French Open washout toughens Novak Djokovic’s path towards title

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• First time in 16 years that a day’s play at Roland Garros is rained off
• World No1 will now have to win four matches in six days to triumph

 No play was possible at the French Open on Monday due to heavy rain at Roland Garros. Photograph: Robert Ghement/EPA
Kevin Mitchell at Roland Garros
Monday 30 May 2016 13.17 BST Last modified on Monday 30 May 2016 22.00 BST

When rain wiped out day nine of the French Open, Novak Djokovic was left with the heightened challenge of winning four matches in six days to lift La Coupe des Mousquetaires for the first time.

Indeed, if the weather forecast for Tuesday pans out, the tournament might yet lose two complete days before the scheduled men’s final on Sunday.

While that appears to make the favourite’s task harder than those of rivals who are already one match ahead of him – chiefly Andy Murray and the reigning champion, Stan Wawrinka, on the other side of the draw – the fixtures’ log-jam helps nobody in particular. Chaos and anxiety await.


As matches postponed on Monday have to be shoehorned into Tuesday’s programme there is no guarantee of a finish in Murray’s quarter-final against Richard Gasquet – third on the revamped card behind Djokovic against Roberto Bautista Agut in the fourth round, which is set optimistically for an 11am Paris start.

The players are keeping one eye on the sky, the other on their opponents.

So is the tournament director, Guy Forget, who cannot have imagined when he took up the job in February that he would be lumbered with such a logistical nightmare, although he described it as “problematic” rather than “catastrophic”.

Yet the player who pleased French fans as an elegant doubles artist in the ’80s knows he has to get his hands dirty as an administrator. He probably suspects there is more than a passing element of farce about this tournament, which will now squelch towards a conclusion like a blind dinosaur through a swamp. As Forget remarked at the start of the week when trying to explain why planning foul-ups mean the French Open will not have a roof until 2020: “Welcome to France.”


Forget is still confident the tournament will finish as scheduled on Sunday. “Tomorrow should be better and I’m pretty sure we can play some matches,” he said.

“We knew it was going to be horrible today and it was even worse than what we thought, that’s why we sent the players back early. We changed the programme, we’re not too far behind, there are still reasons for optimism. I think that in two days we will be on time.”

Djokovic, who is at the start of his 100th consecutive week as No1 in the world, still has the easiest run to the final, where he has faltered three times – and the schedulers did what they could to help him on Monday, moving his match against Bautista Agut up the list to open the programme ahead of David Goffin versus Ernests Gulbis – even though not a ball was struck in the end.

Steady rain drenched Roland Garros all morning but reality did not properly dampen enthusiasm until 1.40pm, when play was called off. It was a pity nobody bothered to tell the few stoics still sitting on a drenched Court Philippe Chatrier for another 20 minutes but this is of a piece with the organisation of an event stuck in the last century. No roof, no lights, no clue.

The dilemma for the tournament is how to squeeze a whole day of postponed tennis into a schedule that was already under pressure because of the forecast. The grounds are not big enough to hold two sets of fans, however, and those who bought tickets for Monday will have to settle for a refund.

Minor matches will be shifted to outside courts to accommodate the leading lights but, if the rain hits, it is possible that some of them will have to play late in fading light – the situation Djokovic complained so vociferously about after beating Iljaz Bedene in almost total darkness on Saturday night.


Murray was able to rest on Monday, gathering strength after the rigours of the first week in which he survived two draining five-setters before comparatively straightforward wins against the two tallest players in the game, Ivo Karlovic and John Isner.

Now he must concentrate on the ninth seed, Gasquet, who has lost twice to him in early rounds but stretched him to five tough sets six years ago. The crowd will be on Murray’s case from the start, as they were when he struggled to tame the little-known Frenchman Mathias Bourgue in five sets in the second round. But 15 times in 16 matches against opponents in their home slam tournaments Murray has come through – seven times here, four times in Melbourne and four times in New York.

“I don’t mind it when the crowd is against me,” he said. “It does help you to focus and concentrate and I think a little bit more. I imagine it will be packed when we play and that has helped me in the past. This is his first time in the quarters here so he is going to be motivated and pumped for that. He had a very good win [over Kei Nishikori on Sunday] so I expect a really tough match.”

Greg Rusedski, the former British No1 working here for Eurosport, was amused by Murray calling himself “a turnip” during sustained self-criticism when defeating Isner in three largely unstressful sets on Sunday.

“I wish that I could play like a ‘turnip’ because, if he plays like a turnip, he’s going to be into the final,” Rusedski said. “This was as good as it gets for Murray, from start to finish so far in these championships.

“He has to berate himself to keep those levels up.

“Sometimes it’s not the most pleasant thing to watch but that’s how he keeps his intensity going throughout. The comments don’t make any sense with the sort of tennis he’s playing but that is also what makes him such a great champion.”