Schedule nonsense at Bercy on Day 2: on Court Central (14 500 seats): Chardy, Mathieu and Llodra. On court 1 (300 seats): Dimitrov, Melzer, Cilic, Dolgopolov, Querrey and Verdasco. So as you guessed it, I spent most of the afternoon on Court 1.

Grigor Dimitrov vs Jurgen Melzer

The first match on Court 1: “Baby Fed” Dimitrov against 2010 French Open semifinalist Jurgen Melzer.
Both players had a disappointing season: Melzer’s ranking fell from 8 in 2011 to 30 this year and Dimitrov is around the top 50.

7-6 6-2 for the 21 year old Bulgarian.

Jerzy Janowicz vs Marin Cilic

Janowicz beat Dmitry Tursunov and Florent Serra in qualifications and then Philip Kohlschreiber in the first round.
He produced another shock result to dump out 13th seed Marin Cilic. The Polish qualifier (2.03m) won his battle of the giants against the Croatian 7-6 6-2 to set up a third-round clash with Andy Murray or Paul-Henri Mathieu.

Igor Sijsling vs Alexandr Dolgopolov

And another upset! Qualifier Igor Sijsling from the Netherlands beat last week’s Valencia runner-up Dolgopolov.

Sam Querrey vs Fernando Verdasco

4-0 after 8 minutes for Querrey. Verdasco retires at 1-6 1-1. He should have stayed home instead of making this cameo appearence.

Kei Nishikori vs Benoit Paire

Following Verdasco’s retirement, Nishikori‘s match was moved to Court Central.
One of my goal on Day 2 was to watch Nishikori so, mission accomplished. Nishikori is quick, has solid groundstrokes and good hands. An elegant tennis player, nice to watch.

Nishikori defeated Benoit Paire in straight sets but unfortunately had to pull out of his third-round match against Gilles Simon because of a right ankle injury.

In the stands

Arnaud Di Pasquale (first row, left) and Arnaud Clément:

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