{"id":4347,"date":"2012-06-12T15:53:19","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T07:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=4347"},"modified":"2012-06-12T15:53:19","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T07:53:19","slug":"favourites-triumph-the-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2012\/06\/12\/favourites-triumph-the-french","title":{"rendered":"Favourites triumph @ the French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Maria Sharapova<\/strong> and <strong>Rafael Nadal<\/strong> were crowned <strong>French Open <\/strong>Champions at Roland Garros in front of star studded adorning fans.<\/p>\n<p>Sharapova joined the greats of the game, becoming just the tenth woman in history to win a career Grand Slam. The Russian beauty came out swinging and played attacking tennis until the very last point, beating a gallant <strong>Sara Errani<\/strong> 6-3; 6-2. Sharapova\u2019s victory has seen her climb back to the No. 1 position, the first time in four years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nadal cemented his name as the \u2018King of Clay\u2019 after a four set win over No. 1 <strong>Novak Djokovic<\/strong>. The win marks the Spanish stars 7<sup>th<\/sup> title at Roland Garros, the most-crowned man of the open era at the French Open.<\/p>\n<p>After 3 hours of play and an extended rain delay, Nadal returned to court the following day and took just 50 minutes to re claim his title, taking down Djokovic 6-4; 6-3; 2-6; 7-5.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sam Stosur<\/strong> led the Australian charge. Reaching the women\u2019s final on clay in 2010 she appeared hungry to go one step further. It was however, not to be. The Queenslander went through the tournament unscathed without dropping a set before meeting Italian Sara Errani in the Semi-Final where she went down in 3 sets 5-7; 6-1; 3-6<\/p>\n<p>As a consolation prize for Stosur, her semi-final appearance has seen her rise above <strong>Serena Williams<\/strong> to hold the number 5 WTA ranking.<\/p>\n<p>On the WA front, <strong>Casey Dellacqua<\/strong> went down in the opening round to eventual finalist Sara Errani in 3 sets. She then teamed up with Russia\u2019s <strong>Alexandra Panova<\/strong> in the Women\u2019s doubles but was bundled off the clay by Australian duo <strong>Jarmila Gajdosova<\/strong> and <strong>Anastasia Rodionova<\/strong> in the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> round.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matthew Ebden<\/strong> also exited the tournament in the opening round. Losing to an inform <strong>Phillip Kohlschreiber<\/strong> of Germany in straight sets. Ebden went on to make the Men\u2019s doubles quarterfinals with American young gun <strong>Ryan Harrison.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The tennis world\u2019s attention now shifts to grass with Wimbledon commencing later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal were crowned French Open Champions at Roland Garros in front of star studded adorning fans. Sharapova joined the greats of the game, becoming just the tenth woman in history to win a career Grand Slam. The Russian beauty came out swinging and played attacking tennis until the very last point, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":4348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}