Joyeux Nole!

by Moose

Another day, another Serb. Feeding off, as Janko Tipsarevic has tagged it, the “positive jealousy” that seems to be what all fashionable Serbs are sporting this year, Novak (Nole) Djokovic joined his female compatriots in the Roland Garros semifinals this morning with a straight set thrashing of Igor (Eye-gor?) Andreev. That makes the Serbs the dominant nation in this French semi, landing three of the final eight spots (that groan you just heard came from the British LTA, who are rapidly learning that money and coaches still can’t buy your way out of the first round). To highlight the emergence of this “powerhouse” nation, one of the questions to Novak in his post-match presser:

Q. I'm from a third-world country called the United States, and we're very envious of Serbia.

A lot of people were expecting the Andreev/Djokovic match to be more of a battle, with Andreev having the Slam run of his career, and Novak having had difficulty with a few of his earlier matches. But if there was a battle fatigue factor, it came down on the Russian’s side of the court. As the match wore on, Andreev’s serve percentage dropped, and the aggressive play that served him so well up to this point in the draw seemed to tail off. Still, credit Andreev for a tremendous run in only his second Slam appearance following knee surgery that kept him off the tour for six months in 2006.

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