8.47 pm: Break point after a great wrong-footer from Serena. Saved by an ace into the backhand corner! Great return on the next one and Serena has another break point. Peng meanwhile leads Paszek 2-1, on service.
8.44 pm: Break point. Saved. Match point after a great service. Second serve... and Virginie punts a follow-up five metres long... Deuce.
8.41 pm: 30-15 as Razzano serves for the match. Double fault: 30-all. Next point Virginie hears a noise in the crowd, stops playing but Eva's having none of it! Break point, 30-40. Serena puts one just wide of the corner, deuce. Serena puts another one just wide of the corner, match point! And Virginie fluffs it! Deuce...
8.36 pm: Serena holds - 5-3... Elsewhere Mikhail Youzhny defeated James Blake 2, 1 and 2. He'll play Robin Haase next up. And Peng Shuai has taken the first set 6-4 over Tamira Paszek.
8.34 pm: Meanwhile, Marcos Baghdatis has defeated Juan Ignacio Chela 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. Wow. Their rankings are almost identical but JIC loves clay and Baghy usually hates it! Anyhoo, the bearded fun-loving Cypriot will face No.12 seed Nicolas Almagro on Thursday, and he's one who really loves clay.
8.31 pm: Ooh, Serena's on the way back. She holds, then pushes Razzano to deuce, gets a close line call from "little Eva" Azderaki and then gets one of the breaks back! 5-2...
8.25 pm: Wozniacki wins 6-0, 6-1 and she'll face Jarmila Gajdosova who was 6-3, 4-1 up when Rybarikova retired.
8.20 pm: 5-0 Razzano in the decider!!!!
8.15 pm: 4-0 Razzano in the decider!!!
8.10 pm: 3-0 Razzano in the decider!!
8.05 pm: 2-0 Razzano in the decider!
8.00 pm: 1-0 Razzano in the decider.
7.50 pm: Razzano wins five in a row to take the breaker 7-5 - wow! Serena also disputed three of the calls, at 5-1, 5-2 and a replayed 5-3. She won't be best pleased but chair ump. Eva Asderaki was on the money every time.
Wozniacki also takes the first set in a bagel. Daniilidou fought hard in the last game which went via many deuces but Carol won through.
7.48 pm: Tie-break on Chatrier! And Serena takes the first three points of it.
7.35 pm: Wozniacki leads 5-0. One-way traffic at the moment.
7.31 pm: Razzano to serve to stay in the match and she's looking like she's beginning to have cramps in her calves. Caro Woz meanwhile has raced to a semi-bagel of Eleni Dani. Ooh, Baghdatis has 6-3d the second to go with the first! What is happening to Chela?
7.25 pm: No.16 seed Maria Kirilenko defeats French wildcard Victoria Larriere 6-1, 6-2. MaKiri will face Klara Zakopalovawho beat Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine by a mirror image of the same score. Ah, and Irina Begu has defeated Aravane Rezai, comfortably in the third. She’ll face Kaia Kanepi in two days’ time.
7.20 pm: Caro Woz and Eleni Daniilidou are about to get under way. Caro won their first clash back in Stockholm in 2006 while Eleni got her revenge in 2007 in Seoul. And unbelievably they have not met since then. Caro was world No.1 for over a year but suddenly finds herself struggling to stay in the top 10, such is the level of similar talent in the women’s game at the moment. Speaking of which, Serena – Razzano is 4-3, deuce on the Frenchwoman’s service.
7.12 pm: Around the grounds: Jarmila no longer Groth back to being Gajdosova is about to take the opener from Magdelena Rybarikova, while Mikhail Youzhny has taken eight of the first ten games to lead James Blake 6-2, 2-0.
7.09 pm: Serena leads 3-2 in a tight second that is on service. Elsewhere Aravane Rezai, who won on the Madrid clay just a few short years ago, came back to take the second but Irina Begu is 3-0 up in the decider. And Caroline Wozniacki – Eleni Daniilidou has just been put on Court No.1 and will start any minute.
