Today’s two biggest shocks at Roland Garros were delivered by two Argentine players.
Both players have sponsorships with Disney, but these were no Mickey Mouse performances.
Qualifier Nadia Podoroska beat No. 3 seed Elina Svitiolina to become the first ever qualifier at Roland Garros to reach the semi-finals.
Diego Schwartzman also beat the No. 3 seed in the men’s draw, Dominic Thiem, who won last month’s US Open.
The only Mickey mouse behaviour today came from the Roland Garros management who allowed Rafa Nadal v Jannick Sinner’s match to go on court at 22.16 local time, on a bitterly cold night with a chill wind making the “feels like” temperature much lower.
12-time Roland Garros champion Nadal was scheduled last on the main court and when he started his match the temperature was 13C with a cold wind sweeping the clay off the court, whose roof was left open throughout. Nadal almost ran headlong into his opponent’s chair.
“The weather… it’s too cold to play tennis. I know football players do it all the time but they’re always moving while us tennis players, we stop, we come back, there’s the changeover,” Nadal told a news conference after his 7-6(4) 6-4 6-1 win against Italian teenager Jannik Sinner.
