Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Roland-Garros, Paris

We were fortunate enough to spend a day on Centre Court at Roland-Garros to see round 3 of the French open: a day which included the great Roger Federer and the sexy Maria Sharapova. Both no. 1 seeds dispensed with their opponents in a clinical and beautiful fashion. After spending 11 hours in the grounds soaking it up, I have a new found love for this tournament.
My favourite player's quote from the programme:
"I've always thought of the red clay at Roland Garros as a living thing, something that gets into you. A match there is a kind of immersion, heavy with symbolism: you arrive immaculate white and you end up blood red, battle scarred... Visually, it's very beautiful, but above all it's a surface that favours engagement. You can slide, get to impossible balls. You can play for a long time and reach out for unexpected limits on this clay. And for sure, you never know what might happen next, because the texture can often change depending on the humidity. It's a hard surface to tame."

One of the greatest athletes on the planet:


After the tennis, Frodo and Gandalf stopped by the Eiffel tower for a crepe.
After a long day on Saturday, Sunday was a nice relaxed day, revolving largely around sampling as much of the local tucker as possible. The other highlights were investigating Paris's new commuter bikes (c'mon London, get it sorted) and a French woman thinking I was French because "your Bonjour was so good".

1 comment:

Graeme said...

heh, i love the photo of Roger doing the serve - you must have been using sports mode to capture that so well!