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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

RG.4- Jil the (Parisian) Pil


Why not Jil?




24-year old Swiss Jil Teichmann has been lurking in the tour's shadows for years, flashing promise and fight and putting up some nice results that mark her as a player to keep a close eye on, but then either seeing injury or bad days proceed to rob her of the moments on the sport's biggest stages that her talent seemed to suggest could and should be her own.

Three years ago, Teichmann reached and won a pair of tour titles on clay (in Prague and Palermo), but prior to her Madrid SF run last month she hadn't had success on the surface since. Before that result, since a two-week Lausanne-QF/Palmero-W turn in '19, Teichmann had had just one multi-win event on clay (Strasbourg/Sept.'20) in the next ten tournaments she played on the surface, including a 2nd Round exit earlier this spring in Istanbul.

That changed in Madrid, as after first week wins over Petra Kvitova and Leylah Fernandez, Teichmann followed up with second week victories over Elena Rybkina and Anhelina Kalinina. She finally lost in the semis to Jessie Pegula, but her first SF result since her Cincinnati final last summer saw her crack the Top 30 for the first time in her career. She seemed well on her way to following up her Madrid semifinal with another eye-popping result in Rome, posting wins over Jasmine Paolini, Karolina Pliskova (ending the Czech's streak of three consecutive Rome finals with the Swiss' sixth career Top 10 victory), and Elena Rybakina to reach the QF (her fourth at the 1000 level since the start of '21), only to then be forced to retire from her match with Dasha Kasatkina mid-way through the 2nd set with a hip/thigh injury. She came into Paris as a dark horse pick for a deep run by some (cough-cough), but her patchy slam history and sudden injury question made her one of the more mysterious -- and dangerous -- players in the women's draw.

Hopefully, Paris likes mysteries... especially ones who wear a clothing line created by the company originally formed by Rene "The Crocodile" Lacoste, a French tennis legend and member of the famed "Four Musketeers," great and good friend of the Goddess herself, Suzanne Lenglen, and a fashion icon who created the Lacoste tennis shirt in 1929. In the end, actually, maybe Parisians will show up for the mystery, but leave having fallen in love with Jil.

Against qualifier Olga Danilovic, #23-seeded Teichmann came in knowing that the Serb wasn't going to be easy to contain. She'd staged comebacks in all three of her qualifying matches, then saved two MP in the 1st Round against Dalma Galfi. Today, Teichmann took a 4-2 lead in the 1st set, only to see Danilovic surge back to get the set back on serve. But a long three-deuce game #10, which saw Danilovic hold a pair of GP before Teichmann got the break on her second BP, awarded the set to the Swiss. She never looked back, running off to a 3-0 lead in the 2nd set and winnnig 6-4/6-1, reaching the 3rd Round for the first time in her slam career. Teichmann has dropped just eight game through two rounds.



Teichmann's two wins this week in Paris now nearly match the career total she'd posted in her ten previous MD appearances in majors, at which she'd gone a combined 3-10. Think about that, and consider that this is the same player who has been a 1000 level finalist (Cincinnati) and two-time 1000 semifinalist (Dubai/Madrid) over the past fourteen months. She's had five Top 10 wins since the start of 2021, as well. The woman can play, and she can get hot and string together a run of stirring performances. She's just never done it in Melbourne, Paris, London or New York. It could be that she's about to do so, though.

Thankfully, Paris has a long slam history of producing new champions who suddenly blaze a trail across the terre battue... and Teichmann has finally thrown her racket into the proverbial fire. Let's see how hot she can burn.




=DAY 4 NOTES=
...in her opening round match, no Victoria Azarenka lead seemed safe, as she struggled to maintain the big advantages she'd built for herself against Ana Bogdan. Today, the #15-seed was less careless with her belongings, taking and holding a big 1st set lead against Andrea Petkovic, then erasing the German's lead in the 2nd. Petko served for the set and held a SP, but Azarenka pushed things to a TB, winning it 7-3 to claim a 6-1/7-6(3) victory to reach her 40th career slam 3rd Round.



