[amongsttheleaves]

Andy Murray would be the first to admit that his opening match of th 2017 French Open was far from perfect, but in a match where the objective was merely to win his first match in three weeks he will have been pleased at least with the final result. Russia's Andrey Kuznetsov didn't prove to be quite the difficult opponent many had expected and in the final set he quietly crumbled. Even with the lost second set, the match felt like it was firmly on Andy's racquet, or perhaps mostly dependent upon the level of his engagement and focus.

Still audibiy dissatisfied with his movement on the clay, with erratic court positioning, and some lingering uncertainty in his serve, the match proved to be a good opener featuring some prime moments of Murray Magic, and the third set featured some of the best tennis the world number one has played since last November.

Martin Klizan awaits in the second round, coming through a tempestous five set battle, during and after which his French opponent accused him of being disrespectful and unsporting. The Slovakian was seen celebrating aggressively after a double fault gave him a set, and suggestions were he also faked injury at one point. At the end of the match Lokoli refused to shake hands. Klizan isn't always the best behaved player on tour, but rather than explosive tantrums his behaviour is often outright bizarre and clownish. In a semi-final match in Rotterdam against another Frenchmen - Nicholas Mahut - in 2016 he started randomly performing gymnastics along the baseline.

Andy and Klizan have faced each other once, in Vienna last year, where Andy looked poor in the first two rounds, dropping sets to Simon and Klizan, but ultimately found a way to win. Left-handed Klizan has a lot of firepower in his forehand and is certainly capable of causing enough trouble to take a set or even two, but ultimately he struggles against the top players when it comes to the moments which decide a match.

There is an argument to be made that clay could be Klizan's best surface. It is the only surface upon which he has a positive win-loss record, and three of his five titles have come on the surface, though because of the number of tournaments played on hard court it is unsurprising that he has won more matches on hard than clay. Reaching the second round of Roland Garros has been his best slam result since reaching the second round at Flushing Meadows in 2015. Klizan has a high average first serve percentage this season - 67% - and he likes to attack his opponent's second serve when the opportunity arises, winning on average 51% of second serve return points. On clay this season he has converted 46% of break points.

The match will be played on Thursday 1st June, second on court Suzanne Lenglen, at an estimated start time of 1pm local time, 12 noon BST, and 6am CDT. The weather is forecast for sun and cloud, with highs of 27 degrees Celsius, an easterly wind of 6mph, and humidity of 42%.

Thanks to Bev for the head-to-head.

[Ruthie]

Thanks for the info on Klizan.   Apparently he is getting over an injury, having pulled out of his last 3 tournaments, but I think what was at issue yesterday was how he played up the injury just at certain key points of the match, when he wasn't doing so well.   I can see why his opponent felt his behaviour generally was disrespectful.  I hope Andy gained confidence and rhythm from his first round match.  Although the first two sets were pretty dispiriting, it was encouraging to see that magic switch click on in the 3rd set and I think I've read that he felt his movement was improving towards the end.  Let's hope he can carry on where he left off tomorrow and not go back to the kind of tennis he was playing in the first 2 sets.  I'm sure he'll be suitably wary of Klizan, injured or not.  
One further thought:  I don't think the French will have taken very kindly to his behaviour towards one of their countrymen yesterday so that could increase the support for Andy (who seems to have a fair bit of support anyway among the French) though the danger is they're all off having their lunch at that time   

[Aileen]

What Andy has to say about Klizan and the match -

"He has a lot of talent ... He can hit a big ball. He is quite unpredictable on the court. He plays a lot of drop shots and quite unorthodox sort of shot selection, so it can be difficult to prepare for that.  Obviously I saw a few videos of his match. It was pretty entertaining. Hopefully I can go out there and play some good tennis and make it tough for him".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-4558924/Andy-Murray-trains-Ivan-Lendl-French-Open-tie.html

Andy also says, in another article, that he's still coughing, but that talking makes it worse, so hopefully he won't be doing much talking on the court!

[moonglow]

Best of luck Andy, please win!

[Ruthie]

I agree circe  and bbh what I read was that although he was still coughing, Andy actually said he was feeling better and hoped he was now over all the illness and injury (as his elbow felt ok too). Fingers crossed that's the case and he can carry on where he left off on Tuesday. I'll probably not be able to watch all of it as I'd promised to go canvassing this afternoon.

[Elly]

I've locked voting a little early on the poll because I've got a physio appointment.

Full transparency: both Andy's losses to Coric happened when I had a physio appointment...

  It'll be all your fault! 

[Elly]

Ha!

Actually I've just realised that I was following the scores for the wrong women's match, and the match before Andy is still going.

I should be out of the physio before Andy starts.

It's 3-2 in the third.  Could take some time yet.  Crack on, girl! 

[Aileen]

At last the ladies have finished.