The fourth round of the French Open is just about complete in Paris, and while there have been some notable upsets, the major players in this show are largely still in contention.

I’m not just talking about Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Nikolay Davydenko and Novak Djokovic, all of whom are still alive at the moment – I’m also referring to some of the players I mentioned in my post titled “The real day one”, each of whom looked very collected in their opening-round match. This list would include Lleyton Hewitt, Marcos Baghdatis (who is in the fourth round), and Guillermo Canas (also in round four).

There’s one major omission, though – Richard Gasquet. After falling in the second round to Kristof Vliegen in straight sets, I can’t help but feel very let down by Gasquet, who not only looked flawless in his opening-round match, but has performed much better on tour of late. Obviously, this lamentation woefully pales in comparison to the ever-compounding pressure from the millions of French tennis fans, which Gasquet will be reminded of each May when Roland Garros comes around.

For the French fans, the Gasquet defeat was a tough pill to swallow, but they had some other hopes for domestic glory. Gael Monfils, who took out Juan Ignacio Chela in the second round, had his third-round opponent David Nalbandian level at one set apiece. But after that, the Argentinian took the final two sets and eliminated the enigmatic Frenchman. With all that Monfils has gone through, his journey to the third round was still very encouraging, especially to the French faithful. This might also include Gasquet, who would surely like to have another countryman to shoulder some of the internal pressures that come from playing Roland Garros as a French hopeful.

Yesterday's most anticipated match in my eyes involved another Frenchman, Paul-Henri Mathieu, who squared off against Igor Andreev. But after the first set, you wondered if Mathieu was anticipating something else, say the upcoming Rafael Nadal match on the same court, as the Frenchman couldn’t get off the clay fast enough. Andreev, who took out Andy Roddick and Nicolas Massu going into yesterday's match, easily dispatched Mathieu by a 7-6, 6-0, 6-3 score. The meek efforts by Mathieu in the last two sets never established a connection with the partisan French crowd; instead, the court was filled with silence. Andreev will advance to play Baghdatis in the round of 16.

Earlier, things looked even bleaker for the Parisians, as Amelie Mauresmo suffered another early-round defeat in the women’s draw. Compounded with the Mathieu exit, yesterday was shaping up to be a heavy let-down for French tennis supporters. But patience is a virtue, and their saviour almost came in the form of someone who exhibits that quality – French journeyman Olivier Patience.