...after finding a way past young Czech Linda Noskova in the 1st Round, #12 Emma Raducanu today found the task more difficult against veteran Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich, no stranger to knocking off big name players over the course of her career.

The Brit claimed the 1st set, but saw Sasnovich catch fire in the 2nd, taking a double-break lead at 4-0. She led love/30 on Raducanu's serve in game #5, but the eventual hold would be the only game the U.S. Open champ claimed in the set. Sasnovich lost just two points on serve in the 2nd, compiling 19 winners to just 4 UE.

At 1-1 in the 3rd, Sasnovich saved five BP and held to end a 14-minute game that seemed to break down Raducanu's last measure of defense. She dropped serve one game later, and the Belarusian raced to a 3-6/6-1/6-1 victory. The win marks Sasnovich's first trip to the 3rd Round in Paris.



The Brit remains (for now) set to make her Top 10 debut in the "live" rankings, but stands a good chance to be passed by the end of this RG. At the moment, #11 Jessie Pegula, also looking to make her Top 10 debut, could be the beneficiary should she keep winning.

Of course, with a big Sasnovich wins comes the chance to break out some of these gems again...

via GIPHY



Sasnovich's win improves Belarus' record at this slam to a combined 5-0 (hmmm, I wonder if Marta Kostyuk was consulted about that?... if you don't know, that'll make sense a little further down this post).

via GIPHY



...meanwhile, Angie baby was back out there doing "cool chick" things (to borrow a phrase from a recent Aussie-based RG champ).



And, this time, Angelique Kerber didn't need three sets to get it done. Well, she *almost* did, but the German's 6-1/7-6(2) win over teenage French wild card Elsa Jacquemot moved the 34-year old one step closer to heading up the conversation of the women's competition should she find a way into the second week of this Roland Garros, the only major she's yet to win. Kerber had led Jacquemot by a set and early break, only to see the set go to a tie-break. She won it, the fourth TB (of 5) she's claimed in her last three and a half matches, ending her run of four straight completed contests (save for the Strasbourg SF vs. Oceane Dodin, ended when the Pastry retired in the 2nd set after having lost, of course, an opening set TB) that had gone the distance.



...in other news, #4-seed Maria Sakkari's clay season finally came to a merciful end today against Karolina Muchova. Granted, today's result against a (finally) healthy Muchova isn't a huge disappointment or even particularly surprising (it's not at all, really, as Muchova's victory means she's *already* 26-12 in her slam career, with a SF and two QF in her last nine majors), but Sakkari's cumulative spring results can't be seen as anything but a squandered opportunity to solidify herself in the top tier of the women's game.

The Greek reached the semis in Paris year ago, her first of two such results in '21 (w/ US). After starting the season at 16-4, and finally ending what had been a significantly embarrassing string of late-stage tournament results that had seen her go 1-12 in SF/F matches (dropping 9 straight semifinals at one point) since winning her lone tour title in Rabat in 2019, the Greek had reached finals in Saint Petersburg and Indian Wells (both losses, but still big steps) earlier this season. She climbed to #3 before the start of the spring clay stretch and seemed poised to maybe be the player who'd challenge Iga Swiatek on the road to and in Paris. But something happened on the way to Roland Garros.

Since her 4 & 1 loss to Swiatek at I.W., Sakkari came into Paris with a 3-5 mark on the clay. She got a win over young Pasty Clara Burel in the 1st Round, but today's loss put the final period on the end of what was a poorly construction sentence on the dirt.

Muchova jumped to a 5-2 lead in the 1st set today, only to fire back-to-back DF to hand her break advantage back when she served for the set at 5-3. She held a SP on Sakkari's serve at 5-4, and three more at 6-5 before the Greek held to force a TB. Muchova won it 7-5, and went through a similar experience in the 2nd. The Czech got an early break and led 4-2, with two BP chances on Sakkari's serve. After failing to convert and take a seemingly commanding lead, Muchova dropped serve in game #8, then couldn't convert a pair of BP a game later as Sakkari held to pull to 5-4. The set went to another TB, where Muchova's mini-break lead at 3-0 evaporated as the score was knotted at 4-4. But the Czech swept the final three points to win 7-6(5)/7-6(4) to advance to the RG 3rd Round for the second straight year.



