Before the French Open started, I read that it would be back at full capacity, but every match I’ve turned on seems to have big chunks of empty seats. What’s going on there? Is TV just not doing it justice, or are fewer people turning up for this right now?

As I write this, I’m waiting for the Nadal-Djokovic quarterfinal showdown — OOOH, and now it’s over and Nadal won and I’m SO HAPPY, also because I would’ve had to root for Nole against Zverev — and listening to yet another overblown, pompous Rolex ad narrated by Anthony Hopkins. In Canada we get them in every single commercial break for every single major. They are so wildly overwritten, and at times even nonsensical, like when Hopkins intones that tennis is like “peering through a mirror” to face off against yourself. When in fact you can only look into a mirror, unless you are Alice, and I am pretty sure Rolex is not trying to imply a surrealist Wonderland battle in which one tumbles through the looking glass only to find a clone on a tennis court.

[Photos: Alfonso Jimenez, Dave Shopland, David Winter, Javier Garcia, Maya Vidon-White/UPI, Rob Prange/DPPI/LiveMedia, Jon Bromley/Action Plus, YOAN VALAT/EPA-EFE, Baratoux/LABEL IMAGES/SIPA, all Shutterstock]