Since Sky took the broadcast rights for WTA and refuse to put any decent replays up, I’ve not been watching as much tennis as I used to. It’s a shame, but it also means when I do get to subscribe to Discovery for a month to watch the French Open, it’s a real treat. Watching the players running around the orange clay courts whilst listening to Radio Roland Garros, what a fab way to spend two weeks.

We’re halfway through, and I already have some thoughts to share about what’s been going on in Paris, so here goes:

• I so love listening to tennis on the Radio. Radio RG and Wimbledon Radio are the best way to get coverage of what’s going on across the whole tournament, with or without added visuals. The Roland Garros app has been a bit hit and miss for this first week, the stream keeps stopping and starting and I keep having to restart the app to get it to work. But it shows how good the coverage is that I perservere! And it’s improved a bit towards the end of the week so hopefully the next few days will be perfect.
• Controversies galore, the talk has all been about why there are no women’s matches scheduled for the night sessions, and tournament direct Amelie Mauresmo is sick of talking about it by now. Her argument is that people need to get their money’s worth and if a woman’s match goes by in two quick sets, that’s not the value she wants. But isn’t that the risk you take watching live sport? You don’t know what the outcome is going to be when you buy tickets, that’s the whole joy of it. Besides, Djokovic played the night session and it was only two hours, so what’s the difference?
• The other topic of conversation has been the line judges, which are now a rarity as tennis moves more and more to electronic line calling. I’m all for the technology myself, but I can see why people like having the human touch there. I could definitely do without the umpire getting up and down off their chair to look at ball calls though, simply because they never change their mind from looking at the clay. They make the call, they stick with it.
• Meanwhile, in terms of the actual matches, I won’t go into too much detail for spoiler reasons, but there’s been a lot of great play out there. I usually stick to the women’s matches but caught the end of the Draper/Monfils match which was outstanding. It turned me into something of a Draper fan, as he has a great variety in his game, so will keep an eye on him in future.
• We’ve had lots of three set matches on the women’s side, very few bagel sets it seems. Everything is quite open, and with Queen of Clay Swiatek having a bit of a wobble, the title is up for grabs. I can’t wait for the next week to see how it all pans out!