TENNIS in DEPTH.

Richard Gasquet’s  plea to have his French Open first-round match with Andy Murray postponed fell on deaf ears.

Gasquet asked tournament referee Stefan Fransen to stage the clash on Tuesday after he suffered a leg injury winning his first ATP title in more than three years on Saturday.

But Fransen refused to make an exception for the Frenchman, who beat Fernando Verdasco in the Nice Open final.

Gasquet is understood to be upset with the decision, claiming before a second appeal was turned down that it would be unfair to force him to play within a day of his arrival in Paris from France’s south coast.

However, moving his and Murray’s match to Tuesday would almost certainly have meant the victor playing two days in succession at some point during the tournament.

It is unclear how seriously Gasquet’s left leg is troubling him, although he twice required on-court treatment during his 6-3 5-7 7-6 (7/5) win.

That result was a 10th victory in a row for the former world number seven, who won a Challenger event in Bordeaux last week.

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Gulbis was a seeded casualty on Sunday’s opening day of the tournament – being forced to quit his clash with Julien Benneteau while two sets down.

The 23rd seed appeared to tweak muscle in his upper thigh during the second set, although by that stage he was already a set and a break down against an opponent playing some impressive tennis.

The Frenchman has been inspired by playing at his home Grand Slam in the past – he made the quarter-finals here in 2006 – and that was the case again as he took the first set 6-4.

Gulbis tried to fight on after lengthy treatment in the locker room but was unable to prvent Benneteau winning the second set 6-2.

And when Gulbis was broken in the opening game of the third set he decided enough was enough and offered his hand to his opponent.

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Has France found what it has been looking for since Amelie Mauresmo has retired?  Now in the WTA Tour’s Top 20, Aravane Rezai has lit a fire under the French in what has been for years a dimly lit, flickering flame.

Rezai surfaced with perfect timing as Roland Garros quickly approached, and now the crowd has a hometown hero to stand behind. She powered her way to the third and biggest Tour title of her young career, beating Venus Williams in straight sets in the final of the Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open. However, it was when Rezai defeated perhaps one of the best clay court champions of all time, Justine Henin, in their Madrid opener, that the French began to take notice – and Rezai hasn’t let them look away.

Rooting for Rezai may have become their only option, but she has made it well worth their while. Rezai beat two Top 10 players in the same week – Jelena Jankovic, Williams – bringing her career tally to four Top 10 wins. Rezai defeated Williams in the final at Madrid in straight sets, 62 75. She made her way through as an unseeded player showing a confidence and resolve that put together a string of big wins. Down 2-5 in the second set against Williams, Rezai rallied, saving six set points to take a one-hour, 14-minute second set.

The 23-year-old is proud to be Iranian and speaks several languages including English, Persian and French. She captured two medals at the Muslim Games in Iran, but right now she is as French as it gets. Tennis fans around France will be passionate, all of them hoping that France’s flame will continue to burn, and Madrid might have been a preview of what is to come at Roland Garros.

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Defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova overcame a sluggish opening to get her French Open title defence off to a winning start.

Sorana Cirstea – a quarter-finalist in Paris 12 months ago – was a tricky first-round opponent, especially for a player who arrived a Roland Garros having lost three straight matches on the WTA Tour.

And the early stages of the contest on Court Philippe Chatrier suggested a shock could be on the cards.

The Russian lost her opening service game and was soon 3-0 down as the errors flowed from her racquet.

However, she soon settled down and rattled off six straight games to turn the set around, winning it in 38 minutes.

Victoria Azarenka, the 10th seed, became the first big-name casualty at this year’s French Open on Sunday.

The Belarusian was thrashed 6-1 6-2 by Argentina’s Gisela Dulko on Court Suzanne Lenglen at Roland Garros.

Azarenka has been suffering with a groin injury of late and clearly was below her best against an opponent ranked 34 places below her in the world at 45th.

Her serve came under constant threat – she was broken five times in total – as Dulko dominated affairs.

It was a sorry way to go out for Azarenka, who made the quarter-finals at this tournament in 2009.

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Richard Gasquet signalled a warning to Andy Murray ahead of their meeting in the first round of the French Open on Monday by winning the Nice Open.

