The third day of Roland Garros saw surprising upsets, unfortunate injuries, and, of course, some great tennis. Tommy Haas and Nicolas Almagro, both tipped as potential challenges (relatively speaking, of course) to Rafael Nadal, could not complete their respective first sets as they succumbed to injuries that did not allow them to compete further. Haas’ shoulder seemed to give up in extreme fashion. Hopefully he can recover and make another resurgence in his injury-riddled career, but this one looked bad.

Honor Roll:

David Ferrer:  Ferrer was doing Ferrer things, frustrating Igor Sijsling with his impeccable defense and perfect counterattacking as he cruised to a 6-4 6-3 6-1 victory. Ferrer showed us last year here that he can reach the final. He proved this year in Monte Carlo that he could beat Nadal. Is he the favorite to win this tournament? Far from it. But when he is in this type of form, you can bet that he is making the entire field very nervous.

Jack Sock:  His opponent, Almagro, was injured and did not even play a full set of tennis. But whatever was bothering Almagro, you couldn’t see it from watching the match. He hit some poor shots, but mostly the 5-0 lead for the American was caused by Sock’s incredible play. Sock was blasting the ball from the baseline and mixing it up with a few beautiful drop shots and volleys. This match was well on its way to being a breakout performance from Sock, even had Almagro been able to finish it.

Laurent Lokoli: We have to give some major props to the 19-year-old French qualifier. He took advantage of this great opportunity and a fortunate draw against Steve Johnson, a top-100 player who is not at his best on clay. Still, Lokoli is quite the underdog but seemed to make a real breakthrough here. He played strong clay-court tennis and won the first two sets in fairly impressive fashion in his first-ever ATP match. With the retirements of Haas and Almagro, he has a legitimate chance to reach the fourth round in this now-wide-open draw if he can finish off Johnson tomorrow. Even if he can’t, this was still quite an impressive debut from the youngster. A fascinating matchup with Sock awaits the winner of this match in the next round.

Lost Their Homework:

Grigor Dimitrov:  It is hard to fault anyone for a loss to Ivo Karlovic. Weird things can happen when you are up against someone with a nearly unreturnable serve. Matches go to tiebreaks, and anything can really happen. No loss to a player with Karlovic’s serve is a bad loss. But it was disappointing to see Dimitrov’s plan (or lack thereof) in the match. He did not seem to attempt any real adjustments to be able to return Karlovic’s serves. He never even took a few extra steps back from the baseline in his 6-4 7-5 7-6 defeat. Dimitrov looked confused on court when he realized he couldn’t return the serve, and that affected his play on his own serve as well. He needs to work on his return of serve if he wants to make that final jump into the top of the tennis world.

Bernard Tomic: He was not expected to win this match. Gasquet is a top-15 player, and clay is not Tomic’s best surface. Unfortunately for Tomic, the way in which he lost was a disappointment. He has not seemed able to play his best tennis for a few years now. His shot selection was poor, and his execution of the shots was worse. Tomic is an incredible talent, as everyone knows. But he needs to find a way to keep his mind on tennis. If he doesn’t, first-round losses like this 6-2 6-1 7-5 setback will remain the norm.

Match of the Day:

While I have come to terms with the fact that the lack of televising every court means we will miss some fifth sets, I searched to see if Court 17 was televised anywhere because it’s probably the biggest non-televised court. It is not, although the Futures tournament from Cesena, Italy is. As a result, the five-set duel between two young talents from Grand Slam nations could not be seen unless you were at the site. But the 6-1 6-7 5-7 6-1 6-4 victory by Frenchman Axel Michon over American Bradley Klahn deserves placement in this category nonetheless.