While Sakkari's loss further opens up the bottom half of the draw, which adds the loss of a '21 semifinalist to the exits of the defending champ (Krejcikova, against whom the Greek has MP in the SF) and a former champion (Muguruza), but it also puts Sakkari herself in forced "rebound mode" after a 4-6 clay season and underwhelming 2r-QF-2r run on the big EuroClay stages of Madrid, Rome and Paris. Her loss of most of her '21 RG points will begin her slip down the rankings, with another big points cache awaiting a hearty defense this summer in NYC (not to mention her WTAF SF should she fail to qualify for the season-ending event again).

...today, The Sloane Show once again peaked in its final Act.

After having to rally from behind to defeat young Jule Niemeier in the German's slam debut in the 1st Round, Stephens fell behind 6-3/2-0 today against veteran Sorana Cirstea, playing in her 53rd career major and looking for her 57th MD win in a slam. The Romanian reached the Round of 16 in Paris a year ago, as well as at the Australian Open earlier this season after coming off her best overall slam year (8-4) in twelve seasons in 2021. Enjoying a late-blossoming resurgence at age 32, Cirstea had already posted her best 1000 result (I.W. 4r) in five years a few months ago and (though currently at #26) climbed her way back into the Top 25 this season for the first time since 2014.

Yeah, but all that additional experience didn't really mean much when Stephens ran off twelve straight games -- a slightly stale box of double macarons? -- to win 3-6/6-2/6-0. Once Cirstea, up 2-0 in the 2nd, failed to convert a GP for 3-0, then a BP to get back on serve in game #7 a short time later, a caped Future Sloane swooped in and flew off with any remaining dreams Cirstea had of reaching the second week in Paris.



...meanwhile, though the numbers will be put on hold next month in London, today the longstanding run of competitive Hordette performances in majors managed to place a Russian woman into the 3rd Round for the 85th time in the last 87 slams as Varvara Gracheva downed Aussie Ajla Tomljanovic in three sets.

In the 1st, Gracheva had taken a 3-0 lead and led throughout, only to drop serve when serving for the set at 5-4. She immediately broke back a game later to win 6-4. Tomljanovic then eked out a win in the 2nd despite having lost break leads at 3-1 and 5-4, winning a 7-5 TB to force a decider. In the 3rd, it was Gracheva who lost a 3-1 edge, but the 21-year old broke the Aussie at love to take a 6-5 lead and then served out the win.

This is Gracheva's fourth 3rd Round result in her eight career major appearances, including two in a row in Paris, but she's so far yet to reach a Round of 16.

...having lost to Bianca Andreescu in their only previous meeting, in the 2019 U.S. Open semifinals a match before the Canadian became a maiden slam champion, #14 Belinda Bencic got an ounce of belated revenge on Day 4.

For a bit, in fact, she was handing it to Andreescu. The two exchanged breaks in three straight games mid-way through the opening set, with Bencic coming out on top at 4-2. She took the set 6-2 and led 4-0, then 5-1 in the 2nd. But few matches go by without at least one roaring stretch in which Andreescu rights her ship and, quite simply, often just *finds a way* -- or threatens to -- when it comes to emerging as the victor. Here, after having turned around a 6-3/3-1 match vs. Ysaline Bonaventure in the 1st Round, the Canadian managed to pull herself back into the 2nd set, getting one break back and pushing Bencic to the edge in her attempt to get things back on serve. Serving for the match at 5-4, Bencic was forced to save a BP, then saw Andreescu save a pair of MP. Finally, on her third MP, Bencic put away the 6-1/6-4 win to reach the 3rd Round in Paris for just the second time (2019). The Swiss won the RG girls title back in 2013.