7.02 pm: Oof. After four sets, the last one going all the way to a breaker, Juan Pico Monaco is through after Guillaume Rufin put up an almighty fight. The Argentinean No.13 seed will face Lukas Rosol in the second round after the Czech defeated another Argentinean, Carlos Berlocq in four.
6.58 pm: 6-1, 7-5, 6-0. Murray cruise controls his way past Tatsuma Ito in a mere 95 minutes. Whoosh. That was impressive. He’ll face Jarko Nieminen on Thursday in a remake of the match that the Queen watched in 2010 at Wimbledon (and which the Scotsman won in straight sets).
6.53 pm: Here's an interesting one - Baghdatis has taken the first set 6-3 from Chela. The Argentinean is a clay specialist while Marcos has never liked the red dirt, but there he is, a set to the good.
6.50 pm: Murray’s back into his first set groove and has cruised to a 4-0 lead. Elsewhere Maria Kirilenko is a mere two games away from defeating Victoria Larriere, but another French wildcard is faring a lot better. Rufin lost the third set to Monaco but is battling like a trouper in the fourth. He’s currently at 5-5, deuce on his own service.
6.41 pm: Yup, normal service. Serena breaks again to 30 with some incredibly powerful backhands and takes the opener 6-4.
6.35 pm: Serena breaks back then holds. Normal service is resumed in the blink of an eye. And after Tatsuma Ito had battled bravely to 5-5, Murray does the break-hold two-step and leads two sets to love.
6.20 pm: Robin Haase defeated Ivan Dodig for the cost of only five games! The tall Dutch Ruud van Nistelrooy lookalike will face the winner of Blake – Youzhny, which has been switched to court No.6 and will start any minute now.
6.15 pm: Virginie’s 3-1 up, Serena’s getting frustrated. Much gesturing and posturing. Virginie has struggled for the past 12 months, ever since she lost her coach and fiancé who died mere days before the tournament began last year, so she’ll definitely have the crowd behind her today.
5.59 pm: Aye aye! Serena’s on Chatrier and has got her campaign under way by being broken! Virginie Razzano came to the net and volleyed right back at the younger Ms Williams, who has won 13 clay matches in a row this season (winning in Charleston and Madrid then withdrawing before the Rome semi).
5.42 pm: Long tall Robin Haase is two sets up on Ivan Dodig. Go Bob. LUkas Rosol meanwhile has served twice for the match and had another crack at it via a tie-breaker but Argentinean Carlos Berlocq is nothing if not a battler and has taken it to a fourth set.
Ooh, 5-1. Ito's on the board.
5.37 pm: Break, hold, break, hold. Murray leads 4-0. You’re a long way from the Kyoto Challenger, Tatsuma…
5.29 pm: Nadal is through, 2, 2 and 1. A true champion's performance. He'll play Denis Istomin in the next round, who gave similarly short shrift (2, 1 and 2) to Igor Kunitsyn.
5.29 pm: Women’s No.23 seed Kaia Kanepi is through in straight sets against Russia’s Alexandra Panova. KK’ll face the winner of Aravane Rezai and Irina Begu next up – that match currently stands at 2-2. Aravane has gone back to the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy in an attempt to get back on track a season which has seen her fail to get beyond the first round anywhere and fall to No.130 in the world (fron No.15 just 18 months ago).
5.15 pm: Nadal breaks to open the third. Whoosh. And on Lenglen we have Andy Murray about to take on Tatsuma Ito. The 24-year-old from Japan is No.68 in the world, despite this being only his third Slam. He’s piled up the points to achieve his highest-ever ranking thanks to good performances in Challenger tournaments, which are a step below ATP 250s.
5.09 pm: It’s raining French victories – hallelujah! Julien Benneteau wins through in four sets over battling German qualifier Mischa Zverev. Bennet’ will now face Dimitry Tursunov, who dropped only nine games to Go Soeda this morning. The French No.29 seed may well be playing himself into a bit of form as the week progresses, though if the talented Tursunov turns up on Thursday then he’ll be in for a battle.
5 pm: Benoit Paire is through, 6-3ing the final set against Albert Ramos. Oof! He’ll face David Ferrer next up – that’ll be even more of a battle.
