Well let's see now. What's been going on at the French Open in Paris?

Russia's second highest-ranked, most famous and richest tennis player, Maria Sharapova, meets another Russian, Dinara Safina, in the round of 16. Sharapova loses (again) to the much lower ranked Safina, squandering a 5-1 lead in the third set and failing to even reach the quarterfinals. Both players embarrass the sport with their shoddy play. Sharapova confirms the speculation that her win two years ago at Wimbledon was a freak occurrence (she hasn't even got as far as a grand slam final since then).

Safina then goes on to face another Russian, the higher-ranked Svetlanta Kuznetsova, in the quarters. Safina easily goes up on Kuznetsova 5-1 in the first set and then promptly implodes, losing the first set in a tiebreaker and then failing to win a single game in the second set, handing the match to a vigorously unworthy Kuznetsova, who enters the semifinals virtually by default. You may remember Kuznetsova as the Russian who freakishly won the U.S. Open two years ago only to immediately disappear from the radar screen. In short, it's like the Russians are devilish KGB spies planted to destroy the watchability of this "Western" sport, with the goal being that soon the world will have no choice but to start playing that Russian game where they throw baseball bats at bowling pins.

Meanwhile, former French Open "champion" Anastasia Myskina is ousted in straight sets in the fourth round by Justine Henin-Hardenne, managing to win just five games in the match; she looks good by comparison, though, to former French Open finalist Elena Dementieva, who is booted in the third round in straight sets by a player not even ranked in the world's top 30.

Russia's most vaunted man, just in case you're interested (which, granted, you're probably not), namely Safina's sister Marat, a former grand slam "champion," is booted out of the tournament in the first round (incidentally Safin is the kind of Russian who, if were not rich and famous, would not qualify among Russians for the moniker "Russian" since he's not Slavic, and in fact could quite possibly qualify for a lynching).