I thought it was going to be impossible to follow the French Open this year when I pitched a daily blog to Newsweek.Com. I'm still waiting to hear back from them by the way. Tennis has been on a steady popularity decline in the U.S. In its heyday in the mid-80s, you could catch all the major clay court events leading up to the French. This year no one even televised the final of the German Open at Hamburg, when Federer beat Nadal to end his clay-court match streak. Meanwhile, you can watch college golf, bass fishing, and unlimited quantities of ultimate fighting, none of which were available in the 80s. On Monday morning, though, I flicked on the TV and lo and behold there was something called The Tennis Channel , and it was free!

Yesterday was last day for Americans at the French Open. All eight of them are finished. The only real surprise in that bunch was James Blake, who had a real chance to do well and looked totally out of sorts against the Croatian Ivo Karlovic. Americans were historically awful in Paris, never having won in the open era until Michael Chang did it as a 15 year-old in 1989. That seemed to break the curse...

The first weekend of the French Open is still underway because Saturday's matches were mostly canceled due to rain. The setup coming into the tournament was really all about looking forward to a Nadal-Federer final, but the reality is that the French Open draw contains 128 players and the probability that it will unfold as predicted is partial. The French has a reputation of being a place for upsets, which is mainly the result of the fact that the ATP ranking system does not accurately reflect clay court prowess until after the tournament. The players, though, know who will be hard to beat.

The French Open has a history of treating the world's number one players badly. In my lifetime only Borg and Lendl have fared well from the top spot. This year, Roger Federer, perhaps the best male tennis player in the game's history, will again attempt to conquer the surface that is so uncompromising to tennis's best all court players by defeating his young nemesis, Rafael Nadal, the two-time defending French Open champion and undoubtedly the world's best clay court player.