A 2011 Roland Garros recap...
The 29-year old continued the Italian's later-career success pattern, becoming the fourth-oldest maiden slam winner, defeating repeat finalist Schiavone (their combined age of 59 made it the oldest slam final since the '98 Wimbledon of Novotna/Tauziat) by the same 6-4/7-6 scoreline by which she'd won the '10 final. The win over Schiavone was Li's fourth over a Top 10 player in the event, joining triumphs over Petra Kvitova (from 3-0 down in the 3rd set), Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova. The win by Li, also the '11 Australian Open finalist, came after she'd fired her husband as her coach (he remained her hitting partner) and replaced him with Michael Mortensen before the tournament. Her victory meant that three of the last four RG (back to Ana Ivanovic's 2008 title run) had produced a first-time major champion.
Schiavone's return to the final was the first such occurrence at RG since Justine Henin won her third straight title in 2007. The Italian had to stage a huge rally to do it, coming back from 6-1/4-1 down vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the QF. Schiavone would compete in Paris seven more years during the decade, but would never post a result better than her one additional Round of 16 performance in 2013. She lost her final three RG matches, ending her slam career with a 1st Round defeat by Viktoria Kuzmova in 2018. She retired later that summer. Her final career match was a 1st Round loss in Gstaad to Samantha Stosur, the same player she'd defeated to win Roland Garros eight years earlier.
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World #2 Kim Clijsters played in Paris for the first time since 2006. It was just the second clay court event contested by the Belgian since her '09 comeback following retirement/motherhood. She'd been questionable to play, having torn ankle ligaments while dancing at her cousin's wedding months earlier. What turned out be Clijsters' final RG didn't end well, as she lost in the 2nd Round to #114 Arantxa Rus, squandering a 6-3/5-2 lead and two MP before exiting with her worst slam result since Wimbledon in 2002.
Meanwhile, #1-seeded Caroline Wozniacki fell in the 3rd Round to Daniela Hantuchova, making the 2010 RG the first slam in the Open era in which neither of the top two seeds made it past the 3rd Round.
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Neither Serena nor Venus Williams played at Roland Garros in 2011, marking the first time such a thing had occurred at a slam since the 2003 U.S. Open, and the first time both were absent in Paris since 1996.
Venus was suffering from a hip injury, while Serena was still on her way back from a series of medical issues. In July 2010 she'd stepped on broken glass in a restaurant in Munich, resulting in a foot injury that ended her season. The subsequent March, she confirmed that she'd suffered a hematoma and pulmonary embolism that had threatened her life. She finally returned to action during the grass season a few weeks later.
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17-year old French junior Caroline Garcia made her RG debut as a wild card entrant, winning her opening round match and then facing off with Maria Sharapova on Chatrier Court on Day 5.
The girl sharapova is playing is going to be number one in the world one day caroline garcia, what a player u heard it here first
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) May 26, 2011
Garcia nearly pulled off the monumental upset, impressing competitor-turned-fan Andy Murray (who'd preceded her on Chatrier with a win over Simone Bolelli). The Scot's "future #1" praise is often still quoted eight years later. Garcia led the Russian 6-3/4-1, with a double-break in hand. But Sharapova ralled to win the final eleven games and eventually reached the semifinals. Thus far, Garcia has "only" climbed as high as #4 (2018) and reached one QF in Paris (2017), but she did win the RG doubles title in '16 and recently led France back to a second Fed Cup final in four years.
Fellow Pastry Marion Bartoli reached the singles semifinals, the best result by a French woman in Paris since Mary Pierce reached the final in 2005. It was Bartoli's best career Roland Garros result, and no small feat for a player who'd compared herself on clay to an "elephant in a porcelain shop."
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After her 1st Round loss to Sorana Cirstea, Patty Schnyder announced her retirement after a 17-year career that saw her win 500+ matches and eleven WTA singles titles, play in fifty-nine slam MD, reach one major semi ('04 AO) and rank as high as #7. Said Maria Sharapova of the Swiss vet, "She played this cat-and-mouse game, and sometimes you just felt like the silly mouse."
