[This is your ‘French Open Crisis Center’ post for Monday. Feel free to discuss the day’s matches here. Pete Bodo will be onsite at the French Open starting today and will be by with a red meat post later.]

by Bobby Chintapalli, Contributing Writer

If the French Open women’s singles winner comes out of the bottom half of the draw, you know what that means: We’ll have a first-time Grand Slam singles champion. Grand Slam winner Francesca Schiavone… like the sound of that? Or maybe it rolls of your tongue more easily when you insert Caroline Wozniacki, Elena Dementieva or Nadia Petrova?

If Sally selling seashells by the seashore twists your tongue less than Jarmila winning a major by the Seine, I get it. Like I said in my French Open preview, the best way for a player to convince us she can win a big one is to win a big one. It’s like the Academy Awards. I didn’t believe Sandra Bullock could win an Oscar until she went out and won an Oscar. (I can’t say the same for Helen Mirren, who I’m convinced was born with a gold statuette in her hands.)

Of course Oscar winners have usually not won one before, while Grand Slam winners usually have. In fact it’s been two years since we’ve had a first-time winner, when Ana Ivanovic won the 2008 French Open. If I have my facts straight we’ve only had eight first-time winners this decade:

*Jennifer Capriati (2001 Australian Open)

*Justine Henin (2003 French Open)

*Anastasia Myskina (2004 French Open)

*Maria Sharapova (2004 Wimbledon)

*Svetlana Kuznetsova (2004 U.S. Open)

*Kim Clijsters (2005 U.S. Open)

*Amelie Mauresmo (2006 Australian Open)

*Ana Ivanovic (2008 French Open)

Two of the four quarterfinalists in the bottom half have been so close (yet so far). In 2004 Dementieva was a finalist at the French Open and the U.S. Open. In 2009 Wozniacki was a finalist at the US Open. Petrova’s been as far as the semifinals, twice at the French Open. Schiavone’s been as far as the quarterfinals, in all majors but the Australian Open.

Here’s more information (from the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour) on the quarterfinalists in the bottom half of the draw. The chart shows number of wins, number of losses and win percentage at the French Open coming in to this year’s tournament.
 

Why bother with all this, oddsmakers and many fans might say. They seem confident this year’s winner will come from the top half of the draw and the first quarter to be more precise. It’s where we find Serena Williams and Justine Henin, the two major winners left in the tournament. If they win their matches today though, they’ll meet in yet another quarterfinal. Which means that no more than one previous major winner can make the final to try and prevent a first-time winner once again. But maybe a Sam Stosur here or a Jelena Jankovic there can prevent them from getting there first? I guess we’ll see.

You begin a trip to the French Open looking for the French
in it. As you make your way through the mass of humanity on the central pathway
at Roland Garros, you notice the foreign elements: A happy cry of “C’est
bon!” out of one ear, an abrupt “D’accord” out of the other, and, for the first
time in years, the scrape of a metal cigarette lighter right behind you. You
notice strange brands of sneakers, women with big round brown
eyes, men wearing pink scarves, scowling teenage boys with their hair combed
from one ear to the other, giggling teenage girls gathered in a circle,
whispering.

Teenage boys scowling. Teenage girls giggling. Does that
sound very foreign to you? Don’t you see that every day in every town in America? By the
end of the first week at the French Open, you might stop noticing the French in
it as much. You might, if you’ve been to Wimbledon and the U.S. Open,
begin to think that the audiences—sporty, casual, upper middle class—at these three tournaments aren’t all that different for each other. If anything, it’s the crowds at
Flushing Meadows that stand out as the ritziest. The division between day
sessions and night sessions at the U.S. Open, which doesn’t exist (yet) at Wimbledon
or the French, has created a fan division—bus-trip families during the day;
black-clad Manhattan Martini-drinkers at night—that you don’t find here.

So on my last day at Roland Garros, on the tournament’s middle Sunday, after a week of
acclimating myself to the talk and the smoke, I took my notebook and braved the
cold air and the low clouds to see what the French Open looked like, one item
at a time. 

I found:

 —Security guards and ushers in spiffy red Roland Garros blazers calling out avancé! avancé! outside the front gates.
If you come to the tournament, this might be the first word you hear as you
make the long walk from the metro along the Bois de Boulogne to the tournament
grounds. The ushers and security guards yell it for minutes on end at the crowds swarming toward
them. The idea is to herd—advance—as many people on to another,
less-crowded gate down the block. Short of that, the idea is to get them out of
the guards’ faces as soon as possible.

—The words Simple
Dames at the top of the big women’s draw on site. It means “women’s
singles.” As funny as it looks, I like the words above the men’s draw even
more: Simple Messieurs. I imagine it
as an encouragement: “Here, let me show you, it’s simple, messieur.”

