French Open: Early Rounds

The first two rounds of the French Open are complete, and from the original multitude of players we are now down to 32 men and 32 women competing for the prize.  A few top players have survived scares (Nadal, Zvonareva, Sharapova) while others, most notably Clijsters but also Berdych and Melzer, actually crashed and burned.  The number of seeds in the tournament has been reduced to 43.  Here are the 21 who are gone.

Men:
6) Tomas Berdych (CZE), R1
8) Jurgen Melzer (AUT), R2
11) Nicolas Almagro (ESP), R1
19) Marin Cilic (CRO), R1
20) Florian Mayer (GER), R2
22) Michael Llodra (FRA), R1
24) Sam Querrey (USA), R2
26) Milos Raonic (CAN), R1
27) Marcos Baghdatis (CYP), R2
28) Nikolay Davydenko (RUS), R2
32) Kevin Anderson (RSA)

Women:
2) Kim Clijsters (BEL), R2
18) Flavia Pennetta (ITA), R1
19) Shahar Peer (ISR), R1
20) Ana Ivanovic (SRB), R1
22) Dominika Cibulkova (SVK), R1
23) Alisa Kleybanova (RUS), W/D
26) Nadia Petrova (RUS), R1
27) Alexandra Dulgheru (ROU), R2
31) Klara Zakopalova (CZE), R1
32) Tsvetana Pironkova (BUL), R2

So what stuck out to me as a typed was a) there's quite a few competent players and b) only Russia and Czech Republic have more than one player in this list of doom (the men are all from different nations), so 18 different countries are represented.  Back to point a, we have already lost 2 defending semifinalists (Melzer and Berdych), a quarterfinalist (Almagro), a previous French champion (Ivanovic), the winner of the last two slams (Clijsters), an '09 semifinalist (Cibulkova), an '09 quarterfinalist (Davydenko), and several other competent players.  It seems like a more memorable list of early losers than usual.

I've been tracking the fates of the slam seeds since AO 2009 and looked back that far to a few notes of interest.
-Kim Clijsters (2) is the highest seed to lose in the first or second round.
-Tomas Berdych (6) is the highest men's seed to lose in the first round.  Schiavone (5) and Stosur (6) were early losses on the women's side ('10 Wimbledon).
-Five men and six women were first round casaulties.  That is worse than the three men and four women who lost very early at this year's Australian Open.
-Looking at the past two French Opens, five men and three women lost very early in '10, while six men and seven women were round 1 victims in '09.
-Expanding to including the first two rounds, 11 men and 10 women are already gone.  That compares to 10 men and 11 women gone by this time at this year's Australian Open.
-Again looking at past French Opens, similar fates befell only 6 men and 8 women in '10, and 8 men and 14 women in '09.

So somewhat similar results to past slams, though the men with a slightly high number of departures.  I imagine my next post will be after the quarterfinals are set.

I was on vacation last weekend so here's a brief wrap-up of last week's champions, to give them at least some of their earned due.

-Dusseldorf, Germany:  Germany def. Argentina 2-1 in team cup competition.
-Nice, France:  Nicolas Almagro (ESP) def. Victor Hanescu (ROU) 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3

-Brussels, Belgium:  Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) def. Shuai Peng (CHN) 2-6, 6-3, 6-3
-Strasbourg, France:  Andrea Petkovic (GER) def. Marion Bartoli (FRA) 6-4, 1-0 ret.

Third title of the year for Almagro and 5th in about 10 months, 4th title of the year for Wozniacki, and first title since 2009 for Petkovic.

In Fed Cup action, Bahamas and Venezuela advance from Americas Zonal Group II to Group I.  The Fed Cup season should be complete except for the final, but the Japan/Argentina World Group II Playoff was postponed until the 2 weeks after Wimbledon due to the earthquakes in Japan so I'll wrap up the Fed Cup season and give you the new groups at that time.