Novak Djokovic completed the career Grand Slam and Garbine Muguruza captured her first major title this weekend at the French Open, but the cold, rainy weather that overshadowed the two-week tournament made it feel "like the longest Roland Garros" in years, according to NBC's Ted Robinson. Robinson said, "We've been blessed, all of us, to be here for a lot of them. This feels like the longest. It was a chore in so many ways." NBC’s Mary Carillo added, “It was the longest, coldest, clammiest, most delayed (tournament). That we were able to end on time is actually kind of remarkable” (“French Open,” NBC, 6/5). The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Tom Perrotta wrote the tourney was a "wet, muddy, miserable mess." Seats at Roland Garros were "empty, and not just during the lunch hour." Players competed "in the cold and the rain, with soggy, grubby tennis balls, for two weeks, as fans watched from beneath umbrellas" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/4). The GLOBE & MAIL's Cathal Kelly wrote it was not a "great, good or even just-average-enough-to-excuse" event. It was a "bad French Open," which, by the "typically high standards of Grand Slams, is pretty bad." Tickets for the men's and women's finals were available because "no one here seems to care all that much." People occasionally "try to introduce the idea of moving a Slam to the emerging new world," and the Grand Slam "most often mentioned is the French." It is the "least compelling of the bunch and, more importantly, the only one that feels even a bit that way." But it "won’t happen," as there is "too much corporate money on the line, too many old friends in the game to keep happy and habits die hard." In the end, the French Open’s "raison d’être may be giving tennis fans a measuring stick for their attachment to the other three majors" (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/4).
DIFFERENT FEELING IN PARIS: SI.com's Jon Wertheim wrote even with the rain and and the absence of Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal advancing deep into the tourney for different reasons, the "foot traffic was fairly heavy." However, the "fat cats/chats who occupy the prime seats are busy rubbing elbows in the sponsor tents" during play. If fans were "watching on TV," they saw the "best players competing in front of rows upon rows of vacant seats." The viewer "wonders whether the event is losing appeal; when, in fact, it's not that way at all" (SI.com, 6/5).
