Rewriting History

We knew by the time this year's French Open final was over that history would be made, but at various points during the two-day long battle the version of history we'd get changed more than a few times.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal was going after his record seventh Roland Garros crown, hoping to break the Open Era tie he'd created with Bjorn Borg last year, and he was in good shape to do it. The clay court king had put together a 16-1 record on the surface this year, picking up titles in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome, and summarily worked through his first six matches in Paris without dropping a set -- his biggest challenge came from countryman Nicolas Almagro in the quarters, against whom he needed a full hour to close out the first set.

His opponent in the final was world #1 Novak Djokovic, playing in the championship match here for the first time in his career. The record-setting Serb was looking to complete his own career Grand Slam, something Roger Federer did in 2009 and Nadal accomplished about a year later. But having won the last three Majors as well, he'd be going for the cycle too, a feat no man had achieved since Rod Laver did it in 1969. He'd struggled in his later round matches this fortnight, coming back from deficits against both Andreas Seppi and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before sailing through his semi on Friday.

With so much on the line, the match-up seemed appropriate -- the pair had combined to win the last eight Slams and played the finals of the last three. They had wracked up a thirty-two match history, dating back to 2006, and the last nine meetings had been in a championship match. Djokovic, of course, had done a lot to even the score with his contemporary in the last eighteen months, wresting the #1 ranking from him and winning seven straight matches against the Spaniard, even besting him twice on his native clay last year. Rafa had ended the losing streak in Monaco, but he's still struggled in the Majors, and hasn't won a match at one since the 2010 U.S. Open.

Still at this Slam, on this surface, Nadal was probably still the odds-on favorite. He'd only lost one match ever at Roland Garros, and hadn't even lost a set to Djokovic here. And after his comparatively easy run to the final, it wasn't too surprising that he built a 3-0, two-break lead quickly to start. But Nole came back hitting hard, evening the score for a beat before Rafa closed out the first set. He stage another comeback after going down an early break in the second, too, but Nadal took another break just before play was suspended due to rain. When they resumed a little more than a half hour later and Rafa broke again for a two-set lead, it was looking like things would be over soon.

But things turned around again. Down another break in the third, Djokovic seemed to finally find his game and rallied off eight straight games, forcing a fourth set in the process and halting Nadal's dominating form just as he looked destined to top the record books. The Spaniard managed to finally stop the bleeding and get on the board when it started raining again and play was postponed until Monday. And when the players took to the court again, the tide turned once more with Nadal immediately breaking to kick play off. The match had the potential to end quickly after that, but Djokovic stayed as tough as he could, wilting under the pressure only when trying to serve for a tiebreak and double faulting on match point.



It's a little disheartening for Nole, of course -- the chances of him putting together another twenty-seven match win streak at the Majors are low, so this was likely his only chance for the Novak Slam, while Rafa probably has a couple more Roland Garros trophies left in him and could have surpassed Borg's record in any number of future years had he not done so today. But the win did more than cement him as the Greatest of All Time on clay -- it reversed a long streak of high-profile losses to a man who'd had his number for over a year and will hopefully give him the confidence that he hasn't lost his edge. It's a good time for Nadal to take the reins, too -- with Wimbledon just two weeks away and the Olympics not long after, there's more than a good chance he's put himself on track to climb back to the top of the sport and set himself a whole bunch of new records in the coming months.

For now, though, he'll have to settle for celebrating his Lucky #7 at the French Open -- one piece of history that will likely stand a very long time.

The Era of the Grand Slam

Is it just me, or have we been seeing a lot of career Grand Slams recently?

After a seven-year drought, first there was Roger Federer with the French in 2009, a little more than a year later, Rafael Nadal did it in New York. And now we have this.

I don't know that too many people expected a much different result from today's women's final in Paris. New #1 Maria Sharapova, three times a Major winner before, took on Italian Cinderella Sara Errani, who'd never made it past the third round of a Slam prior to this year. The scoreline was one-sided: Sharapova ran off with the first four games, won more than eighty percent of her first serves in the opening set, hit more than three times as many winners as her opponent, and despite an unflagging challenge from Errani was ultimately crowned the French Open champion.



Perhaps more important than the title itself is what Sharapova accomplished with the win -- her career Grand Slam, it turned out, was a long time in the making.