Bencic, the highest ranked player left in the bottom half of the draw, will next face #17 Leylah Fernandez, who defeated Katerina Siniakova. Had Fernandez played her countrywoman Andreescu, it'd been their first meeting since Andreescu defeated her in a $60K challenger in 2018. Still, even with this loss, Andreescu has to consider her comeback clay season a success, as she played well (and remained healthy) on a surface on which she hasn't played a great deal (mostly due to injury) as a professional. Now onto the part of the schedule, where she could do some real damage.

...Muchova's win aside, today wasn't a particularly good day for the Czechs. While they shined in the 1st Round, after Marie Bouzkova (Covid) had already been forced to withdraw, Siniakova was soon joined by #32 Petra Kvitova on the "defeated" side of the day's ledger. Kvitova fell 6-4/6-2 to wild card Dasha Saville, who continues to construct a far-better-far-quicker-than-expected comeback campaign in '22. The Aussie's 3rd Round marks her second such result at RG (2018) and just her third at slam level outside of Australia (where she reached back-to-back Round of 16s while hosting "The Dasha Show" in 2016-17).

Saville will next face Martina Trevisan, whose impressive 3 & 2 win over Ons Jabeur conqueror Magda Linette gives her seven straight tour-level wins on clay (and 14 of 15 sets won). If only they had a pool on the RG grounds...



...late in the day/early in the evening, 19-year old Pastry Diane Parry -- in a match played while Nadal was on Chatrier in the evening session match (nice scheduling, FFT) -- proved to be more than capable of a follow-up to her upset of #2-seeded defending champ Barbora Krejcikova, downing Camila Osorio 3 & 3 to reach her maiden slam 3rd Round.

Up next is Sloane Stephens... be she Past, Present or Future version (or, you know, periods where she alternately takes on the guise of all three).





...THE RG WOMEN'S SCHEDULING IS ALWAYS EYEBROW-RAISING, BUT... ON DAY 4:

What the hell kind of tournament scheduling stupidity is it to have two of the three (#1 Djokovic and "favorite?" Alcaraz) biggest draws on the men's side (+ #3 Zverev, too) playing *at the same time*. It's bad enough that they're all (w/ Nadal) situated in the same half of the singles bracket, but why compound the poor luck of the draw with even worse scheduling?


...THE LEAD UP TO WIMBLEDON IS GOING TO BE A VERY SEDATE PERIOD... ON DAY 4:



So, let me get this straight, the question is why was a teenager who has never reached a tour-level singles final or slam QF, nor beaten a Top 10 player, but who wants to outright ban players from certain countries from playing in any tour events, not personally consulted by an *elected* council of representives whose job it is to speak for the rest of the players on the tour? Okay, I'm just checking.




...JUST SAW THIS UNINTENTIONALLY (?) FUNNY TWEET FROM LAST WEEK ON DAY 4:

Umm, was this the Roland Garros Twitter account's attempt to deliver a joke, because it sure seemed to have a punchline at the end?





...THE WIMBLEDON DEBUT WILL HAVE TO WAIT... ON DAY 4:




...DEES AT THE SERVICE LINE... ON DAY 4:

And play...





...INDULGE ME FOR A MOMENT... ON DAY 4:

I didn't actually post any pre-RG picks this year (it seemed kind of pointless -- who's not picking you-know-who?), but that doesn't mean I didn't make any. So since at least a few of the picks are now at least looking interesting (well, not that one section), I'll post what I did. Of course, I know I've now cursed quite a few players, but so be it, I suppose.












It still seems hard to believe that, however briefly, there was an actual group consisting of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. It sounds like musical fan fiction.







