SEEING double.
Joao Sousa, the Portuguese clay courter who Andy Murray takes on in the second round here, is easily confused with Joao Souza, the 26-year-old Brazilian player who fell to Daniel Gimeno-Traver yesterday. Whether the two Murray siblings are quite so easy to get mixed up is another matter. Sousa's warm-up for taking on Andy in the singles on Thursday is a showdown with Jamie in the doubles on Wednesday.
SOUSA, incidentally, is a man of the world. He speaks six languages - Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French and English. This, evidently, is still not enough for some people. The transcript records this line of questioning. Q. "I'm working in Luxembourg. There is a large Portuguese community in Luxembourg. Do you know Luxembourg?" JOAO SOUSA: "No."
RAFA has instigated a rebellion against the umpire. The Spaniard has insisted that Carlos Bernardes doesn't take charge of any of his matches at Roland Garros this year, after a blazing row with the official in Rio in February when he had the temerity to pull him up for endlessly futering about with his shorts. Rather shamefully, the Spaniard is likely to get his way. There is absolutely no truth to the suggestion that Stevie McLean is being specially flown in to occupy the chair for his next round match, with Alan Muir as line judge.
ECCENTRIC Frenchman Benoit Paire looks ahead to his unpredictable second round match-up with the equally erratic Fabio Fognini. "I think he's more crazy than I am," Paire said. "I'm quite crazy myself ... but he can be worse."
TAYLOR TOWNSEND, one of Andy Murray's favourites, has an anecdote to throw into the diary's ongoing travel section. Specifically it relates to whether or not to stay at Airbnb, a kind of internet accommodation rental craze. "We were in New York, and the guy walked outside and he greeted and he had no shoes on first," she recalled. "Then he told us when we were in the elevator, I hope you like cats. We're like 'Yeah, cats are fine'. Then he was like 'but you can't let down the toilet seat because the cat uses the toilet'. So we were like, 'Ha ha. No. We are leaving'."
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