Aisam-Rojer roll into second round

Duo registers straight-sets win in opening match at French Open.

PARIS:

Pakistan tennis ace Aisamul Haq Qureshi and his Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer cruised into the second round of the men’s doubles event at the French Open yesterday.

The pair defeated unseeded Russian duo of Evgeny Donskoy and Dmitiri Tursonov 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).

The sixth-seeds in the tournament took the first set with ease in just 25 minutes. However, the Russians hit back in the second, winning all of their service games to take the set to a tie break. Aisam and Rojer then tamed the Russians in the set decider, 7-1, to progress to the next round. They pair now plays its second-round match against Slovanian duo Aljaz Bedene and Grega Zemlja.

Serena, Sharapova cruise

In the women’s single event, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova stayed firmly on course for a French Open final showdown by registering one-sided wins in their respective ties yesterday.



Defending champion and second-seed Sharapova needed only four games and a handful of minutes to finish off her second round tie 6-2, 6-4 against Canadian teenager Eugenie Bouchard

Sharapova will go on to play China’s Zheng Jie who eased past Melanie Oudin of the US 6-3, 6-1.

“It was a pretty long day,” she said. “Left here pretty late and then had an early morning. But, we all know what to expect. We all kind of knew the weather wasn’t going to be really good.

“I was happy to play part of the match and obviously get myself in a good position to come out today and finish the match.”

Top-seeded Serena, playing in the opening match of the third round, needed just 61 minutes to dispose of Romania’s Sorana Cirstea 6-0, 6-2. She has now lost just six games in three one-sided matches.

Nadal blasts ‘joke’ French Open schedule

An angry Rafael Nadal blasted French Open scheduling as a ‘joke’ yesterday and claimed he was being treated unfairly.



The seven-time champion had his second-round tie against Slovakia’s Martin Kliznan, which was the third match on the Court Suzanne Lenglen schedule on Thursday, cancelled as rain swamped Roland Garros.

He then played first up yesterday, completing a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 win in almost three hours.

But he now faces having to play again today despite opponent Italian Fabio Fognini having finished his second round match on Thursday afternoon.

“The schedule was wrong, it was a bad decision,” said Nadal. “I was playing three hours while my opponent was in the locker room watching TV. I cannot play third when my opponent has played second.

“The excuse they gave me was that they had to play doubles, but that’s a joke. In that case I should sign up for doubles. Sorry, but you can play doubles next week.”

Elsewhere, Roger Federer reached the last-16 with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win over France’s 30^th-seed Julien Benneteau.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2013.