Amelie Ousted.. At Roland Garros..

Yesterday I was fuming mad.. now I'm feeling down. Amelie Mauresmo just lost her fourth round match against Nicole Vaidisova. It was awfully painful to watch.. the first hour Amelie was playing well and fighting competitively against Vaidisova in the first set, the next hour she was made short and quick work off by her opponent in the following two sets.. and whoosh.. just like that Momo exits from the French Open.

And now, as I'm typing away in front of my tv screen, my other favorite player Anastasia Myskina seems unable to find any answers against Justine Henin-Hardenne. Looks like I'm just not going to get any consolation here.. I'll just have to sleep my blues away tonight.

Vaidisova played well.. pretty well in fact. Her serve was strong and powerful.. and she was fast and very aggressive. Momo just wasn't playing her best game.. her returns were short and many of them ended up in the middle of the court, giving Vaidisova plenty of chances to dictate play.. and dictate Vaidisova certainly did. The scoreline for the second and third set was pathetically 6-1, 6-2. In fact, Momo might not even have gotten on the scoreboard in the second set had it not been for a rare error by Vaidisova. And sadly, that was how effective Vaidisova was at snuffing out Momo.

During the match, the match commentators were commenting and wondering out loud on why Momo was repeatedly serving and playing into Vaidisova's powerful forehand and not into her weaker backhand.. and how she was exposing more than two-thirds of the court for Vaidisova to attack by standing more than a foot away from the center of the court when she serves. Initially, I wasn't paying much attention to their commentaries, but as the match wore on.. and they just kept on repeating their suggestions to Momo, I realised they were right. Momo just wasn't playing a very smart game with this one. At one point, they were even commenting that Momo's coach should try all ways and means to reach out to Momo to get her to hit to Vaidisova's backhand instead. I remembered breaking into a little smile when I heard this.. I guess it kinda showed how much they wanted Momo back into the match. Not much of a consolation really, but still it was something.

At this point, I just have to update that Anastasia.. down 0-5 in the second set.. has just won the last 3 games and is now serving at 3-5. But Henin-Hardenne now has a double matchpoint at 40-15. I hope Anastasia holds her serve and forces Henin-Hardenne to serve for the match. Hang in there, AM!

The earlier part of the day was better. Dinara Safina caused a major upset when she fought back from 2-5 down in the third set and defeated Maria Sharapova 7-5, 2-6, 7-5! It was a sensational fightback, and Safina certainly deserved to win. Sharapova had her matchpoints but squandered her chances.. too bad. Sorry to say, but she's never been one of my favorite players, and frankly I was delighted with her loss. But my glee was somehow cut short and snuffed out by Momo's defeat. Somehow I can't help wondering if Momo lost because of my gloating over Sharapova's defeat. I know it's a stupid notion.. but still...

AM just suffered the same fate as Momo and Sharapova. She lost to Henin-Hardenne in straight sets 1-6, 4-6. But to continue from my earlier comment, AM did hold her serve and made HH serve out the match. Sigh, JHH was simply too good.

Though I was aware that Momo did lose to Vaidisova once in their previous encounters, but I really didn't think Vaidisova would have the chance to repeat her feat today. At least not with Momo on homeground, not with the whole French crowd in the stadium behind Momo. Well, I was certainly proven wrong. In fact, after Venus won her match against Patty Schnyder, I was in a dilemma as to who to support when Venus faces off against Momo in the quarter-finals and actually, I had pretty much decided to root for Momo. Unfortunately, my dilemma was unfounded as Momo is no longer in the running. On the bright side though, now I can go all out to cheer for Venus in the quarter-finals.. 'cos I want her to win.. plus, I want her to take out Vaidisova and avenge Momo's loss, hahahah.. ;p

My alarm bells went off when Venus lost the first set to Schnyder. But thank goodness, Venus rebounded back strongly to take the second set 6-3 and even out one set apiece. She went on to finish convincingly against Schnyder at 6-2 for the third set. Her unforced error counts were wonderfully kept to only 16 in the second and third sets. Very cool.

Svetlana Kuznetsova gave me a scare too when she lost the first set 1-6 against Francesca Schiavone. Fortunately, she made a turnaround and won the match 1-6, 6-4, 6-4. Phew!

Kim Clijsters was on cruise control against Daniela Hantuchova. She won 6-1, 6-4. Too strong.

I'm still very disappointed with Momo's defeat. Everything was coming together nciely for her this year and this year really seemed like the best chance for her to triumph at the Roland Garros, but again, she's fallen short. I wonder how she is feeling now. She must be feeling awful, terribly upset and disappointed, I guess. Sigh. If I can get so affected by her loss, I guess whatever she's feeling must be a dozen times multiplied at least. I sincerely hope she does better at Wimbledon and the US Open.

(Photo taken from AP Photo/Michel Euler)

tags : tennis | Roland Garros | French Open | Venus Williams | Amelie Mauresmo | Nicole Vaidisova | disppointed | French | support | Kim Clijsters | Daniel Hantuchova | Patty Schnyder | Francesca Schiavone | Svetlana Kuznetsova | Anastasia Myskina | Justine Henin-Hardenne | Maria Sharapova | Dinara Safina |