tennis

I've been watching the French Open, I suppose more commonly known as Roland Garros. There are quite a few different tennis players that I like to watch. Of course, there are all of the Canadians: Bianca Andreescu, Leylah Annie Fernandez, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov. New in the first round this year was also Canadian Rebecca Marino, but she lost in her first round match against American Coco Gauff.

Of the five of them, only Annie and Felix have made it to their fourth round match, both of which are being played tomorrow. First Annie is facing American Amanda Anisimova and Annie faces a good chance of winning the match based on how she has been playing. Unfortunately, Felix is playing Spain's Rafael Nadal who is favoured to at least make the final. Felix's match is immediately after Annie's on the primary court (Court Philippe-Chatrier). Her match starts at 6h EDT, so likely I'll get to watch the whole match, but his match will start likely at about the time I have to leave for church, so I won't get to watch it apart from perhaps the first one or two games, and if Felix manages to win a set, perhaps the last few games.

By making it to the fourth round, both Annie and Felix have won €220,000 and if either of them manage to get to the next round, the quarterfinal, that jumps to €380,000. Annie is 19 and Felix is 21 years old; it is just amazing at their ages they are earning so much.

Other athletes I follow are Greece's Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas, American Jessica Pegula and  Poland's Iga Swiatek who is ranked number 1 and is overwhelmingly favoured to win. Of course I'll watch the Rafael Nadal and Serbia's Novak Djokovic matches, as well as Russia's Medvedev and Rublev.

Sometime in the future I think it would a fun trip to go to Paris and attend a couple of days of events; maybe I'll look into this for next year.