candlestickmaker

we've been watching a bit of the french open - specifically the women's final yesterday and the men's today. francesca schiavone won the women's final in a bit of an upset over samantha stosur. they referred to each other in the after-match speeches as "frank" and "sam" which sound a bit like the butcher and the baker. whatever. okay. so, here's a pic of schiavone. she's 65" short, a fiery little italian lady whose appearance - rather than precisely fitting the tennis courts - more precisely place her in the alley behind the trattoria, throwing out the fish heads, with a sigaretta dangling from her bocca. the camera caught her several times delivering the message "i will cut you!" in her sideways glances. her spirit was unmatched by the reserved and rather robotic sam stosur, a 69" tall australian surfer. sam's built rather like a brick house and compared to frank's wirey build, you'd have to favour sam as the likely winner. we of course cheered for the underdog. as the match progressed, it became increasingly obvious that frank's confidence was going to carry her through - she just got stronger and stronger, making smart plays to stosur's weaker backhand and maintaining a diligent focus on returning stosur's serve. schiavone was down in the second set 4-1 and came back to tie it up 4-4. the set & match ended in a tiebreak with schiavone taking the 5 final points straight up to win 6-4, 7-6 (2). schiavone was ranked 17th in the world; stosur, 7th. schiavone turns 30 later this month, making her the oldest woman since 1969 to win her first grand slam. stosur is 26. last year in the first round of the french open, stosur beat schiavone. this year, the tables turned.