French Open Round 1 Update: Gael Monfils stuns Tomas Berdych in five sets

Tomas Berdych

The biggest shock of the French Open so far saw the number five seed in the mens draw, Tomas Berdych ousted by a sensational effort from Gael Monfils, who thrilled the home crowd with a 7-6(8) 6-4 6-7(3) 6-7(4) 7-5.  Monfils was tiring towards the end and saved a string of break points in the final set before eventually turning the tables on his Czech opponent to break at 6-5 and serve it out with aplomb.  It was a really rough draw for Berdych, but I did not expect him to fall in this match.  Monfils now goes onto play Ernests Gulbis, which will be an unmissable match between two of the most eccentric personalities on the ATP tour.

The Philippe Chatrier crowd got a real show today as Rafael Nadal was given a stern test by the huge, Daniel Brands.  The German player, who is having a very solid year up till now, took the first set and had a mini break in the second set tiebreak; however Nadal unsurprisingly managed to turn things round and post a 4 set victory, 4-6 7-6(4) 6-4 6-3.  In the showcase womens match, Laura Robson suffered a disappointing 6-3 6-2 loss to Caroline Wozniacki, who snapped a 5 match losing streak with her best performance since making the final in Indian Wells.  Robson really struggled for consistency and hit far too many unforced errors as Wozniacki grew in confidence during the match.  Wozniacki takes on Bojana Jovanovski in round two, which is a rematch of their rather hilarious match from Rome where an injured Jovanovski came back from all deficits to stun Wozniacki.

In other matches, Angelique Kerber came through a tough opening set with Mona Barthel before strolling to a 7-6(6) 6-2 victory.  Carla Suarez Navarro recovered from the loss of the first set to Rome semi-finalist, Simona Halep to post a very impressive 3-6 6-2 6-2 win.  Ekaterina Makarova and Tamira Paszek were the only two womens seeds to fall today; Makarova lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-4 6-2, meanwhile Paszek went down once again, this time to Melanie Oudin in straight sets.  Berdych was joined on the sidelines by Juan Monaco, who was a real suprise exit today as he lost in five sets to Daniel Gimeno-Traver having led by two sets and Marcel Granollers who fell to Feliciano Lopez.

From tomorrow night, Moo's previews will be in full swing as we start predicting the line-up of second round matches so stay tuned :-)

You can view my full predictions for mens and womens draw, which have both started reasonably well!