A breakout star with her astonishing 2004 run to the Wimbledon title, Maria went on to pick up the U.S. Open crown in 2006 and another in Australia in '08. She rose to #1 in the world, holding the position for seventeen weeks in total, but saw her career stall when a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery kept her out of the game for nine months. Her return was well-documented, but it took a while for her to really get her stride back -- at her first Slam post-injury, she battled to the Roland Garros quarters, but needed four three-setters to do it. It took another two years before she got past a Major fourth round, and her struggles made those first couple titles seem a few light years in the past.

But things started to turn around last year. She fought her way back to the Wimbledon final, albeit without facing an opponent ranked higher than she was, and kicked off 2012 with another runner-up showing in Melbourne. After going undefeated on the red clay this season, she proved she was truly one to watch in Paris and, though she avoided potential event-ending showdowns with Serena Williams or Caroline Wozniacki, she was able to live up to those high expectations.

At seven years and eleven months, hers was the longest length of time needed by man or woman to complete the career Slam -- Chris Evert needed two months less -- but the victory is just as sweet. I'm not sure many thought she'd be the next one to complete the feat, but now she joins an elite group of seventeen that includes the likes of Serena, Steffi Graf, and of course Rod Laver. And the better news is that this might be just the start of many more records to come -- with the Olympics just a few weeks away, she might have that elusive Golden Slam in her sights too.

Tomorrow Novak Djokovic will try to one-up even that. Currently reigning champion at three Majors, he has the opportunity to complete the Nole cycle Sunday, holding the title at every Slam at the same time -- something last done by Laver in 1962. Of course he'll have to go through clay court king Rafael Nadal to do it, but if he can pull off the upset -- yes, it'd be an upset despite the Serb's #1 ranking -- that would be four completed career Slams in three years, the most prolific period in history.



Of course that won't make the achievement any less prestigious, but it sure makes the divide between the sport's elite and everybody else that much greater. And with the latest entrants (or possible entrants) into the illustrious group separating themselves from the pack, they've put up notice for anyone who steps on court with them.

Virgin Territory

We shouldn't be terribly surprised that the women's draw at Roland Garros didn't exactly follow an expected path. Still, the four ladies who battled through the semis earlier today haven't exactly been staples in the latter rounds of the French Open. And with both winners making the final here for the first time in their respective careers, we are guaranteed we're about to see something we haven't in a long, long time.

Maria Sharapova has already secured her return to the #1 ranking with her win today. Sure, she hasn't won a Major since 2008, but she was runner-up at two in the past year and has only fallen before a championship round twice this season. She was deemed the favorite at this tournament almost as soon as Serena Williams was stunningly ousted in the first round, and her chances only got better as top-seeded Victoria Azarenka and each of the last four titleists fell by the wayside. Nevertheless, she'd only made her way to the semis here once last year and, especially after her ugly fourth round against Klara Zakopalova, she still had her work cut out for her.

But today facing Petra Kvitova -- playing her first ever semi at the French -- Sharapova showed no sign of nerves. She'd already avenged her Wimbledon loss in Australia, and threw the monkey off her back with another win in Stuttgart. And though she faced break points early in the match, she stood tough to close out the first set in a tidy forty minutes. There was a little more back-and-forth in the second, but the Russian kept her game ever so slightly cleaner to get the straight-set win and reach her third Major final in twelve months. A win on Saturday would not only cement her place at the top of the rankings, but would also give her that elusive career Grand Slam, making her the first woman to complete the trophy case since Serena Williams did it with the 2003 Australian crown. So the pressure is on, and the motivation is high.



The bigger surprise at this year's final, of course, is the run of super-underdog Sara Errani who, just ten days younger than Sharapova, has never made her way into the spotlight. I picked her as a dark horse at Roland Garros this year, but even I had no idea how well she'd do. The twenty-first seed had won just fifteen Major matches through 2011, two fewer than she'd lost, and she'd never beaten a player ranked in the top ten. That all changed this season, though -- after a Cinderella run to the quarters in Melbourne, she beat two former French champions and brand-new #10 Angelique Kerber to reach her first ever Slam semi.

