2015 Williams Watch-The French Open Starts

The second major of the 2015 international tennis calendar is here in the French Open. It started on May 23 and will run until June 7, and is being contested on the clay courts of Roland Garros in Paris.

Once again my fave tennis playing siblings are in France to handle their tennis business.  

Serena came in holding the world number one ranking and the number one seeding.  She came to Roland Garros looking for her third French Open title,  her 20th overall and keep a calendar year Grand Slam alive, but was battling an elbow injury.

Meanwhile big sis Venus was seeded 17th and facing a tough opening round match with Sloane Stephens. Venus' tournament stay was unfortunately a short one as she was ousted in the first round by Stephens 6-7 (5-7) 1-6.

As most people in the tennis world know, clay is not one of Serena's fave surfaces, and if you ant to knock her out of a tournament, you have to catch her early in the first week of a tourney before she gets on one of those rolls that ends with her waving to the crowd and holding up another championship trophy.

Meanwhile Little Sis got her opening week at Roland Garros off to a good start with a straight set 6-2, 6-3 win over Andrea Hlavackova.   

But her second round match with Germany's Anna-Lena Friedsam was a little more difficult.   She dropped the first set 5-7, but roared back to take the second and third sets 6-3, 6-3  to move on to a third round battle with Victoria Azarenka

Azarenka took advantage of another slow start out of the gate by Serena to take the first set 3-6..  Azarenka was up 4-2 in the second set until Serena woke up and took the next four games to take the second set 6-4 to even the match.  A pissed off Azarenka jumped out to a 0-2 lead in the third, but Serena raised her game another level, took the next five games to put herself firmly in control and sen Azarenka packing with a 6-3 third set win and punch her fourth round ticket.

Serena's fourth round opponent is the same Sloane Stephens who knocked her big sis out of this tournament tomorrow, with a quarterfinal berth on the line 

Winner gets the winner of the Sara Errani-Julia Gorges match.

TransGriot Update.  Serena knocked off Sloane Stephens 1-6, 7-5, 6-3  and will face Sara Errani in the French Open quarterfinals.