Saturday 26 May 2012

Roll on Roland Garros

I simply cannot see the appeal of tennis. It is dull and predictable at the best of times but these Grand Slams of late, where you have four incredibly consistent, talented and physically awesome men battling it out each time, it's just beyond beyond tedious.


Last year the 16 Slam semi-final places were filled by our famous quartet a total of 14 times, only Ferrer and Tsonga breaking through once each (at the expense of Nadal at Aus and Fed at Wim respectively). Needless to say, the trend has continued this year already.


As for who wins the things, it's even more boring. 27 of the last 28 Slams have been won by just 3 men. Del Potro the only man to interfere with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic's dominance. Despite 9 Semi-final appearances, even Murray hasn't been able to mix it up a bit by getting to hold a trophy. He's been handed a very tough draw at Roland Garros this year so I wouldn't expect to see him do much to break that streak.


Then we get onto the matches themselves. So repetitive and long. Who wants to watch the two best players in the world hitting astonishingly powerful and accurate shots time and time again for 6 hours? And at the Australian Open this came after two semi finals of such intense action and length that all we asked for was a simple straight setter in the final. I just can't bring myself to watch it again.


So now that we approach the French Open, is there any chance of someone else getting involved? As always, the likes of Berdych, Ferrer, Tsonga and Del Potro will threaten but there is surely no chance of any significant disruption to the power four.

And of course, the surface, is not exactly conducive to quick and straightforward matches. Our only hope must be that Nadal is so much better than anyone else we don't have to endure more than the odd tight set as he continues on his relentless quest for clay-court and Roland Garros immortality.



But who wants to see records tumbling? I have no desire to be actively following tennis during what may go down as one of the most exciting, competitive and high quality periods in tennis history. So let's quickly get this next chapter over and done with, I'm not at all looking forward to it...