French Open 2012: Day 1 Review

As has become synonymous with the French Open, play kicked off rather tentatively on the Sunday with Sam Stosur, Ana Ivanovic and Venus Williams all enjoying first round wins.  Sam Stosur kicked off proceedings with a solid 6-4 6-0 victory over Elena Baltacha.  The Brit fought well with a great fighting attitude during the first set, but was thoroughly outplayed by the Aussie in the second set who looked completely at home on the Philippe Chatrier court.  Ana Ivanovic was also in impressive form as she strolled past Lara Arrubarena-Vecino, 6-1 6-1.  Venus Williams had a much tougher match as she was forced to fight back from a set down to defeat the tenacious youngster, Paula Ormachea, 4-6 6-1 6-3.

Elena Baltacha

In other women's matches, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Lucie Safarova both won in comfortable straight set wins.  Kuznetsova was first up on the Suzanne Lenglen court and defeated Mirjana Lucic, 6-1 6-3.  Safarova, who I have tipped to the 4th round was never troubled in a 6-2 6-0 cruise against Anastasiya Yakimova.  Angelique Kerber was not at her best, but she made it through a tight match with Zhang Shuai, 6-3 6-4.  The only seed to lose a set was Sara Errani who fought back from a set and a break down to beat Casey Dellacqua.  She will now play Melanie Oudin in the second round who won her first Grand Slam match since the 2010 US Open with a surprising 6-3 6-3 win over Johanna Larsson.

Lucie Safarova

As the women's seed strolled into the second round, it was the men who had a much tougher time off it on day one.  Juan Martin Del Potro started in fine form against Albert Montanes with some crunching forehand winners, but a knee injury threatened to halt his progress into the second round.  After losing the second set, he managed to steady the ship as Montanes went careering off the rails in a 6-2 6-7 6-2 6-1 loss.  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga lost the opening set of his first round match to Andrey Kuznetsov but managed to turn things around to win in 4 sets.  

Juan Martin Del Potro

Stanislas Wawrinka lost a heartbreaker to Andreas Seppi in Rome having wasted numerous match points in that match and it looked like he may be heading for disaster against Flavio Cipolla as he let slip a two set lead; however he managed to claim the win in a 6-3 6-3 4-6 3-6 6-2 victory.  There were two seeds that did not survive the first day of play.  Andy Roddick was beaten in 4 sets by Nicolas Mahut, meanwhile Jurgen Melzer was defeated by Michael Berrer in 5 set.

Andy Roddick