There she met heavy favorite Sam Stosur, runner-up here in 2010 and a woman who'd won their previous five meetings, most recently a straight set victory in Rome. Errani got down a break early in their match, but rattled off nine straight points to even the score. She kept her cool serving out the first set, but got into a big, insurmountable 0-5 deficit in the second. It looked like momentum had shifted, but the Italian got an early lead in the decider and after another forty minutes successfully served out the match, recording her second top-ten win of the week. She now becomes the first woman to play in both the singles and doubles final of a Slam the French since Kim Clijsters did it in 2003 -- and may be the first to win both since the turn of the century.



Sharapova, of course, hasn't had a great record against first-time Slam finalists recently, and with no history between her and Errani -- surprising considering their similar age and experience -- there's no way to know how they'll match up. The Russian may have the edge on the big stage, but her opponent looks neither intimidated nor exhausted from her now days-on-days of play. But with so much on the line for each competitor, you know Saturday's final is going to be a fight to the finish.

The men contesting their semis tomorrow are a little more accustomed to the pressure of a Slam championship -- they have thirty-one titles between them -- but each has a chance to make his own history. Defending champ Rafael Nadal could surpass Bjorn Borg's record by capturing his seventh Roland Garros crown, top-seeded Novak Djokovic might complete the first Slam cycle since Rod Laver did it in 1969, Roger Federer would be the oldest Major winner also since Laver in '69, and David Ferrer -- the clear dark horse here -- would be the oldest first-time champ since Andres Gomez in 1990. Those milestones will probably be far out of their minds while they go after the wins tomorrow, but that doesn't mean there's any less at stake here.

And as the six remaining contenders for this year's French Open crowns tread into waters few have been before, they should take pride in knowing just how much they're about to accomplish.

Bruised and Battered

Usually during the first week of my Grand Slam coverage, I tend to focus on the lesser-known players who get the opportunity to stand out. Whether it's due to some high-profile early upsets or the fact that their paths were cleared for them, we're bound to have a few underdogs hanging around longer than they should. By the time week two rolled around, though, we could be pretty sure the true favorites would still be standing, so there would soon be plenty of time to devote to them.

But after the battles we've seen so far at Roland Garros, we seem to have fewer of those favorites than we expected, and those that remain are a little more bruised than they've been in a long time.

Only a handful of seeded ladies made it out of the fourth round -- Serena Williams was of course stunned in her opener, world #3 Aggie Radwanska fell to 2009 French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova in a quick two sets and top-seeded Victoria Azarenka was summarily dismissed by Dominika Cibulkova, who avenged the heartbreaking loss to her Miami vanquisher. None of those those spoilers is still alive, sadly -- Domi's run ended earlier today with a straight-set loss to one-time runner-up Sam Stosur. She'll face red-hot Sara Errani, who notched her first-ever top-ten win by defeating Angelique Kerber this afternoon, for a spot in the final.

The bottom half of the women's draw was no less filled with drama -- former #1 Caroline Wozniacki and defending champion Na Li were both dispatched by arguably the longest shots left in the draw, qualifier Yaroslava Shvedova and world #23 Kaia Kanepi. And while most pundits suggested that left second-seeded Maria Sharapova as the heavy favorite to make the final, the Russian had her hands full in the fourth round. After losing just five games in her first three matches, the Russian's serve almost wholly failed her against Czech Klara Zakopalova on Monday. The pair traded serves for most of the first two sets, breaking each other a total of seventeen times. Finally after more than three hours on court, she finished off her opponent to make the quarters -- we'll see how well she's recovered when she takes on the crafty Kanepi on Wednesday. The two have never met, so there's no history to draw from, and if MaSha's wounds haven't yet healed it could be a harder-to-win battle than rankings suggest.

The men who have yet to play their quarterfinal matches have been surprisingly strong. There's no big surprise that neither six-time champion Rafael Nadal nor perennially tough clay-courter David Ferrer have dropped a set in their four rounds, and fans of Andy Murray may be relieved that early back problems haven't bothered the Scot in the latter stages of the event. But that doesn't mean everyone progressed so smoothly.

Sixteen-time Major winner Roger Federer may be one of the three men considered a contender for this title, but he's only won one of his first five matches in straight sets, the biggest fight he's had to put up this early at a Slam in nine years. Earlier today he got down two breaks to 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro, a man he's beaten in all four of their meetings this year. Shortly after he lost his first set to the Argentine since the World Tour Final two-and-a-half years ago, and an hour later he was down two sets -- more than improbable, considering the world #9 had been battling a knee problem for more than a week. But that's when things turned -- DelPo's serve began to fade and Federer took advantage. In less than sixty minutes he had forced a decider, and after getting the only break in the fifth finally closed out the match. His reward will be a record-tying thirty-first Slam semi and his ninth Major meeting with one Novak Djokovic.