France’s Gasquet, 23, recorded his 10th successive win as he took the title with a hard-fought 6-3 5-7 7-6 (7-5) victory over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco.

The Frenchman, the world 68, had been trailing 3-0 in the deciding set but fought back to win the tie-break.

Gasquet is in fine form, having won a Challenger title in Bordeaux last week.

“I’d like to thank the fans who really helped me in the third set,” said the former French number one said after sealing his eighth career title in Nice.

Gasquet is sure to pose British number one Murray, who has been seeded fourth, a stiff test when the two men meet at Roland Garros.

The 23-year-old Scot won their last encounter, a dramatic five-set thriller at Wimbledon in 2008, having lost their two previous meetings.

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Maria Sharapova captured her second title of 2010 with a straight-set victory over Germany’s Kristina Barrois in the final of the Strasbourg International.

The top-seeded Sharapova rallied from a deficit in the first set before rolling in the second to complete a 7-5, 6-1 triumph. She notched her 22nd career WTA Tour title and second in her last four events, having captured the Memphis tournament back in February.

Sharapova has played just five events this year because of elbow problems. She was a first-round loser to fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko at the Australian Open and lost in the first round to Lucie Safarova last week in Madrid before finishing her French Open prep work with a solid week of play.

The former world No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam champ will be the 12th seed at the French Open with a first-round match against qualifier Ksenia Pervak. Sharapova was a quarterfinalist at Roland Garros last year and has also reached the semifinals once, but the French is the only Grand Slam that has eluded her.

In her first career WTA final, Barrois held a 4-2 lead in the first set, then won only two more games. Sharapova completely dominated the second set, winning 25 of the 34 points played.

Prior to this week, Barrois hadn’t been past the second round in any event this year. She’ll play Italy’s Tathiana Garbin in the first round at the French Open.

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Roger Federer acknowledges he and Rafael Nadal are even stronger favourites than usual for the French Open due to injuries to two of their main rivals.

Last week’s Madrid Masters final was the first time Federer and Nadal had squared off for a year and, such is their current form, the expectation is they will meet again at Roland Garros on June 6.

Two of the biggest obstacles to that have also been removed, with top-six stars Juan Martin del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko out injured.

And defending champion and world number one Federer admits this makes the prospect of a fourth final clash with Nadal in five years even more likely.

“I guess we’re the big favourites this year, maybe more this year than in the past,” the 16-time grand slam champion said ahead of his opener against Austria’s Peter Luczak.

“He knows that we both need to be careful and play well at the beginning of the tournament, and then we’ll see.

“No matter who is the favourite, what’s important is who is the winner at the end.”

The 28-year-old added: “It’s hard to pick anybody right now to say ‘if Roger and Rafa are not going to win, who else will it be?’.

“The reason behind it is that Davydenko and Del Potro are missing, because they were potential title contenders.

“But, then again, there are guys who have played very well. I think a lot of the Spaniards have had a great claycourt season.

“Many of them have not been in a grand slam final. When you have not been there, it’s hard to obviously pick one of those guys.”

The Swiss singled out world number three and former Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic as the biggest threat to a Federer-Nadal showdown.

“Novak belongs also as one of the favourites here, even though he hasn’t maybe played to the level people were expecting him to play,” he said.

“But he’s won a grand slam before. He’s had the most consistent claycourt seasons as well in the last three or four years or so.

“It seems like he has that solid game that allows him to go deep here in Paris.”

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Top seed Maria Sharapova will face unseeded German Kristina Barrois in the final of the Strasbourg International after a busy day’s play on Friday.

Sharapova, who beat Julia Goerges in her delayed quarter-final in the morning, beat Anabel Medina Garrigues 4-6 6-2 6-2 to secure her final spot.

In the other semi-final, Barrois came from a set down to beat America’s Vania King 2-6 6-2 7-6 (8-6).

Sharapova reached the last four with a 7-6 (7-2) 6-1 win in her earlier match.

Her aim was to gain match competition and to have plenty of time on court. She achieved both goals, and even though the event lacked any top players, she looked in better form than she was 3 months ago. She will be a tough opponent at the French Open for somebody!

Picture montage courtesy http://sharapova.xoom.it.

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