French Open 2008

So the French Open is in its second week already, and there have been quite a few surprises to go along with several expected results.

Probably the biggest surprise actually came shortly before the French Open started when Justine Henin, who was #1 at that time, announced her retirement from tennis effective immediately. It was shocking in that she was a four-time Roland Garros champion, and had won the last three French Open championships. Despite her below-average results early this year, she had to have been the favorite to win her 5th title and 4th in a row.

A couple of other surprise results include the elimination of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Then again, both results probably weren't that surprising. Serena did win a clay title this year, but it was on green clay, which plays quite differently than that red dirt. This is Serena's worst surface so a loss is probably more expected than a title, but she did get bumped out of the tourney by Katarina Srebotnik and if I had to put money on that match, I'd go with the younger Williams sister.

Maria Sharapova on the other hand lost to an in-form Dinara Safina who just won a clay title in Berlin shortly before the French Open started. Like Serena, Maria has never really well done on clay as the surface takes off some of the power of her shots. So her losing to her countrywoman who has been playing well recently isn't much of a shocker, at least not to me.

On the men's side, most of the top guns are still around. Nadal hasn't dropped a set and is favore to win his 4th French Open title. Federer has been playing superbly too and hasn't dropped a set either. Djokovic has dropped one set, way back in the first round I think, but has been pretty ominous since then. In fact, the Serbs have been doing pretty well here, with both Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic still in the running.

If I had to guess, Nadal will win the title on Sunday. On the women's side, I'm not too sure. Jankovic, Ivanovic, Safina, Dementieva, and Kuznetsova all have a shot at the title. Makes it interesting to see how things pan out on the women's side.