But the world #1, looking to complete a Slam cycle in Paris, hasn't had the easiest time either. After sailing fairly swiftly through his first three rounds, he found himself in an unlikely two-set hole to Italian Andreas Seppi on Sunday -- one that proved difficult to climb out of. He won only half his service points in the third set, needed more than an hour in the fourth to reach a decider, where he was finally able to capitalize on his opponent's fatigue. Two days later he was put to the test again against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a man against whom he holds a tight five-to-five record. After running through the opening set and getting a break in the second, Nole was suddenly down two sets-to-one. There were no breaks in the fourth and the top seed faced match point in the tiebreak, but he was able to hang tough and with the break in the decider, finished off his second straight five-setter. He'll have to rebound quickly against Roger if he's going to avenge his loss in the semis last year. His one comfort may be that his challenger could be as tired as he is.

It's been a while since these guys have been challenged so hard, so it'll be interesting to see if they can pull it together for their next matches. Experience and strength certainly lie in the favor of some over others, but with so many unexpected casualties already on the field, there's no telling what's to come.

More Than Just Luck

We've gotten to that part in every Major where we really start weeding out the players who had some early good fortune from the ones who are the real forces. With the fourth rounds of both the men's and women's draws now set, there are of course a couple surprises, some perennial champions, and a few who might be on the verge of something great.

As is common the ladies have seen a few more upsets throughout their bracket -- though admittedly they may have been a little more shocking than usual. But the round of sixteen is stacked with likely favorite Maria Sharapova and five other Grand Slam winners still in the running. They're not entirely safe though, as some recent upstarts might be ready to make a push.

Among the longer shots is Arantxa Rus scored her biggest Slam win last year when she defeated Kim Clijsters in the second round in Paris. She's won just two main draw matches at the Tour level since then and got a bit of a break in her French Open return when Virginie Razzano precluded a second round meeting with Serena Williams. Still the twenty-one year old has proven herself strong, earlier today dispatching a strong-looking Julia Goerges in the late-night match. And Yaroslava Shvedova, a quarterfinalist here two years ago, dropped well off her once-top-thirty ranking thanks to injury and illness. After dominating her qualifying rounds, she's fought past some tough clay courters to make the fourth round. And young Sloane Stephens, one of the two Americans -- men or women -- remaining in the draw, has yet to drop a set in Paris. If any of these ladies is going to advance further they'll have to raise their games, but what they've shown so far gives them some hope.

At a slightly higher level is Sara Errani, three times a titleist already this year. Currently ninth in the race to the WTA Championships, she finally scored a win over a top-fifteen player when she took out 2008 champion Ana Ivanovic on Friday. She'll have to dismiss another former Roland Garros titleist if she's going to stay alive, but as the higher ranked player against Svetlana Kuznetsova, she may just have the advantage. And Kaia Kanepi, a quarterfinalist here four years ago, seemed to get her season back on track with a win today over former #1 Caroline Wozniacki. The Estonian, trying to come back from her own set of injuries, squandered a 5-1 lead in the second set and failed in her first four attempts to serve out the match. But after nearly three hours of play she was finally able to close it out. She'll meet Rus for a spot in the quarters, certainly less of a threat than she'd otherwise face, so she could have one of her greatest opportunities yet.

The men's draw has boasted slightly fewer upsets over the course of opening week. Sure tenth seed John Isner failed to win his second marathon and Major staples like Andy Roddick and Jurgen Melzer failed to make it out of the first round. But the true favorites are still alive -- all four players who've won every Slam since Melbourne in 2005 and most of the ones who've made the finals over that period. Even still a couple players have posted some strong results and might put up bigger fights than we expect going forward.

