Kleybanova out
Women's no.23 Alisa Kleybanova seed has been forced to pull out of this year's French Open due to illness. Her place in the main draw is taken by lucky loser Anastasia Pivovarova, who will face qualifier Nuria Llagostera Vives in the first round. With the draw having already taken place, it is too late for the seedings to change correspondingly, so there will be no no.23 seed in the women's draw.
Tsonga and Stosur to open proceedings
For the second year in a row, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has the honour of getting the men's tournament under way in the "Sunday Start", a concept which was introduced in 2007 with an increasing number of matches played every year since then. Tsonga will face Czech Jan Hajek, world no.121, on Philippe Chatrier. Before that however, we will have none other than Australian Sam Stosur, the 2010 finalist, taking on elegant Czech Iveta Benesova. David Ferrer and Stuttgart winner Julia Goerges will also play on Centre Court, while Jelena Jankovic, Lleyton Hewitt and Julien Benneteau are scheduled to play on Suzanne Lenglen.
Nadal versus Murray already…
Court no.4 was taken by storm at 11 o'clock on Saturday morning when Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray decided to knock up together, to the delight of the many youngsters in attendance at what is Roland Garros kids' day. Novak Djokovic, Jelena Jankovic and Kim Clijsters all had training sessions on the outside courts, with "the Djoker" also living up to his nickname on Centre Court during his exhibition match with Michael Llodra, which ended up with the Serb taking over from Bob Sinclar and spinning the wheels of steel while the Bjorn-Borg lookalike DJ got to play a few points.
Bartoli scare
After finally making the final of a WTA tournament in France for the first time in her career, Marion Bartoli was forced to pull out of the Strasbourg championship match against Germany's Andrea Petkovic after losing the first set due to a thigh injury. The top-ranked Frenchwoman and no.11 seed is scheduled to play on Monday, meaning that she and her team will no doubt be spending a nervous 48 hours between now and then.
