23-26 May 2016
Another normal week here in Paris pretty much. Typical days of work with some stops at Monoprix in the afternoons as well. Not much else to mention this week other than more pluie (rain) almost every day. Hoping that our little trip this weekend will be rain free.
Since Jeremy had the most exciting thing of the weekm he decided to write the majority of this post!!
Getting here less than 2 months before the French Open I did not think tickets would be very obtainable without spending a ton of money, but I really did want to go. Luckily one night when we were hanging out with some of Kasey’s co-workers tennis came up and one guy from the US said he had gotten 4 tickets and was looking for a 4th to join them. Kasey heard him say this first and said she was sure I would want to go, and of course I immediately said yes (although of course I was hoping both of us could go). So just like that I had a ticket for Thursday May 26th.
As the tournament started over the weekend and matches were being played we kept trying to figure out who we might see. We had tickets to the main court (Court Philippe-Chatrier) so we were assuming we might get to see some of the favorites, well let’s be honest we were hoping that was the case. It was hard to really get a good feel for who it might be because the weather has been so terrible and they had trouble completing all of the scheduled matches each day. Finally on Wednesday afternoon we finally got the match schedule for the day. On our court the two biggest matches were Rafa Nadal vs. Facundo Bagnis and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs. Marcos Baghdatis. The other two matches of the day were two woman’s matches with less known names competing. The first match was actually an excellent back and forth match. Of course we were all anticipating Nadal in the second match of the day. Although Rafa struggled a little he ended up winning easily. You could feel the stadium starting to buzz more and more as the match moved along, but it never really got as crazy or loud as we thought it might. That quickly changed as we moved to the third match of the day because French favorite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was playing. Now we were really in for a true French Open match with the crowd buzzing. This match was the best of the day by far. A wonderful 5 set match which featured a first set tiebreaker, as well as eventual winner Tsonga loosing the first two sets only to come back and win the final 3 sets and move on. Being that this match took longer than the first two matches combined and we were pushing 19:00 at this point and we had been there since 10:00 it was time to head out after a wonderful day.
Interesting note after the fact is that we apparently are not the only ones who these matches took a toll on. The following day Nadal pulled out of the French Open with a wrist injury having not played a point after we watched him walk off the court. Then Saturday during the first set of his match Tsonga, while up 5-2, retired with a leg injury that he aggravated.
Another interesting fact about the Open is that it is BYOF (food) and BYOB (but not glass). Nice way to eat baguettes and drink boxed or bagged wine in the stands!
– Jeremy
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| Rafa celebrating his win |
Le tour de walker 