The only non-seeded player left in the draw actually has already lost in Paris this year. World #109 David Goffin dropped his last qualifying match, but gained entry into the main draw once Gael Monfils pulled out. He went on to take out Radek Stepanek in his opener and subsequently dismissed veterans Arnaud Clement and Lukasz Kubot in his first Slam appearance. It'll probably be as far as he goes, with a fourth round date with Roger Federer looming, but it's not a bad showing for the young German Belgian. It'll be also be tough for Marcel Granollers to keep up his own streak. The twenty-third ranked Spaniard has already spent nearly twelve hours on court to reach his first ever Slam fourth round, and the highest-ranked player he's faced so far was world #94 Malek Jaziri -- a far cry from countryman David Ferrer, whom he'll take on next. Still, he's gaining much-needed experience on the big stage, and it could bode well for his future. With neither likely to stick around much longer in Paris, it will still be important for them to turn their wins into an even more successful summer.

With slightly better chances of staying alive -- though maybe more like minuscule -- Juan Monaco could be flying a bit under the radar. The Argentine has already won two titles this year -- not surprisingly, both on clay -- and made a stellar run to the semis in Miami. His five-set slug-fest with Milos Raonic today allowed him into his first French fourth round since 2007, and though his reward is a meeting with six-time champion Rafael Nadal, he's shown he might be capable of throwing a few punches in too. And Nicolas Almagro, who himself added two clay court titles to his trophy case this year, has now won seven matches and seventeen sets in a row on the surface. He's the on-paper underdog against Janko Tipsarevic in the sweet sixteen, but with his confidence on dirt he might just be in the better position come Sunday's match.

Time may or may not be running out for these guys at this year's French Open -- some certainly have a higher chance of surviving than others -- but their performances so far show they have a little more on their side than just luck. Hopefully, whatever their prospects here are, they'll be able to take that with them the rest of the season. And one day we could see them really breaking into the sport's elite.

While You Were Otherwise Occupied...

Grand Slams make for great headlines, don't they?

"Serena Williams stunned at French Open." "Murray beats Nieminen and the pain barrier." "Victoria Azarenka narrowly avoids shock exit." "John Isner is tennis's marathon man again."

And while all these matches were well worth watching, and perhaps have held some of the most dramatic and awe-inspiring moments of the French Open so far, there have been just as many players sneaking through there draws with little or no fanfare. And maybe their victories deserve a little more notice as the fields get narrowed.

Janko Tipsarevic comes to Paris with his highest ever seeding at a Slam, but he had been a little quiet since his stellar 2011. It wasn't as though he was losing to a lot of triple-digit players, but he didn't quite keep up the momentum that brought him his first two titles at the end of last year, and his best performance came only last week in Dusseldorf, where he and compatriot Viktor Troicki brought the World Team Championship home to Serbia. Tipsarevic started off slowly in Paris, losing his first set to Sam Querrey, but he came back swinging and improved his record against the American with a four-set win. Earlier today he rallied after an early service break to clay court specialist Jeremy Chardy and earned his ticket into the third round. Maybe the least-discussed player in the top ten, he's certainly shown he can be something to talk about this week.

Julia Goerges had possibly fallen even further off the radar in recent months. The #17 seed here last year, she's fallen out of the top twenty after failing to defend a title in Stuttgart or a semi showing in Rome. Though she's notched wins over Marion Bartoli and Caroline Wozniacki this year, she hasn't made quite the splash she did in 2011 and few pundits were considering her a threat at Roland Garros this go-round. But the German survived a tough opener against Madrid semifinalist Lucie Hradecka and barreled through her second round against young Heather Watson today. Her next round should have been played against heavy favorite Serena Williams, but with perennial spoiler Arantxa Rus taking out the woman who took out Williams, Goerges's prospects are looking a whole lot brighter.

Somewhat of a longer shot is thirty-four year old veteran Tommy Haas. Once ranked as high as #2 in the world, a diet of injuries and illnesses and "old"-age pushed him out of ranking territory by this time last year. But after reaching the semis in Munich and battling through three qualifying rounds in Paris he was back in the main draw. He dropped a bagel set to Filippo Volandri in his first round, but had relatively little trouble today against Sergiy Stakhovsky, where he pounced on weak second serves and converted on nearly sixty percent of his return points. Next up he faces hometown favorite Richard Gasquet, over whom he holds a two-to-one career record. Those matches were a long time ago, though, so it'll be tough against the seventeenth seed. But we should know better than to count anyone out.