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**WON SLAM TITLE AFTER SAVING MATCH POINT**
[Open era]
1986 U.S. Open - Martina Navratilova (3 vs. Graf in SF)
1991 Aust.Open - Monica Seles (1 vs. MJ.Fernandez in SF)
2002 Aust.Open - Jennifer Capriati (4 vs. Hingis in Final)
2003 Aust.Open - Serena Williams (2 vs Clijsters in SF)
2004 R.Garros - Anastasia Myskina (1 vs. Kuznetsova in 4th)
2005 Aust.Open - Serena Williams (3 vs. Sharapova in SF)
2005 R.Garros - Justine Henin-H. (2 vs. Kuznetsova in 4th)
2005 Wimbledon - Venus Williams (1 vs. Davenport in Final)
2009 Wimbledon - Serena Williams (1 vs. Dementieva in SF)
2014 Aust.Open - Li Na (1 vs. Safarova in 3rd)
2016 Aust.Open - Angelique Kerber (1 vs. Doi in 1st)
2018 Aust.Open - Caroline Wozniacki (2 vs. Fett in 2nd)
2021 Aust.Open - Naomi Osaka (2 vs. Muguruza in 4th)
2021 R.Garros - Barbora Krejcikova (1 vs. Sakkari in SF)
[pre-Open era]
1923 Aust.Open - Margaret Molesworth (1 vs. Sylvia Lance SF)
1935 Wimbledon - Helen Wills Moody (1 vs. Helen Jacobs F)
1946 R.Garros - Margaret Osbourne (2 vs. Pauline Betz F)
1956 Aust.Open - Mary Carter (1 vs. Thelma Long F)
1962 R.Garros - Margaret Smith (Court) (1 vs. Lesley Turner F)




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TOP QUALIFIER: #2q Jule Niemeier/GER (slam MD debut; 7 games lost in 3 Q-matches)
TOP EARLY-ROUND (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q2: #10q Viktoriya Tomova/BUL def. Marina Melnikova/RUS 2-6/7-5/6-0 (trailed 6-2/5-1; reached MD as LL)
TOP EARLY-RD. MATCH (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr.-WC): xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: #26 Sorana Cirstea/ROU (def. Maria/GER)
FIRST SEED OUT: #6 Ons Jabeur/TUN (1st Rd. to Magda Linette/POL)
FIRST SLAM MD WINS: Fernanda Contreras/MEX, Elsa Jacquemot/FRA, Leolia Jeanjean/FRA, Katie Volynets/USA
UPSET QUEENS: France
REVELATION LADIES: Czech Republic
NATION OF POOR SOULS: Hungary (0-4 1st Rd., Galfi 2 MP in loss)
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: in 2r: Contreras/MEX, Danilovic/SRB (L), Krunic/SRB, Vekic/CRO (L)
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: in 2r: Jacquemot/FRA (L), Jeanjean/FRA, Saville/AUS (W), Volynets/USA
PROTECTED RANKING BEST: Bianca Andreescu/CAN (2nd Rd.)
LAST PASTRY STANDING: in 2r: Cornet, Garcia, Jacquemot (L), Jeanjean, Parry (W)
Ms./Mademoiselle OPPORTUNITY: xx
IT "TBD": Nominee: Parry/FRA
COMEBACK PLAYER: Nominee: Saville
CRASH & BURN: #6 Ons Jabeur/TUN (1st Rd. to Linette; Madrid W/Rome RU - previous three who reached both finals also reached RG final); #2 Barbora Krejcikova/CZE (DC; 1st Rd. to Parry, led 6-1/2-0)
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF PARIS: Top Nominees (of far too many to list here): Stephens (1st Rd.: set and 4-4 down vs. Niemeier, sitter for love/30 down on serve in 2nd; 2nd Rd.: down 6-2/2-0 vs. Cirstea, won 12 con. games); Kerber (1st Rd. - Frech served for match, held 2 MP); Danilovic (3 Q-round comeback; 1st Rd saved 2 MP vs. Galfi)
DOUBLES STAR: xx
VETERAN PLAYER (KIMIKO CUP): xx
Mademoiselle/Madame OF THE EVENING: xx
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: xx
Légion de Lenglen HONOREE: Alize Cornet/FRA
Coupe LA PETIT TAUREAU: Diane Parry, FRA (one-handed backhand) Additional nominee: Swiatek






All for Day 4. More tomorrow.
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