat a confident Barrois. The winner of that match gets 12th seed Agnieszka Radwanska, with Maria Sharapova also in the same section of the draw.
As usual, India’s best chances on the final weekend will come from the doubles draw. After a blazing start to their comeback (winners in Chennai, Miami and finalist at the Australian Open), the Indian Express has stopped and stuttered. Minor niggling injuries and Bollywood aspirations have limited Paes-Bhupathi to only one warm-up event in Rome where they lost their first round match to Querrey and John Isner. But Paris has been a happy hunting ground for the duo. 2 of their 3 Grand Slams as a team have been here and they have always maintained that they are most effective on slower courts rather than faster surfaces.
Rohan Bopanna and partner Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi, still in search for their first major title, are 7th in the ATP team rankings and have made 4 semi-finals on the tour this year. The duo will be one to watch. As will Sania MIrza and Elena Vesnina – who have won two titles this year (Charleston and Indian Wells) and are currently 6th in the race to the year-end WTA Championships.
The first serve will be hit on Sunday. Here’s hoping there’ll be some Indian interest when the final serve is hit in just over 2 weeks time.
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