Ernest Gulbis, the first tennis player from Latvia to make it into the quarterfinals of the French Open, lost June 3 in three sets 5-7, 6-7 and 7-5 to Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in Paris.

The 19-year-old Gulbis was the master of speed, according to match statistics reported on the official Web site of the French Open. His fastest serve was 218 kmh, compared to 208 kmh for Djokovic. Gulbis also recorded higher average speeds for his first and second serves.

But Djokovic, a longtime friend of Gulbis’ and the No. 3 singles player, nonetheless proved more patient. He recorded only one double fault, compared to seven for Gulbis. And the Latvian had 60 unforced errors, while Djokovic had 36.

The game lasted 3 hours and 7 minutes in less than ideal conditions, according to media reports. Play was hampered by wind and rain.

For Gulbis, the French Open is over. Djokovic heads to the semifinals.

Tennis might have a way to go to replace hockey as Latvia’s favorite sport, but now that 19-year-old Ernests Gulbis has reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, the game could well have a higher profile.

Gulbis will face Serbia’s Novak Djokovic on June 3 in the men’s singles quarterfinals. The two players are longtime friends, according to media reports, since the days they trained at a tennis academy in Munich, Germany.

Djokovic is ranked third in singles play, while Gulbis is way back at 80th.

In a victory that surprised tennis fans and sports journalists, Gulbis on June 1 defeated France’s Michael Llodra to advance to the elite eight of one of the premier events in tennis. Gulbis is the first Latvian to reach the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament. (The other Grand Slam tournaments are the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.) Last year, Gulbis reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open.

Gulbis turned professional in 2004, according to his profile on the official Web site of the French Open. The right-hander has earned USD 461,485 so far, including USD 100,560 this year alone.

Two books about Latvia have won this year’s book prize from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, which concluded its 21st biennial conference May 31 at Indiana University in Bloomington.

The winnng titles are Nature and National Identity After Communism: Globalizing the Ethnoscape by Katrina Z. S. Schwartz and From Sites of Occupation to Symbols of Multiculturalism: Re-Conceptualizing Minority Education in Post-Soviet Latvia by Iveta Silova.

Schwartz is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Florida. Her book was published in 2006 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The work “examines the intersection of environmental politics, globalization, and national identity in a small East European country: modern-day Latvia,” according to the publisher.

Schwartz previously was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and taught at Penn State University.

Silova’s book was published in 2006 by Information Age Publishing Inc. The book “investigates a puzzle: how is it that one and the same system, the system of separate schooling for Latvian and Russian speakers, is seen as a site of occupation during one period (1987-1990) and as a symbol of multiculturalism in the next (1991-1999),” according to the publisher.

At the time she wrote the book, Silova was a visiting professor at Baku State University in Azerbaidjan. She now is an assistant professor of international and comparative education at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Honorable mention was awarded to Jeff Johnson for his The New Theatre of the Baltics: From Soviet to Western Influence in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, published in 2007 by McFarland & Company. Johnson teaches at Brevard Community College in Florida.