Rafa meanwhile is two sets to the good, breaking to seal the second set 6-2. He is standing three metres back from the baseline while Bolelli is barely a metre back but getting himself passed on a regular basis. The Italian fought throughout that set, even carving out a few break points, but Rafa – in his pink top and shoes (see above for pictorial evidence) – was having none of it.
4.45 pm: Now it's Paire who's two breaks up and Benneteau just the one. Can Julien nurse his lead home, despite his barely-healed elbow and ankle? Rafa meanwhile is 4-2 to the good, cruising.
4.37 pm: More kissing of death from yours truly. I thought Bennet’s goose would be cooked but he’s two breaks up in the fourth! He “merely” needs to serve out three times and he’s home and hosed. Paire is a break up in his particular fourth set and needs to serve out four times to join his fellow countryman in round two.
4.27 pm: Melinda Czink is indeed through against Anne Keothavong and will indeed be the second Hungarian in a row to try to defeat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Anne’s defeat means that only one of the four Brit women (Heather Watson) got through.
4.23 pm: Arantxa Rus is through – remember her from last year? She defeated Kim Clijsters, no less. Today she cruised past Jamie Hampton and set up a second-round clash with the winner of Serena Williams – Virginie Razzano, which will be on Chatrier once Rafa has finished with Bolelli (the Matador from Manacor is 2-0 up in the second).
4.09 pm: Benneteau is drawing on all his reserves of strength and has broken Zverev. The Frenchie will now serve for the third set. Benoit Paire meanwhile has let a chance slip - Ramos has taken the third-set tie-break and halved the deficit. Ooh, and Igor Andreev has retired, with the match finely poised at the start of the third. Flying Finn Jarkko Nieminen is through therefore to face either Tatsuma Ito or Andy Murray. Nieminen - Murray was the match that HRH Queen Elizabeth II watched when she went to Wimbledon for only the second time in her life in 2010.
4.09 pm: There you go, kiss of death. Nadal has broken, held and broken to make it 6-2.
4 pm: Radwanska is through! Urszula that is, the 21-year-old sister and erstwhile doubles partner of No.3 seed “Moves like” Aga. She’s ended the hopes of Pauline Parmentier and will now face Pet Kvit in the next round.
Haas is through, having finished off his match from last night, and Sergiy Stakhovsky has done likewise, ousting Alexandr Dolgopolov. Tommy and Sergiy will face off in the second round.
Lourdes Domingues Lino has also ended the New Zealand presence at the tournament by defeating Marina Erakovic. LDL will face the winner of Peng Shuai and Tamira Paszek.
3.53 pm: Bolelli’s holding out for the moment – it’s with serve after five games as the sun beats down on Chatrier. On No.1, Pico Monaco has broken Guillaume Rufin to open and I really can’t see the French wild card getting any change out of the No.13-seeded Argentinean (Rufin was the “next big thing” two seasons ago but has failed to break through). Igor Andreev and Jarko Nieminen meanwhile are about to be level at a set apiece down on Court No.17 in a battle of the “didn’t they used to be ranked a bit higher than that but never really won much?” veterans.
3.32 pm: Zverev takes the tie-break to level the match at 1-1. I don’t know if Benneteau’ll have another two sets in his tired legs, having not played a competitive match in six weeks.
Speaking of competitive matches, how’s about Nadal – Bolelli on Chatrier? It’s just started, Bolelli electing to receive (cheeky!) Bello Bolelli has never really broken through into so much as the top 50 but all of his seven Challenger and Futures titles have come on red dirt, so maybe, just maybe…
3.23 pm: Chardy is finally through, 11-9 in the fifth! By Gad but he made hard work of that. He’ll face Tipsarevic next up and won’t be able to afford any slips in that match. That clears Court No.3 for Tommy Haas as he bids to finish off his match against Filippo Volandri, carried over from last night. He’s 2-1 up in sets and 4-2 up in the fourth. Benoit Paire meanwhile is two sets up on Albert Ramos as they bid to earn a crack at Dabeeed Ferrer in the second (though why anyone would want to play him on clay, I don’t know. Thankless task).
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