French Open 2013: Storylines to Watch During Saturday's 3rd-Round Action

The only thing separating tennis professionals and fans of the sport from a perfect experience at the 2013 French Open has been the weather. Now that the weather looks to be friendly over the final few days of the season's second Grand Slam (via Weather.com), it should be all about sunny skies and high-quality tennis the rest of the way. 

That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other storylines to watch as we inch toward the final few rounds of the men's side of the singles draw. 

With the weather no longer a threat to dampen the fans or the schedules the rest of the way (fingers crossed), we can get back to the actual matter at hand—whether or not Rafael Nadal will win his fourth straight French Open or the field will come back to claim the Grand Slam. 

The third round is expected to be completed by day's end on Saturday, so let's take a look at a few of the top storylines to pay attention to when you catch the action over the weekend. 

Saturday's Matches

No.1 Novak Djokovic vs. No. 26 Grigor Dimitrov

Victor Hanescu vs. No. 16 Philipp Kohlschreiber

No. 12 Tommy Haas vs. No. 19 John Isner

No. 29 Mikhail Youzhny vs. No. 8 Janko Tipsarevic

No. 3 Rafael Nadal vs. No. 27 Fabio Fognini 

No. 24 Benoit Paire vs. No. 13 Kei Nishikori

No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka vs. No. 21 Jerzy Janowicz

Nikolay Davydenko vs. No. 7 Richard Gasquet

Storylines to Watch

Short Schedule

The weather might still be making an impact on the tournament after all, only this time because it has condensed the schedule enough to where Nadal is being forced to head back to the courts after zero days of rest following his Round 2 victory. 

As Simon Briggs of The Telegraph reported on Friday, Nadal has been quite the standout spokesman for scheduling concerns at this year's Grand Slam, likely because he's the victim of the short schedule and has the most to lose. 

Here's what he had to say following his Friday win (via Briggs):

"

Today I was playing almost three hours on court, and my opponent was watching the TV in the locker room. So if you [tell] me that’s fair, I say that’s not fair. When you know that it’s going to be sunny, it’s fair. But when you know it’s going to possibly rain, you cannot make a schedule thinking that one match could be postponed by three hours.

"

It took Nadal nearly three hours to dispose of Martin Klizan on Friday morning, and as a result there's little doubt he will have to dig deep to push through for some rest and a fourth-round showdown with a fellow winner from Saturday. 

French Connection

It's been 30 years since a French tennis pro has won the open that bears the country's name, and those three decades have been frustrating for local fans who flock to Roland Garros to catch the action every year. 

It's something Bruce Jenkins of Sports Illustrated wrote about earlier in the week, and something that cements just how good the other stars of the sport (Nadal, Federer, Djokovic) have been since picking up the pace in the mid-2000s. 

Gasquet and Paire are the two hopes in action on Saturday, while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon have already advanced to the fourth round after third-round wins. 

The cheers start to rain down a little bit harder when a Frenchman has a chance to do something special at the open, and this year is no different—be sure to pay attention to Saturday's matches where a native can capture his country's heart forever. 

Djokovic vs. Dimitrov

The grudge match from the Madrid Masters is imminent in Round 3—Grigor Dimitrov will get a chance to increase his streak against the world's No. 1 player on the same surface that he dispatched Djokovic on earlier in May. 

The Djoker only won five games and was beaten rather easily in that match, and as fate would have it, the French Open draw will give the underdog a chance to play spoiler yet again. 

As noted by Piers Newbery of BBC Sports, Maria Sharapova's beau is in one of the best hot streaks of his career right now—seeded at a major for the first time and gathering steam for an upset before he takes the court on Saturday. 

Although it will be anything but a cakewalk, Dimitrov should be able to give Djokovic problems again if he can harness some of his magic from Madrid. 

Djokovic has never won the French Open. 

Then again, with Nadal's dominance, no one has really won the French Open in recent memory other than the pride of Spain. We'll see if that's to continue throughout the remainder of the action.