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Hot dogs don't always hit the spot

ESPN staff
June 1, 2011
Juan Ignacio Chela tried everything to beat Andy Murray © Getty Images
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Small Margins
Those involved in the game of tennis will tell you that the final step to becoming a world top-10 player is always the hardest. A matter of inches can make the difference between being a Tour force and a mere number. Where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal succeed when attempting the flamboyant hot-dog winner, others fall agonisingly short. Juan Ignacio Chela exhibited the point in his French Open quarter-final with Andy Murray, getting everybody off their seats with an outrageous hot-dog attempt, but the ball dropped an inch wide of the line as the Argentinian went packing from the competition.

Miraculous Murray
Up a set and a break against Chela, Murray found himself trailing 15-40 in his first service game of the second set. The turning point came when Murray chased down a tricky lob before firing an unreturnable backhand from a ridiculous position. Putting his injured ankle through the ringer, Murray set off towards the baseline at a rate of knots. For all his endeavour, it looked to be a lost cause as the ball bounced deep in the court but Murray somehow caught up with it and, facing the opposite direction, he swivelled and punished a backhand down the line which Chela could only deflect into the tramlines. Predictably, Murray clawed his way back from that point, winning the game to consolidate his break.

From Russia with love
Maria Sharapova looked a woman on a mission as she bulldozed her way into a first grand slam semi-final for more than three years. The three-time major champion was at her destructive best as she ruthlessly dispatched Andrea Petkovic 6-0 6-3 on Wednesday, claiming the opening eight games before overcoming two breaks to seal her place in the last four. The Russian's dreams of winning a fourth slam are very much alive and Li Na has her work cut out if she is to stop the Russian juggernaut in their semi-final showdown. Sharapova, seeded seventh, is aiming to become the 10th woman to complete a career Grand Slam, having won the Austrailan Open in 2008, Wimbledon in 2004 and the US Open in 2006, and one man thinks the French Open is hers to lose.

Times tennis correspondent Neil Harman said of her display: "That was a very emphatic performance. From the off Sharapova was striking her ground shots with venom. She has looked extremely confident and if she can sustain this level she is in there with a great chance of completing that Grand Slam set."

Ominous signs
Usually Rafael Nadal is so dominant at Roland Garros that attention is not even paid to his early-tournament form. However, after losses to Novak Djokovic in Madrid and Rome the Spaniard made a hugely shaky start to his defence of the French Open, hitting back from two sets down to beat John Isner. He then uncharacteristically dropped 14 games in three sets against Pablo Andujar, but that is where the rot seems to have stopped. Antonio Veic took just four games off the world No. 1, Ivan Ljubicic was swept aside in round four, and on Wednesday Nadal produced his best performance of the competition to destroy Robin Soderling. The Swede has reached the final in his previous two years, but he won just four games in the opening two sets before losing the third on a tiebreaker. Murray has been warned.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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