2009 French Open

The past few days the tennis French Open has been airing. Tennis is probably my favorite sport to watch. Considering I played all throughout high school and was pretty much obsessed at one time with the sport, I find it rather entertaining. However, even for nonplayers, I think tennis would be relatively enjoyable to watch. If you've never watched it before, give it a shot. You'd be surprised how fast paced the sport is, and it's amazing how fast/hard the players can hit and serve the ball. And every once in awhile, you'll catch an attractive player to watch (such as Del Porto (for girls to watch) or Sharapova (for the guys).

My favorite, Raphael Nadal, to my surprise got knocked out by Robin Soderling in the fourth round of the Open. Nadal was undoubtedly favored to win as he had priorly won four consecutive titles; so congrats to Soderling who achieved one of the biggest upsets of all time. Soderling has made his way to the finals where he is to play against the notoriuos Roger Federer.

Federer has previously beat Soderling 9 times (Soderling has not grabbed any matches from Federer). However, in the past few rounds Soderingly has played astoundingly well, proving both his accuracy and form to be exceptional. The two are scheduled to play tommorrow, where Federer will try to become the sixth man ever to achive the Tennis Grand Slam (meaning he will have won the Australian Open, US Open, Wimbledon, and the French Open).

This morning was the French Open women's finals, where Svetlana Kuznetsova swept a victory over Dinara Safina. This is Kuznetsova's second Grand Slam title. She successfully and quickly clinched a 6-4, 6-2 match. The match, played by two 23-year-old Russians, was over in a mere 74 minutes. This was the second straight year that Safina has lost in the finals, as her hopes of winning her first Grand Slam title were once again crushed. Safina had held a 8-5 record over Kuznetsova prior to coming in to the French Open final. No.1 seeded Safina seemed to be letting her nerves get to her as she began timidly hitting the ball and slowing down the pace on her serve. For a bitter end, she double faulted her last chance of staying in the game, giving victory to Kuznetsova. Although she was defeated, Safina will still hold the #1 WTA ranking. This is Kuznetsova's 6th time defeating a world #1 ranked player. She will move from #7 to being ranked #5. Congrats to Kuznetsova for triumphantly making is this far in the French Open and in her career!