!Picby Pete Bodo
Given that tennis players are by nature and need a self-absorbed lot, each one going his own way and keeping his or her own counsel, it's been heartwarming to see the way so many of the pros, including Novak Djokovic, had kind words for Brian Baker, and welcomed him back to the tour.
Baker is out of the tournament now, a five-set loser to Gilles Simon. But here's what Richard Gasquet, who's very much alive in this event, said about his former junior rival after defeating Jurgen Zopp yesterday:
Virginie Razzano had a career win yesterday, inflicting upon Serena Williams her first opening-round loss at a Grand Slam event. When Razzano was asked if, given all she's been through (she lost her fiance and coach to a brain tumor at this time last year), she saw the hand of fate at work on her behalf in the seismic upset, she replied:
Hear, hear.
Rafael Nadal may be going for an unprecedented seventh title at Roland Garros, and he may be locked in a deadly embrace with his rival Djokovic, but there was a spirited debate yesterday about . . . the precise color of his Nike shirt. (It's pink! No, it's red! Nike says it's "scarlet," na-na-na-na-nah.)
And suddenly, there also seems to be interest in the state of his skin and whether or not he uses any protection against the UV rays of the sun. When asked about it, Rafa replied:
Who said this guy was a bit compulsive?
Tommy Haas is through to the second round, after qualifying. He's 34 now, but figures that he lost about four years to various injuries and surgeries, so he looks at himself as more like a 30-year-old (I don't know if that makes sense scientifically, but I like the thinking). He has a number of different motivations to continue, not least of which is his 18-month old daughter, Valentina.
Great Britain's Heather Watson has been playing well, and yesterday she had an impressive win over Elena Vesnina, 6-2, 6-4. When she was asked about her background on clay, where her "clay pedigree" was from, she replied:
When a reporter kept pressing Janko Tipsarevic on how he felt about being a Top 10 player from Serbia, and how having to live in the shadow of his pal Djokovic might leave him feeling less "pressure," he responded:
Not to be outdone as a fashion icon by that Spanish clothes horse Nadal, Andy Murray (who took out Tatsuma Ito in straight sets) balked when he was informed that his one of his numerous Boswells in the British press, the estimable Neil Harman, had pronounced Nadal's shirt "uninteresting." Presumably, that was a tweet, for Harman is a regular Tweetin' fool.
Murray asked if Harman was in the room. Informed that the correspondent for London's Times was absent, Murray said:
Since things were getting kind of personal, but in a good way, Murray went on to admit that he played only in "old" socks. He says his feet slip in his shoes a lot, so he prefers old ones, which are softer and somehow give him more secure purchase. Of course, that can be a problem during clay events, at which the socks take a terrible beating, color-wise, but Murray revealed that he'd just done his own laundry, back at his hotel, a few days earlier. When it came to socks, he was loaded for bear.
How old are those socks he plays in, someone wondered?
It's difficult not to like Andy Murray.
