The rain's a pain at Roland Garros

Five things we learned from day five at Roland Garros.

Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes

• Rain is the toughest opponent of them all. Bad enough for the spectators who have to fight for cover in all kinds of nooks and crannies on the site. Players have their lounges. The VIPs have their champagne fuelled loges’and your humble correspondent has the press rooms. But the paying public? Jut the alleyways and verges. It is ugly out there.

• Vindication can be a long time coming. Bethanie Mattek-Sands was thinking about quitting tennis last September but she stuck with the sport she'd been pursuing for most of her life. In the second round she came from a set down to beat the 2011 champion Li Na.

• Dry humour lives and breathes in the damp conditions. After an hour long rain delay the spattering of spectators on centre court cheered when the ground staff emerged to remove the covers from the court. There was a hearty round of applause when the team turned on the sprinklers to freshen up the soggy terrain.
• Play the point not the weather. Australian ninth seed Samantha Stosur offered the snippet of advice after her second round win over the unseeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic. The 2010 runner-up said she saw the dark clouds hovering menacingly above the court. But she said she was pleased she didn't rush her shots.
• Defending champion Rafael Nadal didn't even get a chance to rush his shots. His match against the unseeded Slovakian Martin Klizan was cancelled on day five due to the downpours. What a state of affairs - you win the title seven times and you can't even get an early date.