Roland Garros, Day 2

For our second trip to the French Open, we learned from our previous errors in judgement, as follows: 1) we left the apartment a full hour earlier than on Tuesday so as to arrive right when the gates opened, an hour before the matches start and 2) we walked over to the opposite side of the grounds to an entrance that not many people seemed to know about. As a result of this good planning, here are the Miller brothers in their seats at around 10:30, a full half hour before the scheduled start of the days activities:

Yes, we really were that close to the courts. Although a lot of good it did us. At about 10:55, this is what our view mainly looked like:

And we sat there, in those exact seats, for the next 4.5 hours, waiting and hoping for the rain to stop. We stayed in those seats because they are absolutely the only ones on the grounds that are under any kind of shelter. Hence the umbrellas. It turns out that rain showers are very cyclical. It kept almost stopping, so we'd get our hopes up and make some comment about the sky being lighter, and people across the way would take down their umbrellas. Then, suddenly, it would start absolutely pouring all over again. Finally, the below happened:





As you can see, the men with the squeegee brooms were met with huge rounds of applause. Finally, we could get under way! And it was amazing and entirely worth the 4 hours of waiting without being able to even go to the bathroom. My two favorite photos are these:

Both women in the middle of their serving motion. The velocity of the ball is lost on TV - it's amazingly fast. So I think a good day was had by all. It did start raining again so we bailed after seeing the women play for about an hour and a half, but I think we all got exactly what we wanted out of the day. Plus, it's an epic story. Now I can say that I've really been to the French Open. My new life goal is to make it to the 3 other Grand Slams eventually. I think I'm off to a great start.