French Open

Mens Tournament

The biggest news of the tournament came in the form of world number 1, Rafael Nadal, whose unbeaten run at this Grand Slam Tournament coming to an end at 31 matches with an upset defeat to Robin Soderling in the fourth round.

Although there have been a number of speculations about the reasons for Nadal's loss, including the fact that Nadal may have been injured, in my view, Soderling was exploiting Nadal's weakness with his gameplan. Soderling's gameplan was similar to Novak Djokovic's gameplan in Madrid - to take the ball early and out shotmake Nadal. This worked at the French Open for Soderling as Nadal was hitting a bunch of short balls which gave Soderling an opportunity to step into the baseline and he went for his shots. This was evident due to the 61 winners and 59 unforced errors by Soderling. What is shocking about this result is the fact that the two men met a few weeks before in Rome on clay with Nadal taking that match 6-1 6-0.

Such a loss would have a great effect on the confidence of Nadal, and it will be interesting to see how he is able to come around this defeat.

Other top players did not have much success at the red clay in Paris either. Fourth seeded Novak Djokovic was ousted in straight sets in the third round by Philipp Kohlschreiber, while number three seeded Andy Murray lost to a firey Fernado Gonzalez in their quarter-final encounter.

As a result, Roger Federer became the sixth man in history to win all four Grand Slam singles titles when he produced an exceptional performance to defeat Swede Robin Soderling 6-1, 7-6(1), 6-4 in the final. Victory for Federer also saw him tie Pete Sampras’ all-time record of 14 major singles titles.

Federer's path to victory was not without hiccups, as he had to come back from two sets down to beat Tommy Haas 6-7(4) 5-7 6-4 6-0 6-2 in the 4th round, and Haas was actually 5 points away from winning that match.

Federer is now in a prime position to also regain his Wimbledon title and his win at the French will provide him with the confidence he has been lacking in the past year. What a difference a few months makes.

Women's Tournament

The two in-form player on clay, world number 1 Dinara Safina and No.7-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, met in the final of the French.

Since ascending to the world No. 1 ranking on April 20, Safina compiled a win-loss record of 20-1, with her only loss to Kuznetsova in the Stuttgart final. Since then, she went on a roll, winning 16 straight matches - the longest winning streak on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour this year, and including a revenge win over Kuznetsova in the final of Rome.

Kuznetsova has been impressive throughout the tournament, beating a trio of fellow seeds - Agnieszka Radwanska, Serena Williams and Samantha Stosor in 3 sets, each time dropping the middle set before coming back to win the third.

In the final, a No.7-seeded Kuznetsova was just sharper than No.1 seed Safina, who hit seven double faults and lost her serve six times. Safina seem to be too nervous, and cracked under the pressure of playing in another Grand Slam final. Kuznetsova was, in contrast, cool, calm and collected, and after a tight first set and tight start to the second set, she burned through four games in a row to complete a 64 62 title victory.

The issue for us to consider is whether Safina has the mental ability to win a major in the future.

Another point to note is the resurgence of Stosor, who made it all the way to the semi-finals and the emergence of up-and-coming player, Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia who also made it to the semi-finals.