The big man from the Czech Republic Tomas Berdych, knocked out fourth seed Andy Murray in straight sets. Again, play was interrupted by rain but this time they managed to finished in fading light at 9:34 p.m. local time. Berdych will next meet No. 11 seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in the quarter-finals. Berdych took a 2-0 lead in the second set, before Murray responded by winning three straight games. Light rain began to fall in the seventh game. Just as the tarp was in place, the rain shower stopped and they were able to begin play about 36 minutes later. Berdych victory over Andy took just over two hours. Berdych is yet to lose a set and is riding a seven-match winning streak. Thomas was a runner-up to Andy Roddick at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in Miami. The Czech improved to a 29-10 match record on the season. Congratulations Tomas!
The last French male player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was forced to retire with a back injury today after losing the first set 6-2 to Mikhail Youzhny. The 27-year-old Russian is through to the quarter-finals for the first time and will contest his first Grand Slam quarter-final since reaching the last eight at the 2008 Australian Open (l. to Tsonga). Youzhny's best result at a major came when he advanced to the semi-finals at the 2006 US Open(l. to Roddick).
Rest assured that none of the experts predicted this one - Robby Ginepri posted his biggest-win 
on clay when he took out 2003 champion, Juan Carlos Ferrero. As it turns out, Ginepri, the World No. 98, arrived in Paris expecting to play qualifying for the Grand Slam championship - only to learn he had earned direct entry into the main draw - Robby is in the fourth round of a major, something he had not done for 2 years or so. Ginepri says "he had no real game plan and just went with the flow. Congratulations to Robby. He's now into the Second Week at Roland Garros. Robby will face World No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the fourth round.
Congratulations Robby.
The hawkeye cameras are not used in any of the clay court tournaments. Hawkeye technology was first introduced on the hard courts and then the grass courts at Wimbledon. But from the onset it was decided that the technology would not be used on clay courts simply because on the clay there is a distint mark made by the ball and it's only on very rare occasions that the mark is not completely visible to the eye.
Also, Hawkeye is not always correct either; there's a certain error percentage - I believe somewhere around 0.003 % or so error of margin - don't quote me on that - but with some research I am sure that you could find the actual percentage.
Many question whether Hawkeye is deceiving and whether it's really always that accurate - especially in its portrayal of the ball in relationhip to the the base/service/side-lines.
Although the benefits are loudly applauded I for one question this total movement towards more and more technology in the game of tennis in general [a total subject for another blog];
Here's an interesting perspective on Hawkeye:
Anonymous said...
"Could you say more about how "HawkEye" takes ball compression and skid into account? Ever since last summer, I've been wondering if the computer-generated images are exaggerating the size (image) of the area-of-contact between the tennis ball and the court. The images look as though the ball's entire diameter always comes in contact with the court ... and I have my doubts that that is what actually happens. If the ball does NOT often compress that much, then the extremely close calls (for example, where they have to zoom in to see if there's a sliver of court showing between the ball's image and the line) are being MISrepresented ... or so it seems to me anyway. Why hasn't anyone been talking/complaining about this???
PS: I don't think my question applies (as much) to the skid factor.
Below is a link to the blog-article on the issue from whence the "Anonymous" comment came. Check it out. It's really a great post on the topic!
http://blog.jasontsang.ca/2006/07/technology-in-tennis-hawk-eye.html
Posted by: saraunia | 06/07/2010 at 12:24 AM
Why is the hawkeye camera not being used in the French Open? We see the 'unofficial' shot camera shown by tv coverage. Shouldn't the tournament embrace the technology?
Posted by: Tennis Tech | 06/03/2010 at 01:36 PM