French Open 2012: Novak Djokovic Into Quarterfinals, Victoria Azarenka Upset

The 2012 French Open has certainly seen no shortage of upsets, surprises, or thrilling finishes. Still, the men’s singles competition looks as though it may be coming down to the usual suspects, as two of the top four ranked men’s players in the world will face off in one semifinal and the other two members of the top four may very well face off in the other.

On Wednesday at the Roland Garros, the second day of both the women’s and the men’s quarterfinals will take place and the semifinals will be set by the end of the day.

The men’s draw in the 2012 French Open will start to take shape on Monday, as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray will all be playing for a chance to make the quarterfinals.

Tsonga will conclude his match against Stanislaw Wawrinka from Sunday, with the hard-hitting Frenchman beginning Monday up 4-2 in the fifth set.

Darkness came too soon to allow a finish to the last two matches in the men’s Round of 16 at the French Open. This means Frenchman Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga, the No. 5 seed, will have to finish the fifth set of his match against 18th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka on Monday. Tsonga is up a break in the fifth set, 4-2. Tsonga, the highest-ranked French player in the field at the beginning of the tournament, always enjoys a good run in the first week at Roland Garros, but has never made it past the quarterfinals.

Seventh seed Tomas Berdych and ninth-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro, the 2009 U.S. Open champion, also were unable to finish their match, having completed three sets with Berdych leading two sets to one. Berdych has never made it past the semifinal of a French Open.

Novak Djokovic wasn’t the only top seed in the men’s draw at the 2012 French Open to struggle early in the fourth round. But just like Djokovic, Roger Federer rebounded from his slow start to move on to the quarterfinals.

Federer lost his first set to unseeded David Goffin, but stormed back for a 5-7, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 victory that gave him his eighth consecutive trip to the quarterfinals of the French Open. Federer, the No. 3 seed, hit 59 winners against Goffin, and won 82 percent of his first-serve points.

On Sunday at the French Open, one top seed survived an upset bid and another top seed fell, leaving a massive hole in one side of the draw.

Novak Djokovic was the survivor. The men’s No. 1 seed went down two sets against Italy’s Andreas Seppi before rallying for a five-set victory, 4-6, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 7-5, 6-3. Djokovic moves on to the quarterfinals, where he will face the winner of a match between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stanislas Wawrinka.

While the men’s draw has remained mostly upset-free in the 2012 French Open, the women, as is usually the case, have suffered some attrition. Serena Williams’ first ever first-round loss in a grand slam, combined with No. 26 Svetlana Kuznetsova’s romp over No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska, means two things: Two of the hottest players on the tour heading into the French are gone, and the draw has very much opened up for No. 10 Angelique Kerber and a dominant No. 2 Maria Sharapova.

No. 1 Victoria Azarenka

No. 6 Sam Stosur

No. 15 Dominika Cibulkova

Sloane Stephens

Both the men and women compete in the fourth round of singles play at Roland Garros, with the top-ranked players in action in both draws. Novak Djokovic plays on Court Phillipe Chartrier, while Victoria Azarenka will be playing on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

Djokovic plays Andreas Seppi in the second match of the day on the French Open’s main show court, following the match between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Sara Errani. Azarenka plays Dominika Cibulkova in the third match of the day at the second show court. Roger Federer is also in action, and will face David Goffen immediately following Azarenka’s match.

Rafael Nadal’s dominance at Roland Garros continued on Saturday during third-round action at the French Open. Nadal advanced with a straight-sets victory, defeating Argentinian Eduardo Schwank 6-1, 6-3, 6-4. The No. 2-ranked Spaniard had little trouble against Schwank as he improved to 48-1 in French Open play.

Matching Nadal was Andy Murray, who advanced to the round of 16 for the fourth straight year. Murray defeated Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Murray hit a few bumps during the second set but he was clearly the superior player. It was an impressive performance as Giraldo did not present much of a challenge, and it’s a nice way for Murray to put the injury-plagued drama from his second-round win behind him.

A few times throughout their coverage of the first week of the French Open, ESPN has put up a helpful graphic showing you the top remaining seeds in each quadrant of the men’s and women’s draw. To summarize the first week of action, I thought I would use the same approach.