Schnyder returned to tennis in 2015, toiling mostly on the ITF circuit until finally reaching a slam MD again (her first since the '11 RG) at the 2018 U.S. Open. After making it through qualifying, she lost her 1st Round match to Sharapova. Soon after, four months from her 40th birthday, Schnyder again retired from the sport. A few months later, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child.
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2008 Roland Garros champ Ana Ivanovic lost in the 1st Round to Johanna Larsson, suffering what would be the worst loss of her RG career. The Serb would retire in 2016, but Paris would forever be where she'd shined the brightest. At her best major, AnaIvo went 37-11. She reached her final slam semi there in 2015, ending a seven-year drought that went back to her '08 title run.
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Italian Sara Errani, previously 0-3 in MD matches in Paris, showed the guile that would eventually make her a RG finalist. In the 1st Round, she recorded her first win in the tournament the hard way, after having trailed Christina McHale 5-0 in the 3rd set. McHale admitted to feeling "panic" as the match slipped away in what turned out to be a 9-7 final set.
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In a 2nd Round match, Vera Zvonareva completed a comeback against Sabine Lisicki from 6-4/5-4 down in which she was two points from a straight sets defeat. The German later served up 5-2 in the 3rd, and held a MP on Zvonareva's serve in game #8. She was again two points from the win a game later. After Lisicki, suffering from cramps, called for a visit from the trainer, the Russian reeled off seven straight points. Once Zvonareva wrapped up the win, Lisicki crumpled in pain in front of the changeover area. Two years after she'd been wheeled off the court at the U.S. Open with an ankle injury, Lisicki was carried off on a stretcher this time.
A month later, Lisicki would reach the Wimbledon semifinals, and in 2013 played in her only career slam final at SW19.
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Simona Halep notched her first RG main draw win, defeating Alla Kudryavtseva before losing to Samantha Stosur in Paris for the second straight year. Her 1st Round win would be the Romanian's only at RG from 2010-13 before she'd make her maiden slam final run there in 2014.
Sloane Stephens qualified and made her slam debut, losing to Elena Baltacha.
In 2018, Halep would finally win her maiden slam crown in Paris, defeating '17 U.S. Open champ Stephens in the final.
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Esther Vergeer claimed her fifth consecutive RG wheelchair singles title (career slam #18), defeating fellow Dutch player Marjolein Buis in her maiden slam final, 6-0/6-2. It extended Vergeer's legendary match winning streak to 418 matches. Buis would later go on to win her first singles major in Paris in 2016.
A year after failing to do so, Vergeer swept the RG crowns for a fourth time in five years, winning the doubles with Sharon Walraven with a 10-5 3rd set match tie-break win over Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot in an all-Dutch final.
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A year after losing the girls final to Elina Svitolina, Tunisia's Ons Jabeur returned to the RG final and became her nation's first junior slam winner, defeating Puerto Rico's Monica Puig (also the jr. RU in Melbourne in '11). The #9 seed, Jabeur knocked off the likes of Aliaksandra Sasnovich, #1 Dasha Gavrilova, #3 Caroline Garcia and #5 Puig en route to the title.
Irina Khromacheva & Maryna Zanveska took the girls doubles with a win over Victoria Kan & Demi Schuurs.
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Lucie Hradecka & Andrea Hlavackova became the first all-Czech duo to win the RG doubles since Novotna/Sukova in 1990, defeating Sania Mirza & Elena Vesnina in the final. It would be the first of two majors title (in five slam finals) won by the pair. Meanwhile, the inability to win a first WD crown in Paris remains the only thing preventing either Mirza or Vesnina from completing their Career Doubles Slam.
In Mixed, defending champs Katarina Srebotnik & Nenad Zimonjic returned to the final, but lost to Casey Dellacqua & Scott Lipsky. It would be the only slam title won in the career of Aussie Dellacqua, who was 0-7 in major doubles finals, including three runner-up results in Paris in 2008, '15 and '17. She was 0-4 in slam finals while partnering Ash Barty.
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FASHION REPORT: Bethanie Mattek-Sands added eye black to her already-unique on-court look...
