Paris – Day 2 (1R/2R)

Ten first round encounters were played on Monday, another six on Tuesday. The last year’s semifinalist Michael Llodra upset the home crowd wasting five set points (including a triple s.p. in the tie-break) against Feliciano Lopez. The Spaniard won 7-6(7), 6-3 to set up a clash with the fellow Frenchman, last year’s finalist Gael Monfils. The last week champion in Valencia (Marcel Granollers) and finalist in Basel (Kei Nishikori) bothered with slight injuries and lost their matches quickly in contrary to Juan Monaco, who also played five matches last week.
In a match opening the second round, the former champion Tomas Berdych moved one step closer to London with a convincing 6-3, 7-5 win over Fernando Verdasco and improved their H2H to 9-4. The Czech should have won easier but lost his concentration leading *5:2 (30-0) in the 2nd set and needed six match points to seal the victory. Berdych might not qualify for London only if Tsonga and Fish advanced at least to quarter-finals and one of three other contenders won the event… very unlikely occurrence. Besides Berdych, second round matches on Tuesday won Roddick, Tsonga (50th win of the season) and Gasquet, who finished his match with Anderson 20 minutes before midnight.