We’ll look at the men Saturday, the women Sunday. As has become rather customary on the men’s side of the draw, with such big names at the top, we did not see many huge upsets in the first week. The top nine seeds are still alive in the draw, as are 11 of the top 13. As we see in March Madness and every other tournament, early-round upsets are exciting, but the lack of upsets typically makes for more heavyweight slugfests in the later rounds. I never root against underdogs, but there is certainly a benefit to most of them falling as expected.

With Serena and Venus Williams out in the opening two rounds of the French Open, there didn’t look to be much hope for the American women. In the fourth round, there are three Americans remaining.

Got a pen? Write this name down: Sloane Stephens. Check out her WTA page, where she’s currently ranked No. 70 in the world. Check out her growing bank account -- with three wins at the French Open, she’s earned $100,000. And maybe check out her social media skills, where she says she “plays tennis in her spare time.“

The stars -- well, besides Serena Williams -- have been more or less untested thus far at Roland Garros. Will that continue on Day 7 at the French Open?

Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova -- both ranked second in the world -- have won in straight sets in both of their first two matches, with neither giving up more than two games in a set. Nadal might not be seriously tested Saturday -- he’ll face Argentinian Eduardo Schwank -- but Sharapova might struggle with Shuai Peng, the No. 28 player in the world.

Roger Federer and most of the rest of the top seeds in the men’s singles draw at the 2012 French Open held serve and advanced on Friday. Novak Djokovic is in the process of doing the same. But the women’s side has seen a bit more tumult.

No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska took the biggest tumble in the women’s draw so far, going down in straight sets to Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 6-2. Sara Errani also topped No. 13 Ana Ivanovic, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. Other favorites had no issues, with No. 2 Maria Sharapova and No. 6 Samantha Stosur advancing in straight sets. No. 1 Victoria Azarenka is currently in her first set with Aleksandra Wozniak.

Friday, the sixth day at Roland Garros, will mark the beginning of third-round action at the 2012 French Open. On the men’s side, both Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer will be in action during the fourth matches of the day on the two main courts.

Federer will face Nicolas Mahut, the marathon man who famously lost to John Isner at Wimbledon in 2010. Mahut upset Andy Roddick in the first round, but No. 3 Federer is still a heavy favorite. Djokovic will play Frenchman Nicolas Devilder. Juan Martin Del Potro will also face the ranked Marin Cilic in the third match on Court 1.

No. 10 men’s tennis player John Isner seems to have a knack for extraordinarily long matches. If you recall, back in 2010 Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut in the longest match in tennis history at Wimbledown. On Thursday, he once again set a record, this time coming up on the losing end of the longest one-day match in the history of the French Open. The match also featured the longest fifth set at Roland Garros.

Unfortunately for Isner, he was not able to prevail this time around, falling to Paul-Henri Mathieu in five sets. The final line is the double-take-inducing 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 18-16. Isner is eliminated with the second-round loss, meaning there are no more U.S. men remaining in the tournament.

It’s the angles, the geometry. It just makes no sense to me.

A decade or so ago, I fancied myself a decent lyricist. I couldn’t play an instrument, and I couldn’t really sing, but I enjoyed it. I wrote (and, on rare occasion, recorded) just enough songs to find myself improving at it and find myself listening to music differently. I would start to understand just how Musician A came to write Song B, and it was rewarding. It didn’t really go anywhere, but that wasn’t exactly the point. (OK, I may have thought it was exactly the point at the time, but that’s neither here nor there.)

The top seeds on the men’s and women’s draws at the 2012 French Open had easy outings Wednesday. Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka both beat their second round opponents handily in straight sets to advance. No. 3 Roger Federer had slightly more trouble than the No. 1 seeds, but moved on anyway with a four-set victory.

Djokovic took on Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia, winning 6-0, 6-4, 6-4. Djokovic was sloppier in some respects, committing 34 unforced errors to 21 for his opponent. He dominated on his serve, however, scoring on 73 percent of his eligible first serves, and notching five aces to zero for Kavcic. Djokovic will take on France’s own Nicolas Devilder in the next round.

In revisiting the themes from the Australian Open, I almost wrote about the American women and their hot start on Tuesday, but I wanted to wait one more day to see how the next few matches went. Good thing. The action from late Tuesday and early Wednesday have changed the narrative quite a bit.

