Roger Federer loves creating history - most of tennis records have either been set or broken by him. So nothing would give him greater pleasure at this year's French Open than to spoil Novak Djokovic's record sequence of victories and also deny the Serb his second leg of a Grand Slam. Nothing greater except winning the whole event and defeating nemesis Nadal in the decider.
He is well on his way to achieving those goals following yesterday's masterly display against Gael Monfils. Apart from very early when shots were paying dividends for the local lad, his necessary risk taking won Monfils fewer and fewer points, and coincided with a progressively dropped head and belief in his ability to compete with the top three. For Roger it was a case of working that backhand into trim for the one hopefully two challenges ahead. It certainly created headaches aplenty for Monfils. Straight sets appeared a formality until some resistance in the third set from Gael. A tie breaker became necessary but Federer is pretty good with these, and so the fine French resistance ended up with the garbage and that's where the final French male singles hopes also lay rotting after Federer's flurry.
The women's singles quarter final on Centre Court gave us much more intrigue - last year's winner Francesca Schiavone had displayed champion qualities when playing all the right shots at the right time to hold out Jankovic in a tight three set fourth round match. So to see her display the total antithesis when battling the longest name in top 20 women's tennis shocked most of us. Yes, the normally crafty Italian missed every line conceivable against young Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and the first set lasted a mere 24 minutes and won't rate highly in Roland Garros folklore.
Ana Pav didn't mind, and was even more chuffed as she conservatively moved her way through the beginnings of set 2, noticing that whatever she did right, Francesca had the opposite to deliver just as reliably. Down a set and a service break and with spots of rain falling and dark clouds above (not just figuratively for Schiavone) the tide turned, as if it could possibly be noticed this far inland on the clay surface.
Playing too conservatively, and not prepared for an improved effort from Schiavone, Pavlyuchenkova at 4-1 fell into the Italian trap - Schiavone showed why she could win this thing again with classy sliced back and forehands, occasional brave drop shots, and that amazingly deceptive serve. All these attributes that were missing features of the first set and a half. The match was squared off at a set all 1-6 7-5, but the money was all for Francesca now.
The final set proved one way traffic and Schiavone with experience, guile and skill to win the key points yet again, raced to 5-1. She showed us that she is human after all because she required 3 attempts to serve for the match - some credit to Anastasia in that regard too.
But serve it out she did and it will be French favorite Marion Bartoli in the semis next. Bartoli happened to defeat the other former winner of this title in the draw this year - Svetlana Kuznetsova - in another quarter final.
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