TENNIS THREAD - The clay season is in full swing, and it's onwards to Roland Garros!

[Raahh]

Shiny new thread.

Hopefully we will see some players return from injury in the next few weeks.

Munich/Istanbul in play this week amongst other tournaments.

Madrid week beginning the 7th (hopefully with Delpo playing)

Have just checked the playing order for today - we haven't got a hope in hell of seeing Delpo or Rafa. With three Brits playing today, ITV4 are going to be like a dog with two tails -we'll have to watch Norrie and Watson and Edmund (not to mention Murray and Soares in the doubles) before they will even deign to acknowledge that "other nationalities are also available".

I really take for granted the coverage of Wimbledon the BBC provides until I'm trapped on ITV4 for the French, watching weirdly shot matches where you can't really see what's going on because their favourite camera is the one which sits behind the server looking down on them from a high angle.

Came on here to write your post, OnlyLivingBoy.

Having looked at the order of play I am hoping that by about 4pm all the 'Brit' matches should be over & we will see someone else.

Eurosport is my channel of choice and plays on two channels. They do favour the Brits but I can't remember the last time they didn't show a Rafa or Roger match when they could.

Theonly it's really frustrating. As a non-Murray fan, (though he's fine off court, seems perfectly pleasant), I really appreciate a tournament where every 5 minutes we don't see a video of him, or a picture of him, or someone mentions him gratuitously. (I think Andrew Castle is paid to do this). It ruins Wimbledon for me a bit.

I have been watching more Eurosport this year, which I don't usually do, (because I prefer the ITV4 commentary of Fabrice or Jim Courier.( But the scheduling on ITV has been dire. Yesterday was so good. The matches were amazing, best day so far- but we wouldn't have seen half of them if the Brits were playing.

Although I was watching Eurosport, and someone on there mentioned a fair few times that the Norrie match might not get played last night, because other matches were taking so long. Seemed quite obsessed about it at one point- so maybe it's seeping over to Eurosport too! .

John Inverdale is really fishing for his own quiz show.

I've been attacked by midges while hanging the washing out

Close match for Shapovalov at the moment. But he looks fairly relaxed about it. Foggy seems to have got up on the right side of the bed, looking at the scores.

Kyle is playing,early days.

Midges are not good, Jane. I'm already dreading flying ant day. I was infested twice last year- it was horrific. I couldn't seem to find the actual source of where all the nasty things were coming from. It was like a horror film.

How is anyone who isn’t British doing please?

I'm British and watching Shapovalov. Kyle's match looks very one sided anyway, Fucsovics has only just woken up in the second set . (Maybe he's on Foggy time?)

Fucsovics looks like he should be flying a spitfire.

He's also suddenly decided to play.

Annoyingly , Eurosport have taken off Shapovalov to show Thiem, and the Shappy match was really good.

No wonder people's attention span isn't what it used to be

Lots of today turvy scores again, Edmund just lost the second 6-1 and Gasquet is 4-1 down after easily taking the first set.
Cilic is serving for the match I think.

bloody hell- I've got the Norrie match now!

I want to watch the Shappy match

Marterer is about to cause an upset and beat Shappy. In fact he just has.

Which is good for Rafa, he was in his quarter.

Apparently the only seed left in Rafa’s half of the draw is Gasquet.

Not that that means anything in this topsy turvey tournament at the moment

Have decided that Zverev is my new Rafa Replacement (need to line one up; he won’t last forever) after seeing his response to the Yorkshire journalist at the press conference

Theonly what did the journalist say? I missed that!

I've had to go shopping. Was hoping the Gasquet match would last a little longer, but I haven't missed much.

Rafa needs to sort his serve out. I know he has improved it, but It makes me nervous. I have switched back to ITV for this, as it's Frew on Eurosport. He irritates me.

I've just looked up Zverev's press conference, how sweet was he!

Just watched. Very funny.

Rafa going well so far.

Pella played well in the first set, but Rafa means business now.

This is more like it from Rafa!

he's going to want to get this over with, if it's raining.

Looks like normal service has resumed for Rafa - hope I’ve not jinxed him.

I loved Zverev’s press conference - especially as I’m from Yorkshire

Need to catch up on what else has been happening today.

I think Thiem is going to be my Rafa replacement (as if there could be one!) I’m glad that Thiem’s hair seems to have grown - his last haircut was quite severe especially when he was wearing an all black outfit.

Hurrah! that was a better match. First set took a while but then it was much better.