Bonjour everyone….I’ve been in Paris two weeks now and it feels like I should have my French citizenship. (But just in case you’re wondering….I’m still travelling with the “Green Mamba” aka, the South African passport.* You put that bad-boy down at immigration and everybody jumps back – WOAH!) Anyway, my tournament has come to an end – a loss in the finals. That’s two finals in a row for me, it hurts a little but Id take another final next week if anyone is offering one to me! (anyone…?)

My partner, known as “Big Dick” on tour due to his HEIGHT made his first grand slam final. At 38 yrs old, he decided to concentrate on doubles. The good thing with that is that he (and I) will probably make a good amount of money this year – the bad thing is that he’s probably lost an easy $2 mil in his career by not playing more doubles. He’s improved quite quickly over the last few months and we hope to continue to improve as a team.

Wow – two weeks in Paris is a long time when you don’t speak the language. You start doing strange things when you’re on the road too long! Like my wife who forgot something in our room. She knocked on the door and wasn’t phased by a Chinese man opening the door. She pushed past him and said, “Oh, are you cleaning the room?” He said “No” in perfect English and my wife continued into the middle of the room looking for something. The room looked a bit strange to her at which point she looked back at the Chinese man and saw on the door that she was on the wrong floor! She left sheepishly without the Chinese man saying anything.

I have a question….Perhaps more of a statement. (And this is true not only for the French Open.) Why do INTERNATIONAL tournaments put very-little-English-speaking people answering phones for players wanting to book transport and practice and airport pickups? A usual conversation will start off (always) with the name. Who? Moodie. M O O D I E. “Spell it.” (my favourite) M…O…, “M U” The conversation just gets worse from there….so that means I sometimes don’t get picked up at all or they arrive and ask for Mudei, sometimes Mirnyi and even Dlouhy.

So…on to tennis. Federer is one match away from the French Open title. I wonder how he slept last night – probably not great which is a good thing because he’ll be too tired to get nervous. I give Soderling a 1% chance of winning and Federer a 99% chance of being the greatest player ever. The last time he lost before a semi final was against Guga when he won it. Lets hope Federer remembers that he’s playing against a righty and not Nadal the Lefty in the final. I’d hate to see him covering the lefty slider out to the backhand on the return which he’s become accustomed to doing in the final at Roland Garros.

Au revoir!

* A Green Mamba is a highly venomous snake found in Southern Africa.