French Open Day 5

Another rain-soaked day in Paris. There was actually not very much that got done today, so a lot of my excitement from yesterday carries over. But fortunately for the tournament organizers, they did get through all of the 2nd round matches from the top of the draw, so there aren't any of those held over. That would have been a real problem - as it stands, things probably won't get any worse, assuming that the weather starts to cooperate. If it continues to give us trouble, things could get interesting.

As it stands, there are only two 2nd round matches from the bottom half of the draw which were played to completion - Andy Roddick's and his next opponent's. Other than that, players from the bottom half either have to finish their match tomorrow, or they haven't even started yet. But it was a good win for Andy Roddick - except for a stretch of 8 points after the first rain delay where he was broken to lose the second set, the American was in control of the match. He may have been broken 7 times, but he was almost always in the lead. A good win for the American. And things are really getting better for him - his next opponent is also ranked outside the top 100, and they'll get an extra day of rest compared to the other plays in that half of the draw. He could make a little run here.

Since we're also playing all of the third round matches from the top half tomorrow, that makes for some interesting match-ups on an action-packed Friday. Two of the best matches are Andy Murray against Marcos Baghdatis and JW Tsonga against Thiemo De Bakker. When all's said and done, I expect that De Bakker may have the best clay-court career of these four players, but he's also the least accomplished at this point. None of the other three consider it their specialty, but all of them have a lot to gain this year.

Svetlana Kuznetsova will have to play better than she did on Wednesday to win against 30th seed Maria Kirilenko, but the defending champion has a shot. Federer has a much better chance against German surprise Julian Reister. In fact, I would put his chances at just about 100 percent. Expect the defending champions and the rest of the favorites - Serena Williams against Julia Goerges, Justine Henin against Kristen Flipkens, and Rafael Nadal against Horacio Zeballos. Zeballos will be a much better test for Nadal than Gianni Mina was, but Nadal will really have to be off his game for the Argentine to win.

Also, Robin Soderling plays Albert Montanes. Soderling has been playing imperious tennis thus far, and Montanes has not been at his best since beating Federer earlier in the year to defend his title in Estoril. But based on career performance, I'd call Montanes the better clay-court player. Leonardo Mayer is alos the better clay courter than Marin Cilic, and he's been in pretty good form. That could be another tough test for the young Croat. Finally, Mikhail Youzhny takes on Viktor Troicki, which has the potential to be another great match. These are all on court 3 by the way, so if you wanted to camp out there, it would not be a bad idea.

In a rematch of a tight affair from last week's tournament in Dusseldorf, John Isner takes on Tomas Berdych. Their last match was topsy-turvy, but I think that both players will be trying to play more solid, consistent tennis tomorrow. Another match to watch is Stan Wawrinka against Fabio Fognini, who managed to outlast Gael Monfils today 9-7 in the fifth. And Seppi-Kohlschreiber, plus Ferrer-Malisse... Plenty of exciting tennis. But here's hoping that the weather cooperates, or things could get really problematic.