Apparently, life begins at 29... at least when it comes to women's tennis players in Paris.
A year ago, a nearly-30 year old Francesca Schiavone threw herself mind, body and spirit into winning Roland Garros just weeks before her thirtieth birthday, thereby reinvigorating the notion that anything was possible in the sport as long as a player is willing to work long enough, hard enough and with as much passion as necessary to achieve the task at hand.
"It like fine wine," Schiavone said this week as she returned to France for the defense of her one and only slam title and fashioned an even more improbable run to a second consecutive final, "Stay in the bottle more is much, much better." Thing is, the same sentiments equally applied to the Italian's opponent in Saturday's women's final, 29-year old Chinese vet Li Na. "When I come here, I feel something special," Schiavone remarked of Roland Garros in recent days. She always will. But, now, so will Li. Because Paris is where she today not only claimed the first slam title of her career, but did so for the entire sporting nation of China, as well as for the budding tennis revolution filled with "wannabe Na's" that her accomplishment will undoubtedly help to further spur to bigger and greater heights.
With her 6-4/7-6 victory in hand, ironically the same scoreline as in Schiavone's win in the final over Samantha Stosur last year, Li dropped her racket and slid onto her back in celebration behind the baseline.
"If at first you don't succeed... so much for skydiving," comedian Henny Youngman once famously joked. Well, luckily for Li, her inability to become the first Chinese grand slam singles champion didn't prevent her from taking the opportunity to succeed in her SECOND attempt to do do. As she celebrated her win with the terre battue caked on the back of her shirt being carried with her as she ventured to the net to shake Schiavone's hand, the rest of Chinese tennis history will now carry the memory of HER with it.
As Schiavone talked this past week of falling in love with Roland Garros when, as a junior, she watched the 1999 Steffi Graf/Monica Seles semifinal from the stands and said that she wanted "to be like them," the same is likely the case tonight back in China. Last year, it was Schiavone giving rise to future "little Francescas" by becoming the first Italian slam champ, "little Na's" by the thousands (millions?) will soon be running around the court with rackets as big as they are trying to emulate their new heroine.
Interestingly, at the '99 RG that Schiavone mentioned, Graf was 29 years of age when she pulled off what was a surprise title run to claim the final slam crown of her fabled 22-slam win career. Of course, that's the same age at which both Schiavone and Li have now gone down as FIRST-time slam titlists.
Sometimes things just seem to work out that way, I guess. It's just a matter of time... and life beginning whenever you desire it to do so.
* - "I felt a lot of pain on court today. The pain is permanent within me. It's very hard. But it felt good to be surrounded by so many people and to be here. I tried to pay tribute to Stephane today. It was almost a 'Mission Impossible,' but I did my best." -- Virginie Razzano, whose fiancé and former coach Stephane Vidal died of a brain tumor eight days before RG, following her 1st Round loss to Jarmila Gajdosova. Vidal had encouraged her to participate in the tournament, so she'd followed his wishes and played.
* - "You know when you go home and your mom do everything for you, and you feel comfortable? Yeah, I felt like this." -- Francesca Schiavone, describing playing on Chatrier Court for the first time since winning the title there in 2010
* - "I don't think I'm a player who can win here. I haven't reached past the 3rd Round here. I don't count myself." -- Julia Goerges, who lost in the 3rd Round. Four years later in 2015, the German posted her one and (so far) only Round of 16 result at RG.
* - "I remember that moment, and I (said then), 'I want to play in this court. I want to be like them.'" -- Francesca Schiavone, on when she fell in love with the tournament -- when she saw Steffi Graf and Monica Seles face off in a semifinal there in 1999 (their final meeting), a moment which she caputured in a photo that she said she still looked at
* - "Obviously, it's disappointing. As an athlete, you want to win. There's no doubt. But, you know, good retail therapy, and I'll be fine." -- Maria Sharapova, after her semifinal loss to Li
* - "When I come here, I feel something special." -- Francesca Schiavone, on Roland Garros
* - "Maybe children, they saw the match, and they think that maybe one day they can do the same or even better." -- Li Na
And so it shall likely be.
All for now.
