The French were packed into the bullring-shaped No. 1 court Saturday, screaming from the upper deck, chanting in the lower, yipping and yapping for one of their own and trying to unnerve Robby Ginepri, the lone American left at the French Open.
They didn’t have a scintilla of success.
No more bad body language. No more wild shots from 10 feet behind the baseline.
This was Reinvented Robby out there, playing cerebral tennis with one part finesse and one part sheer power, methodically taking apart Florent Serra 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to push on to the round of 16 against Fernando Gonzalez.
It’s probably one round too early to declare Ginepri back to the form that carried him in one spectacular fortnight to the semifinals of the 2005 U.S. Open. But the evidence of his rebirth after two largely vacuous seasons is on the red clay.
He still has enough blast in his right arm to play muscle tennis. But now he’s mastered the concept of forcing errors instead of trying to win points in one big bite.
Ginepri credited coaches Jose Higueras and Diego Ayala for reordering his way of playing on clay.
“Before I had no clue how to construct points or what kinds of shots to hit when I was in trouble, or how to serve and what sets up what,” he explained.
Against Serra, he was in near total command of his serve from start to finish.
He was broken only once, right after he had broken to open the second set.
Saturday’s highlights
MEN, SYNOPSIS
Ivan Ljubicic d. Nikolay Davydenko 4-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4
Fourth-seeded Davydenko highest mens seed to lose so far. Ljubicic, the 28th seed, came from two sets down for the fourth time in his career.
David Ferrer d. Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
Hewitt, who missed all the clay warm-up tournaments with a hip injury, couldn’t hold off 5th-seeded Spaniard and had 51 unforced errors.
Roger Federer d. Mario Ancic 6-3, 6-4, 6-2
The top seed moved comfortably into the fourth round, beating the last player to defeat him at Wimbledon, back in 2002.
Gael Monfils d. Jurgen Melzer 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-0, 6-2
Monfils rallied to join four other Frenchmen in the Round of 16, the highest number since 1971. Monfils won 8 straight games in the fourth and fifth sets.
WOMEN
Maria Sharapova d. Karin Knapp 7-6 (4), 6-0
Top-seeded Sharapova needed 81 minutes to win surprisingly competitive first set and needed to rally in tiebreaker before asserting control.
Svetlana Kuznetsova d. Nadia Petrova 6-2, 6-1
Fourth-seeded Russian rolled over her countrywoman in 69 minutes. Kuznetsova won 60 of the 97 points contested.
Elena Dementieva d. Olga Govortsova 6-0, 6-4
The 2004 runner-up needed barely over an hour to advance, despite having just two winners for the entire match.
Dinara Safina d. Jie Zheng 6-2, 7-5
Safina, the 13th-seed and sister of Marat Safin, can match her best French result, the quarters in ’06, with another win.
