Tennishead on Tour: Montreal, Day 1

Olivia Sanchez

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Bonjour! I am now officially in France. Or is it Canada? I can’t tell! I’ve been in a bit of state of shock since arriving in Quebec and quickly realising it’s a completely French state!

Check out our action photos from Monday’s order of play

I’d heard that Quebec is very different to the rest of Canada but it is SO different and I have to say I feel a bit useless because most of the time I have absolutely no idea what people are saying to me.

The fellas took off in hot pursuit armed with a pizza slice, a tape dispenser and a carving knife…

I can’t believe how different it is to Toronto and I may keep saying this all week. If I do, I apologise in advance! The one thing that Montreal has in common with Toronto, though, is that when it rains it rains hard.

Anyway, I can’t complain, although if I was going to, I would say how thoroughly bored I am of smart-arse Canadians telling me it must be just like being at home every time the heavens open. Ha ha ha, there goes another rib. So far I’ve failed to mention to them that it was roasting in England on Monday.

Now, here’s a thing. If you’re a regular reader of my blogging drivel you’ll have picked up on the fact that I seem to regularly put myself in weird and occasionally violent situations. Although that’s no fault of my own, I hasten to add!

Anyway, so I’m in a convenience store last night buying a couple of bottles of Corona and some water when three college boys came in, picked up three crates of Bud’ and legged it.

Next thing you know the two fellas working in the shop suddenly took off in hot pursuit of the beer bandits armed to the teeth with convenience store weapons – a pizza slice, a tape dispenser and a rather sizable carving knife!

After all that excitement, I was expecting a quiet day at the tennis and I guess in some ways it was. The first day always features a lot of matches but little to get REALLY excited about.

Today was no exception and it rained a lot as well, so it wasn’t a marvellous day of tennis, but it wasn’t half-bad either.

My first match was Marion Bartoli against Britain’s Mel South. It was actually a really close match, although it swung violently from one side to the other.

I really thought our Mel could have won it but in the third set it all went terribly wrong and she was wiped out 6-0. Mel is a great player, though, with heaps of ability. Good luck to her as she goes about trying to crack the top 100.

Next up for me was Elena Vesnina and Dominika Cibulkova. I was expecting Vesnina to walk it but in fact it turned out to be completely the opposite and Cibulkova won the match remarkably easily, one and one.

After Vesnina’s loss I headed over to court 9 for Monica Niculescu against American qualifier Varvara Lepchenko. I saw Niculescu at Wimbledon and was struck by her unique style. She certainly is a one off and that style was very effective today as she saw off the American to move into the second round.

I then headed back to Banque Nationale to watch Aravane Rezai lose to Virginie Razzano and then to Stadium to watch Swiss veteran Patty Schnyder beat China’s Yuan Meng.

Talking of the Chinese players, here’s a prediction. I believe a Chinese player will win a grand slam within three years. If I was a gambling man I would take a punt on that one!

Next up was Tamira Paszek and 14th seed Francesca Schiavone, which was a rain-spoilt affair which seemed to go on for hours and then I slipped down to number 9 court to catch a bit of Alla Kudryavtseva against Chanelle Scheepers, before heading back to Banque Nationale to check out the very lovely Olivia Sanchez, who was playing Tamarine Tanasugarn from Thailand.

The rain really hit hard from 8pm and there was no sustained play until around 10 when the Paszek match finished and the local girl, Stephanie Dubois, played Olga Govortsova.

Tomorrow’s order of play features a great friend of Tennishead, Anne Keothavong, up against fourth-seeded Russian and glamour girl Maria Kirilenko.

Good luck Annie – all being well (ie, no more convenience store hold-ups) I’ll have some pictures of that and many more first round contests for you.

À bientôt…