Regis Duvignau / Reuters

Serena Williams said goodbye to Paris and an inviting chance to win her second French Open by playing a real stinker of a match in a third-round defeat to Katarina Srebotnik, writes Bud Collins of NBCSports.com.

The bottom line is this Roland Garros was open to be had for Serena. No Henin, Maria Sharapova never too sure-footed on clay, the two Serbians Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic still not proving themselves champions at the majors. The script was all but written for a Serena championship. It has to be very demoralizing for her not to even get out of the third round.

The whole day was like knock, knock, where are you Serena? I feel badly for how things went for her, but there’s really nothing favorable to write about her play today. The rest of the field has to be smiling broadly because these players now know that there will be a first-time French Open champion and not a repeat winner in Serena.

Taking this absolutely horrific outing into account you truly have to wonder how it will affect Serena in terms of Wimbledon in a few weeks time. As I wrote earlier this week, I’ve learned to never underestimate the Williams sisters. But I also have never seen Serena play so poorly and at least for this year she is running out of opportunities at the majors with only Wimbledon and the U.S. Open left.

She has a few weeks to pull her mind together and polish up her game. But I can tell you if she doesn’t get her act together I cannot possibly see her as a threat at Wimbledon. She’s come back from disasters before and I’m sure her fans are already crossing their fingers but as for me I don’t think I’ll be touting her for Wimbledon success.

Now that my pick of Serena to win the French Open has gone by the boards, I’ll go with Jankovic to win it all.  

After Serena’s loss in the morning, Venus dropped the final match of the day on Court Philippe Chatrier to Penetta 7-5, 6-3. What I couldn’t understand about Venus is why she didn’t use her stature to appeal to or even attempt to force the powers that be into halting the match due to fading light. You wonder about a seasoned performer like Venus not standing her ground or taking advantage by taking a bathroom break or maybe an injury time-out if necessary.

It was near 9:47 p.m. when Penetta hit that final forehand crosscourt to win the match. In comparison, Jelena Jankovic’s match against Dominika Cibulkova was called for lack of light at 9:30 p.m.

While it was not a distinguished day for the Williams siblings Venus losing is much less disturbing to me because although Venus was a contender here, I expected Serena to take the title.

In terms of flying the red, white and blue we’re down to just Robby Ginepri before all the Yanks will have been forced home from Paris. So Venus needs to look ahead to Wimbledon. She likes the grass, has won there four times and is the defending champion. She’ll have left this loss behind and be ready for Wimbledon and should have a very reasonable chance to defend her title.

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Headlines

• Label

Lleyton Hewitt, Andreas Seppi beaten at Nice Open

Top-ranked Djokovic bounced in Rome

US Open tennis leaving CBS for ESPN in 2015

Murray retires from match against Granollers

Serena gains sisterly revenge on Robson in Rome

Brazilian player received 8 1/2-month doping ban

Janowicz upsets Tsonga at Italian Open

Djokovic and Federer show improved form in Rome