2016 French Open Preview: 10 things to know

It is that time of the year on the professional tennis scene where all eyes will be focusing on the second Grand Slam of the year, The French Open played at Stadium Roland GARROS in Paris, France. Stay connected with The Peach Review® as we will cover the daily matches from day 1 of the main draw to the final round.  In order to help new and familiar tennis fans, we have created an awesome  list of 10 things you need to know about the 2016 French Open:

1) 2015 Defending Champions:

a. Men’s Singles: Stan Wawrinka, Switzerland
b. Women’s Singles: Serena Williams, United States
c. Men’s Doubles: Ivan Dodig, Croatia and Marcelo Melo, Brazil
d. Women’s Doubles: Bethanie Mattek-Sands, United States and Lucie Safarova, Czech Republic
e. Mixed Doubles: Bethanie Mattek-Sands, United States and Mike Bryan, United States
f. Other categories include: boys and girls singles, boys and girls doubles, men’s and women’s wheelchair singles,men’s and women’s wheelchair doubles, legends of tennis men’s doubles and women’s doubles.

2) Men’s Draw Projected Singles Quarter-Final matchups:

The singles tournament starts with 128 men in the draw and to win the tournament you have to win 7 matches, the quarter-final round is the 4th match.  To win a match you play the best 3 out of 5 sets with no tie-breaker in the fifth set.

#5 Kei Nishikori vs #2 Andy Murray

*Players Absent: Former Champion Roger Federer and France’s own Gael Monfils withdrew with injuries.

3) Women’s Draw Projected Singles Quarter-Final matchups:

The singles tournament starts with 128 women in the draw and to win the tournament you have to win 7 matches, the quarter-final round is the 4th match.  To win a match you play the best 2 out of 3 sets with no tie-breaker in the fifth set.

#6 Simona Halep vs #2 Agnieszka Radwanska

*Players Absent: Former Champion Maria Sharapova and Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki

4. Darkhorses – These are players who are ranked outside of the top 8 in the world who are strong players that  can beat some of the top players and perhaps win the tournament:

Men: Dominic Thiem, David Ferrer, Fabio Fognini, Alexander Zverev, John Isner, Nick Kyrgios, David Goffin and Pablo Cuevas

Women: Madison Keys, Dominika Cibulkova, Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens, Eugenie Bouchard, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelana Ostapenko and Sabine Lisicki.

5. Players from the United States to watch:

Men: Donald Young, Brian Baker, Taylor Fritz, Rajeev Ram, Jack Sock, Steve Johnson, Sam Querry and  Bjorn Fratangelo

6. United States Television Coverage:

1) The Tennis Channel
2) ESPN
3) NBC

7) The winner of the Men’s and Women’s singles will each receive $2.36 million dollars (US).

8) Roland Garros Clay Courts:

The Roland Garros surface is characterized as “red clay”, the courts are in fact surfaced with white limestone covered with a few millimeters of powdered red brick-dust. Beneath the 3-inch layer of porous limestone is 6 inches of volcanic rock, followed by a 3-foot layer of sand, all of which rests on a slab of concrete. Crushed brick is pressed onto the limestone surface with rollers, then drenched in water. The process is repeated several times until a thin, compact layer coats each court.

9) Youngest French Open singles Champions:

Men: Michael Chang, United States 17 years and 4 months

-Desmond Mclennon

TPR