While all this entertainment on Centre Court had confirmed my decision to come to the French Open as justified, I needed to watch an Australian play singles while there were any left. So out to Court 3 and to see Jarmila Gajdosova against Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues, who continues the tradition of Spanish players with triple barreled names.
The favored player was the Aussie who seeded 24 and with a fine record at Roland Garros, did not have the start she would desire. Down an early break she redeemed herself and then both players displayed clay court tennis of the highest order, with no real prospect of any further service breaks.
Throughout, Jarmila was hard on herself, as is her trait, and she blamed herself for everything both within and without her control.
However she took credit for playing a fine tie breaker complete with a set of terrific passing shots down the line. 7-6 to the Australian and half way to joining 2 other Australian girls in the third round.
Serving first in the second set Jarmila again put herself in trouble by immediately dropping serve and failing to take excellent chances on Anabel's serve to return the favor.
The multitude of JG fans including her coach, family friends and me were disappointed but implored the girl not to be so negative - she was winning the match let's face it.
Not content with taking responsibility for some bad shot making, Jarmila chose to put her hand up for Paris traffic congestion, tennis balls going out of shape on Court 17, flights delayed in Hong Kong, and all misguided American Idol voting. Yet through all this she managed to fight back to level the set at 3-3 and excited at this development played some extraordinary points to dispatch Anabel to an entirely different suburb at times and break to lead 5-3.
The Spanish eyes smiled once more and denied Jarmila the pleasure of serving out the match, breaking for 4-5, but Jarmila is liking the idea of approaching top 20 status, and she shattered any dreams of a Garrigues fightback when she broke in the 10th game to win the match 7-6 6-4.
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