Through two days at the French Open, American women were undefeated. It was the rare, encouraging storyline for American tennis, but a quick look at the draw suggested that the good feelings were probably going to be short-lived. And it goes without saying that, with Serena Williams’ upset loss on Tuesday, the narrative suffered a fatal blow.

The 2012 French Open has only just wrapped its opening round, but there have already been plenty of shocks and upsets. Both Andy Roddick and Serena Williams were upended in their opening matches and ushered out of the tournament at Roland Garros. For Williams, it was her first time ever being eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam event.

On Wednesday, the first day of the second round gets underway. Action begins early, so make sure you’ve already got your coffee going first thing in the morning.

A no-frills Day 3 at the 2012 French Open got an infusion of drama late in the day when Serena Williams suffered a stunning first-round upset loss to Virginie Razzano of France on Tuesday. Williams came into the match a perfect 46-0 in the first round of grand slam tournaments for her career. She fell 6-4, 6-7 (13), 3-6, to the 111th-ranked women’s tennis player in the world.

The lead ultimately proved too much to overcomer. Razzano, struggling through leg cramps, eventually won her sixth game of the set and the match while serving from deuce. Right at 9 p.m. at Roland Garros, Razzano finally got the win on match point number eight when Williams sent a return long.

There have been few surprises so far on Day 3 of the 2012 French Open. There were no major upsets on the men’s or women’s sides of the draw Tuesday, as the No. 2 seeds, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova, advanced to the second round with straight-set victories.

Nadal’s bid for a record seventh French Open title is off to a good start. He beat Simon Bolelli of Italy, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, to set up a date with Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in the next round. Nadal converted on 7-of-9 break point point opportunities and successfully defended 4-of-5 of Bolelli’s chances. Nadal had 20 winners to 14 for his opponent in yet another dominant display on clay.

As the first Tuesday of the 2012 French Open nears its midway point, let’s take a look at another one of the themes I identified at the end of January’s Australian Open. American women stole some headlines by going undefeated in the first round; how are the American men doing (both this fortnight and overall)?

During Sam Querrey’s four-set loss to No. 8 Janko Tipsarevic Tuesday morning, you could almost hear a hopeful but skeptical tone in ESPN announcers’ voices. Querrey’s looking good! He won the first set, 6-2! He’s moving his feet well, he’s killing the ball ... now he just needs to hold on and keep from getting negative if Tipsarevic turns the tables.

The 2012 French Open continues on Tuesday with action in both the men’s and women’s draw. Coverage starts at 5 a.m. ET with the first matches of the day from Roland Garros. Francesca Schiavone takes on Kimiko Date-Krumm in the first match of the day on Court Philippe Chatrier.

In the two last matches of the day on the main show court, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are in action. Maria Sharapova and Andy Murray play on Day 3 as well, on Court Suzanne Lenglen, the second show court at Roland Garros.

The men’s matches at the 2012 French Open were straightforward on Monday, with only one ranked man facing a significant challenge. The women’s draw was a bit less predictable, with four ranked women losing and another -- top ranked Victoria Azarenka -- barely surviving a scare.

Azarenka lost a first set tiebreak to Alberta Brianti and was pushed in the second set, eventually winning by one break. She finally started to look like the top-ranked player in the world in the third set, which she comfortably won 6-2. Elsewhere in the women’s draw, No. 32 Monica Niculescu, No. 30 Mona Barthel, No. 17 Roberta Vinci and No. 12 Sabine Lisicki all suffered upsets.

Roger Federer is off to a nice start at the 2012 French Open. The Swiss tennis legend took out Germany’s Tobias Kamke in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5, 6-3, to advance to the second round of the tournament Monday.

Federer only encountered some resistance in the second set, when he committed 20 unforced errors and was broken once. Otherwise, he kept Kamke on the ropes for the most part with 38 winners to 16 for the German. Federer notched eight break points to three for his opponent.

Novak Djokovic is still pursuing a French Open title, which would be the final piece of his career Grand Slam. But he’s off his blistering 2011 pace and struggled early at the 2012 French Open in his first round matchup with Potito Starace before putting him away in straight sets.

Djokovic needed a first-set tiebreak to fend off Starace, then took advantage of Starace’s regression to his mean, dusting him 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, 6-1 to move onto the second round. Djokovic had 39 winners, Starace posted 25 unforced errors, and that was the story of this match in a nutshell.