I just wanted to post about this because I’m so sick of doing the “another top seed on the WTA tour loses early!” posts. (You’ll notice I skipped the Safina/Venus lament yesterday.)
Juan Martin del Potro, world No. 5 and Tokyo’s top seed, lost to world No. 189 Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the first round of the Japan Open on Tuesday: 4-6, 4-6. It was the French qualifier’s first match win on the ATP tour since July of 2008.
This is a bad loss, but still not as bad as Dinara Safina’s defeat to No. 226 Shuai Zhang in the second round of Beiijing on Monday – the worst ever loss by a reigning WTA No. 1 in terms of ranking.
Here’s what Del Potro said afterwards (via the BBC):
“I didn’t feel 100 per cent. Everybody could see that. I had a little bit of jet-lag and a stomach ache but that’s not the reason I lost.”
That’s what we call a “here’s-my-excuse-but-it’s-not-really-an-excuse-so-don’t-say-I-make-excuses-excuse.”
The Japan Open is more like the French Open – of the top 8 seeds, 3 are French (Monfils, Tsonga, Simon) with Roger-Vasselin, Richard Gasquet and Fabrice Santoro rounding out the 32-man draw.
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