I guess that means I shouldn't give up on my New Year's pick to win the ladies' title here quite yet. Like Tipsarevic, Dominika Cibulkova ended the 2011 season with her career high -- that elusive maiden title in Moscow -- and then promptly failed to deliver through the early part of this year, winning just four matches in her first eight events. She finally started to show some spunk in Miami, but after that heart-wrenching loss to world #1 Victoria Azarenka I worried she might not be able to pick herself up. She finally started to turn things around on the clay, though, making the final in Barcelona and beating Yanina Wickmayer in Brussels. And so far at Roland Garros she's been on point, losing literally just a handful of games in making the third round. Tomorrow she'll face unseeded Maria Jose Martinez who earlier vanquished Lucie Safarova and won both the pair's previous two meetings -- ironically, both in Moscow. But if the diminutive Slovak plays up to her ability, she could make a real push for Week Two.

It's been a while since Fernando Verdasco got that far at a Major. Somewhat surprisingly seeing the most success at the hard court Slams, he hasn't reached as far as the fourth round since Australia last year and saw his ranking fall out of the top twenty in the latter half of 2011. The Spaniard started to pull things together in the late winter, though, pushing to the final in Acapulco and stunning Rafael Nadal in Madrid. So far in Paris he fought off an early break to Steve Darcis and stayed tough after losing the first set to Gilles Muller on Wednesday. On Friday he meets Belgrade champion Andreas Seppi, a man who may have momentum on his side. But Verdasco has won all six of their previous matches, in fact losing just one set in their eight-year history, so it might be his opportunity to really make a statement again.

But maybe the player with the best opportunity at the French is 2010 runner-up Sam Stosur. Like so many recent Grand Slam winners, she hasn't followed up successfully on her U.S. Open crown -- she lost the first round in Melbourne and only made the semis at two events this year -- and though still seeded sixth in Paris, she was mostly overshadowed by higher profile names. But she's been quietly making quick work of her opponents so far -- Stosur handed Elena Baltacha a bagel in their second set and took out rising American star Irina Falconi in just over an hour on Wednesday. Tomorrow she'll have her eighth career meeting with Nadia Petrova, often a spotty player, but one who's put up some thrilling three-set battles against the Australian in their last two matches. They too have never met on clay, where Stosur is arguably more comfortable, and a win on Friday could do wonders for her the rest of the tournament.

With so much attention being paid to the big stories of the week, it's been easy to miss some of the more quiet players as they methodically do their jobs. Who knows? It might just work to their advantage as the hard-fought struggles of their potential foes keep the pressure off them. And while we're all too busy looking elsewhere, any of these guys could take the opportunity to really surprise us.

The Days That Shook the Earth

Well it's official -- you can never tell what's going to happen at Roland Garros.

With one round's worth of action in the books, I'm not sure whether we've had any more or fewer upsets than in previous years, but we've sure seen some results none of us could have expected. And the surprises just got bigger and bigger over time.

On day one Andy Roddick took the court against co-marathon man Nicolas Mahut in one of the matches I pegged as a potential upset. The American tried to rally a bit in the third set, but it was all for naught as his opponent -- who'd only won one match in his nine Paris appearances -- took him out in the fourth. A day later world #1 Victoria Azarenka nearly became the fifth straight Major winner to take an early plane home from their subsequent Slam when she found herself down a set and two breaks to current #103 Alberta Brianti. But the Belarusian, no stranger to digging deep, found a way to rally and rattled off six straight games, winning twelve of the last fourteen to notch the win.

But of course the biggest shocker came earlier today when Madrid champion Serena Williams, widely thought to be the favorite here despite her fifth seed, essentially crumbled at the hands of veteran Virginie Razzano, a woman who's lost in the first round here seven times. Securely in the lead at 5-1 in the second set tiebreak, the 2002 champion was two points from the win when she things turned south -- she lost six straight points and the set and watched Razzano, who lost her fiancé just before this tournament last year, run off to a 5-0 lead in the decider. Four games later Williams was walking off the court, her earliest ever exit at a Major. And for her efforts the Frenchwoman, who has beaten the likes of Kaia Kanepi, Marion Bartoli and Maria Sharapova in the last couple years, gets her first second round at her home Slam since 2009.

It may not seem like a lot -- after all, the top fourteen men's seeds are still alive, and the three guys who most expect are the only real contenders for the title each sailed through their openers. And all recent winners of the ladies' trophy as well as favorites like Maria Sharapova and 2010 finalist Sam Stosur have had little trouble advancing. But that doesn't mean there aren't more surprises in store, and the hopefuls that are able to best take advantage could see rewards even they were never expecting.