Hi, Pete here. This is so funny that I have to steal a little of Ed McGrogan's thunder to share it with you. I couldn't resist laughing when I learned (late last night) that Michael Llodra was playing singles for France. That's because I wrote this paragraph in the ESPN post I filed around noon yesterday, on potential unlikely heroes this weekend:
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Michael Llodra – Okay, it's a stretch. But we know that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is out of the indoor, hard-court Winston-Salem tie vs. the U.S. with a knee injury. Now let's say Richard Gasquet shows "flu-like" symptons and decides he can't play (like he did at the U.S. Open), leaving Paul Henri-Mathieu the lone singles player. . . The stage is set for former doubles specialist Llodra to be nominated for singles, and seize his day in the sun. Don't laugh. This guy has two singles titles already this year – one of them in the big indoor event in Rotterdam.*
By the time the ESPN folks were ready to post it late yesterday, Gasquet had pulled out, too. So they tried to fix that in the version published yesterday. For this morning (when the blog goes up on the ESPN tennis home page), I rewrote the item to reflect the present situation. My editor at ESPN now calls me a "prophet," but I know better. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while!
Enjoy the tennis - the post below is your Crisis Center for today. If we go over 1,000 comments, I suggest shifting the action up to the most recent DC post from Ed.