—The smell of
cigarette smoke drifting in from my left. Its warmth feels and smells good on a
cool day. The black woman in jeans doing the smoking is taking her time and savoring her cigarette. She looks nothing like a harassed American office
worker guiltily puffing as fast as possible so no one glimpses her shameful act. At least you
can enjoy your cancer sticks here. At the moment, this one looks pretty tempting.

—One Franklin & Marshall College hat. One retro San
Diego Padres jacket, 1970s vintage brown (a very cool uniform, now that I see
it in Paris 30 years later). One Los Angeles Lakers sweatshirt.

—One woman in flip-flops. I’ve never
seen much of this standard U.S. clothing item here. I’ve learned, very rapidly, that I can live
without its flapping sound.

—One young woman, with a smile and a tilt of her head, selling daily programs. This
may be the only thing that is incontestably better at Roland Garros than it is
at Flushing Meadows. In the past in New York they’ve been sold by a man—no, a guy—who tirelessly bellows,
like a hot dog vendor at a baseball game, “Pro-grams, get your official U.S.
Open pro-grams right here!” The young Frenchwoman is not bellowng. I doubt she
could bellow if she tried.

—Ten people at the top of Suzanne Lenglen stadium, bored by
the admittedly boring match between Robin Soderling and Marin Cilic. They try
to start the wave during each changeover, but it fails to catch on. They boo
the rest of the crowd.

—One thin blond girl at a Haägen-Dazs stand, in a beige
jacket that’s much too light for the current temperature. She wraps herself up
in her arms. There are no customers for the ice cream she’s selling.

—One young couple kissing next to a sandwich stand. The man,
taller, brings his hand out and considers wrapping it around his girlfriend’s
back. Perhaps remembering that he’s in public, he lets it drop at the last
second.

—Flavia Pennetta, in tennis clothes, with a titanic racquet
bag slung over her shoulder, texting.

—One immaculately dressed young brother and sister duo
walking down to the pricey seats in Lenglen. He’s in a navy checked suit and pinstriped shirt. She’s wearing a black dress and has her pulled back like a
woman 25 years older. Finally, two people I can look at and say: Parisians.

—Three or four young men in various places wearing backwards
baseball hats and sweatpants. Two of them are eating pizza as they walk,
something my high school French teacher said no self-respecting French person would ever
be caught doing.

—Two chefs, in the press dining hall, in stained white chef shirts,
sitting back and enjoying their own meal after dinner hours for the media are
over. Their hair is still sweaty. They’re smiling broadly.

—John McEnroe walking toward me. He’s heading right in my
direction, but swerves out of the way when he sees someone—me—coming at him. I
can now say that I have had an affect on John McEnroe’s life.

—A pair of young ushers at Chatrier stadium, one man, one
woman, dressed in cream and red Roland Garros usher uniforms. I’ve walked
past them dozens of times every day for the last eight days. They’ve been standing the entire
time. Finally, today, the girl is sitting down on the staircase that leads to
the court. She looks guilty, but too tired to do anything else.

—A chair umpire on Court 1 quietly intoning, “Egalité.” This is the
same as deuce—“equality”—which is odd, because as my friend Chris Clarey
pointed out in a very good article for the Herald Tribune last week, “deuce”
originally was French. It was a mispronunciation of the French “à deux,” the same way “love” was a mispronunciation of the French word for egg,
“l’oeuf,” slang for zero.

Tennis is a true mixed-breed of British and French—the word is spelled the same way in both languages. The
English invented lawn tennis, but the French invented its ancestor, court
tennis. “Tennis” comes from the French “tenez,” (“ready!”), the word that
servers said to their opponents before they started a point. In case you’re
wondering, the word “serve” comes from “service.” The royals who played the
game thought putting the ball in play was beneath them. To begin a point, they said “service” to a minion, who would do the menial task of serving for them.

Wimbledon may be the home of lawn tennis, but the French
have a right to claim the sport as their own as well.

—At the end of the day, one light-skinned black girl waiting
outside the gates for a ride home. She must work at the tournament, and she
looks ready to get out of there. While she waits, she stands and looks up at
the trees across the streets. She blinks many times before she drops her eyes down again. She’s
thinking about something. Something other than tennis.

—In the distance, peaking over the stands at Lenglen, the
Eiffel Tower. The symbol of Paris is never too far from view. Parisians may not notice it anymore, but I’ve yet to grow tired of its
presence, which seems to me to be a miraculous mix of the industrial and the
romantic. I felt the same way about the Twin Towers. I still miss those, and am
happy to have a chance here to look up again and see something that everyone in
the city can share, something that lets you know, in case you’ve forgotten,
that you’re in a great place.

*** 

So maybe it’s a good time to leave. The city and the
tournament don’t feel totally foreign, but it’s still a thrill to walk outside
in the morning, see the café owner smoking his first cigarette, and think, “Oh yeah,
I’m in Paris.”

