Roland Garros Order Of Play - Day 5: Thursday, May 30

[Johnsteinbeck]

RE: Roland Garros Order Of Play - Day 5

Did anyone watch No1e's match? I went to bed when Sam and kristina were sent to the dressing room, so i missed No1e's match. Next is against DiMitrov, lets see how that looks like when No1e is prepared.

i got to see bits. the outcome was never in doubt, but it was a slightly odd match. the Pella guy does put together a couple of nice shots every now and then, but hardly ever more than two in a row.

it seemed like Novak had a hard time taking the match seriously, for very understandable reasons. i remember one game where he had three break points, and faced two second serves and one weak first serves, and put each of those returns well into the doubles alley, for no apparent reason. had myself thinking whether or not he might be doing some target practice for fantasy targets ("gonna aim right at the Longines clock"), or actually tried to avoid breaking too quickly to give the audience a slightly longer match.

he went on to break in that game, still - tracking down a stop that was actually brilliantly played and well executed by Pella. that was pretty much the story of the game: as soon as Pella did show any signs of actually being able to play, Novak just dialed it up a bit.

all in all, i think the performance was absolutely okay for a rain-delay-ridden round 2 effort.