Grounds Pass, Day 11, June 6

PARIS—So…that was only the quarterfinals? Tennis doesn’t lack for classics these days, and you can add Djokovic-Tsonga to the long list from this era. What I keep seeing when I think about the match is the two players, at a crucial stage, carefully slicing the ball back and forth. It’s not the shots I remember, but the ball itself. By a certain point in the fourth set, under a steady drizzle, it had become dark and dirty and tinged red. It was a good representation of how far these two players had gone.

When it was over, it felt like one of them in particular had come a long way. That was the loser, Tsonga. He played so well for so long, and did everything Djokovic did except one thing—win a match point—that Jo seemed to rise in everyone’s estimation over the course of the four hours.

Now it’s a new day, and the tournament moves on, though it looks a little like yesterday so far: “a mix of sun and clouds" as the forecasters say, not all that helpfully. We’ve already reached the second Wednesday of the tournament—how did that happen?

Today’s quarters:

Chatrier
No. 2 Maria Sharapova vs. No. 23 Kaia Kanepi: These two, according to the WTA’s website, have never played. Kanepi can hit with anyone; can she defend, the way Maria has learned to defend on clay? A slugfest is in the works.

No. 2 Rafael Nadal vs. No. 12 Nicolas Almagro
Almagro has never beaten Nadal, nor has he taken a set from him in two matches at Roland Garros. Last time they played here, two of those sets went to tiebreakers, but this Nadal is starting to look like the 2008 edition of Nadal. That year he beat Almagro by the humiliatingly symmetrical scores of 1, 1, and 1.

Lenglen
No. 4 Petra Kvitova vs. Yaroslava Shvedova
According to the WTA’s website, these two also have never played. Shvedova just beat Li Na, but Kvitova has quietly been playing some ominous tennis.

No. 4 Andy Murray vs. No. 6 David Ferrer
Murray holds a 5-4 edge in the head to head, though there are a couple ways of slicing that: Ferrer is 3-0 on clay, while Murray won their only match at a major, in Australia last year. Murray came to brilliant life over the last two sets of his last match, against Richard Gasquet. Meanwhile, Ferrer has been mowing people down from the start. Put it all together and the bookies have Ferrer a favorite at 4-7 over Muzz at 6-4. But I’ll take Murray anyway.

I mean, according to the tabs, Muzz is fired up for this one. As the Mail reports,

MURRAY’S OUT TO END HOODOO AGAINST CLAY SPECIALIST FERRER

The Sun puts it in somewhat starker terms:

MURRAY’S OUT TO SLAY LITTLE BEAST

The big news from England, though, seems to be that Muzza has made a fan of Wazza: That is, Man U star Wayne Rooney, who tweeted that he had been impressed by Murray’s “class” in his match against Gasquet. I’m not completely sure that Rooney—sometime nickname: "Hustler"—is the world’s best judge of class, but I’m sure Murray, who says he felt like a footballer for a couple of hours out there, will take it.

What do you do the day after you have a McEnroe-esque meltdown while suffering an upset at a Grand Slam? Introduce a line of underwear, naturally. What better way to make us forget that little scene at the French Open?

This, anyway, is the route that has been chosen by Caroline Wozniacki, whose collection, “This Is Me,” will debut in the fall.

The Sun, for one, approves of how Caro looks in her signature bras and knickers:

WOZ SMALLS ARE SIMPLY SMASHING

What do you do when you lose your women’s quarterfinal 6-4, 6-1 and never have a chance? You say you it felt like you were playing a man out there.

That was the route taken by Dominika Cibulkova yesterday. The diminutive Domi had this to say about her opponent, Sam Stosur: “Her topspin and her serve—I mean, she played like a man, and it’s really hard to play against a man. It was driving me crazy on the court today.”

Tennis fans may be reminded of Martina Hingis’s notorious comments at the 1999 Australian Open about Amelie Mauresmo being “half a man," but Cibulkova later explained that she was referring to Stosur’s style of play only, and that she “wasn’t saying anything bad.”

Yes, saying someone plays like a man, and saying someone is half a man—two different things.

Spotted: 27-year-old American tennis player walking past my hotel a few mornings ago, in sweats and shower shoes, looking like he was going to get the morning paper. It was Brian Baker. Remember his moment of glory, and near-glory, last week? Seems like so long ago.