A shocker of a day for tennis

Today’s two biggest shocks at Roland Garros were delivered by two Argentine players.

Both players have sponsorships with Disney, but these were no Mickey Mouse performances.

Qualifier Nadia Podoroska beat No. 3 seed Elina Svitiolina to become the first ever qualifier at Roland Garros to reach the semi-finals.

Diego Schwartzman also beat the No. 3 seed in the men’s draw, Dominic Thiem, who won last month’s US Open.

The only Mickey mouse behaviour today came from the Roland Garros management who allowed Rafa Nadal v Jannick Sinner’s match to go on court at 22.16 local time, on a bitterly cold night with a chill wind making the “feels like” temperature much lower.

12-time Roland Garros champion Nadal was scheduled last on the main court and when he started his match the temperature was 13C with a cold wind sweeping the clay off the court, whose roof was left open throughout. Nadal almost ran headlong into his opponent’s chair.

“The weather… it’s too cold to play tennis. I know football players do it all the time but they’re always moving while us tennis players, we stop, we come back, there’s the changeover,” Nadal told a news conference after his 7-6(4) 6-4 6-1 win against Italian teenager Jannik Sinner.