Roland Garros: Five things we learned on Day 4 – rainout and reign nearly over

Awash with woe was the day as persistent showers forced the cancellation of play on the courts without a roof at the Roland Garros stadium. But there were a few, oh the lucky few – 18 in total – who got to parade their wonderfulness on the better bestowed courts. Stefanos Tsitsipas was one of the fortunates. And after moving into the third round, the Greek gifted us the joys of life with a fellow player.

Highly strung

Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Spanish player Paula Badosa are an item. Gawd bless 'em. And after advancing past Daniel Altmaier on Court Suzanne Lenglen, the 25-year-old Greek was – as part of his work – happy to chat about how he and Paula chat about their work. "We talk a lot about tennis," Tsitsipas revealed. "Our primary goal is to help each other figure certain things out. We have a lot of questions for each other. I feel like we're equally as knowledgeable in our craft and hold a lot of understanding of how certain situations shall be dealt with." This behind-the-scenes insight clearly wasn't too much information for Tsitsipas. "We talk about equipment [balls, frames and grips etc] and we talk about things that we can improve [strokes, concentration]. Paula keeps saying all the time, and it annoys me, that she wishes she had my forehand. I tell her I'm sorry, but that's not possible so you have to find ways around it. Sometimes I also think: 'Oh, gosh, I wish I had her returns.' She destroys the ball on the returns, and it seems so effortless from her side. You know, we try and learn from these things." What a lovely working relationship. And all recounted without a hint of euphemism.

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Roland Garros: Five things we learned on Day 3 – Au revoir Alizé and man time
Roland Garros: Five things we learned on Day 1: Old stagers give it a go
Roland Garros: Five things we learned on Day 2: Nadal's got no idea