Pete Bodo takes over at Roland Garros today. See you from
New York on Wednesday.

PARIS (AP)—For comic relief, Robby Ginepri did a couple of push-ups on center court during his fourth-round match Monday at the French Open.

The laughs didn’t last.

Two points later Ginepri lost a pivotal game, and Novak Djokovic went on to win 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, eliminating the last American in the men’s draw.

Ginepri was serving at love-1 in the third set when he went down face-first chasing a shot.

He made the most of his awkward court position by doing push-ups, but lost the next two points to lose serve, and won only three games the rest of the way.

Ranked 98th, Ginepri was an unlikely round-of-16 foe for the No. 3-seeded Djokovic. Ginepri entered the tournament with a 1-7 record this year, and a career record of 9-31 on clay.

Djokovic’s box included more than a dozen supporters who cheered and waved a Serbian flag every time he won a point. Ginepri’s without a coach and traveled to Paris by himself.

Still, the American played Djokovic on even terms for more than an hour. Ginepri held serve easily until the final game of the first set, when he was broken.

Djokovic blew an easy forehand putaway to lose his serve for the first time, and Ginepri broke again while dominating the second set.

But then Ginepri faded fast, perhaps weary after playing 13 grinding sets in his first three matches. His groundstrokes became more erratic, and Djokovic won five consecutive games and 10 of 11 to take control.

The Serb volleyed well, found the range with his serve and used his drop shot to keep Ginepri off balance. A two-time semifinalist at Roland Garros, Djokovic is bidding for his second major title.

“I played really good in the third and fourth sets,” Djokovic said. “I had some really good matches on clay recently. Now I’m in the quarterfinals and I need to keep playing aggressively.”

Ginepri, a former top-15 player from Kennesaw, Ga., fell to 0-15 against opponents ranked in the top three.

PARIS (AP)—Serena Williams looked shaky Monday at the French Open only after her match, when she tried to speak French to the crowd.

“I get so nervous,” she told the interviewer with a giggle in English when she was done.

Otherwise, the top-ranked Williams advanced smoothly to the quarterfinals, beating Shahar Peer 6-2, 6-2.

Williams complained of dizziness from a cold following a seesaw three-set win in her previous match, but the only wobble against the No. 18-seeded Peer came at the start. Williams lost the first seven points, then swept nine in a row.
 
From 2-all, Williams won five consecutive games to take charge of the match.

Afterward, she was interviewed courtside by former French player Cedric Pioline.

“I love Paris,” she told the crowd in French. “My game is better. I hope I’m going to win.”

No. 3-seeded Novak Djokovic eliminated the last American in the men’s draw, beating Robby Ginepri 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Ginepri was serving at love-1 in the third set when he went down face-first chasing a shot. He made the most of his awkward court position by doing two push-ups, but lost the next two points to lose serve, and won only three games the rest of the way.

Djokovic’s next opponent will be No. 22 Jurgen Melzer, a first-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist playing in his 32nd major event. The Austrian advanced by beating qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili 7-6 (6), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.

On another chilly, cloudy, windy afternoon, center court was half empty for the start of Williams vs. Peer.

It didn’t last long: Williams hit six aces, broke six times and won in just over an hour.

Serena’s sister Venus, eliminated Sunday, watched from the stands. She did not wear a corset.

Peer fell to 0-10 against the Williams sisters, including 0-5 versus Serena. Peer is 4-22 against top-five opponents.

Serena is bidding for her 13th Grand Slam championship, and her second this year. Her lone French Open title came in 2002.

Ginepri, ranked 98th, was an unlikely round-of-16 foe for Djokovic. Ginepri entered the tournament with a 1-7 record this year, and a career record of 9-31 on clay.

Djokovic’s box included more than a dozen supporters who cheered and waved a Serbian flag every time he won a point. Ginepri’s without a coach and traveled to Paris by himself.

Still, the American played Djokovic on even terms for more than an hour. Ginepri held serve easily until the final game of the first set, when he was broken.

Djokovic blew an easy forehand putaway to lose his serve for the first time, and Ginepri broke again while dominating the second set.

But then Ginepri faded fast, perhaps weary after playing 13 grinding sets in his first three matches. His groundstrokes became more erratic, and Djokovic won five consecutive games and 10 of 11 to take control.

The Serb volleyed well, found the range with his serve and used his drop shot to keep Ginepri off balance. A two-time semifinalist at Roland Garros, Djokovic is bidding for his second major title.

“I played really good in the third and fourth sets,” Djokovic said. “I had some really good matches on clay recently. Now I’m in the quarterfinals and I need to keep playing aggressively.”

Ginepri, a former top-15 player from Kennesaw, Ga., fell to 0-15 against opponents ranked in the top three.