Rarely is it said that David Ferrer hits a bigger ball than his opponent, but that was the case in the first set of his French Open opener. Playing fellow veteran Jarkko Nieminen, Ferrer looked like the power player when the Finn hit with too much spin. The Spaniard ate up these tame tries, stepping into the court and replying with flatter shots that still found the desired angles. It looked a significant mismatch early on, and it only got worse.
In just over an hour, Ferrer had collected the first two sets, winning each at 6-3. Nieminen was now the power player—as I had expected from the start—but he was still getting overpowered. Going for too much, Nieminen seemed to find the net more than the court. But even his accurate efforts often weren't enough against Ferrer, who relishes the fight and even played last week in Nice. It wouldn't surprise me if Ferrer himself requested the Sunday start.
How many Sundays will Ferrer remain in Paris? Two is almost a certainty; while he has struggled since making back-to-back finals in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, he took a set off Novak Djokovic in Madrid and is largely considered to be the third or fourth best clay-courter in the world. A third—i.e. the final—would be asking a lot, of course. But he's not in Rafael Nadal's or Djokovic's quarter (he's with Roger Federer) and should be able to progress quite far. A Ferrer-Federer quarterfinal would be a good measuring stick for both men.
The third set, a 6-1 rout, took about as long as it took you to read this far.
—Ed McGrogan