Since the Razzano loss, Williams had teamed up with French coach Patrick Mourataglou and began training in Paris. The combination helped her solidify her legacy as what many consider the sport's true all-time best after having nibbled at the edges (and occasionally taken a big bite or two) of historic greatness during much of her first decade on tour.
Of course, as it often is, Williams' mid-career run was even more complicated, as it was also partially fueled by her own health issues (a life-threatening embolism in 2011), as well as those of sister Venus (diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome in '11) and her realization that she needed to re-focus, re-set and commit to career and personal goals if she was going to leave behind the legacy that she truly desired, as well as experience the joy at being able to ably pursue it. From April 2012 until Wimbledon '13, Serena was a combined 94-4 record in singles.
Her title run in Paris was her first since 2002, and it allowed her to become the fifth woman to complete a *second* Career Slam with major title #16. Her win in the final over defending champ Maria Sharapova was her thirteen consecutive over the Russian since 2004, and it came in the first #1 vs #2 match-up for a slam crown since the '04 AO, and the first at RG since 1995. At 31, with a record-breaking gap between RG title runs (11 years to the day), Williams became the oldest Open era women's slam champ, and the second oldest overall in Paris. She'd break both records with another win in 2015.
The win over Sharapova was her 31st in the row in 2013, and her streak would eventually reach a career-best 34, as she compiled a 77-3 record in the eighty matches that followed her loss to Razzano in Paris in 2012, winning three of four major titles during the stretch.
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Svetlana Kuznetsova's hard-luck history in Paris added yet another chapter with her QF loss to eventual champ Serena. She led Williams 2-0 in the deciding 3rd set, and had three BP for a 3-0, double-break advantage. Serena would instead hold and win five straight games to reach her first semi in Paris in a decade, and the title that weekend.
It marked the third time in nine years that the Russian's near-miss defeats had helped pave the way to the title for the eventual champion. In 2004, she held MP vs. countrywoman Anastasia Myskina in the Round of 16, and in '05 had *two* against Justine Henin-Hardenne in another 4th Round loss.
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Victoria Azarenka, the #3 seed and coming off her successful defense of her Australian Open title, reached the semifinals in Paris for the first (and so far only) time. The result gave the Belarusian SF-or-better results in six of her last eight majors up to that point.
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Italy's run of three consecutive years with RG women's singles finalists ended, though three -- Sara Errani (SF), Francesca Schiavone (4r) and Robert Vinci (4r) -- reached the Round of 16, and defending WD champions Errani/Vinci returned to the final.
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2011 RG champ Li Na was upset in the 2nd Round by Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who'd reach the Round of 16.
Venus Williams fell to Urszula Radwanska in the 1st Round, her earliest exit in Paris in twelve years. It was a back-and-forth 3:20 battle, as Radwanska served for the 1st set at 6-5 and held a SP, only to be broken and forced to a TB. She led 6-1, but saw Williams save five consecutive SP before finally edging Venus 7-5. In a 2nd set TB, Radwanska led 4-0, but Williams ran off seven straight points to knot the match. A bad back limited Venus' serving effectiveness throughout, and the Pole eventually won out in the 3rd to post one of the biggest wins of her career, 7-6(5)/6-7(4)/6-4.
Future RG champ Simona Halep lost in the 1st Round to Carla Suarez-Navarro, her third opening round loss in Paris in four trips. A year later, she'd reach her first major final there. Four years after that, she'd win her maiden slam crown at RG over Sloane Stephens, who in '13 reached the Round of 16 for a second straight year in her follow-up to her breakout semifinal run at the Australian Open four and a half months earlier.
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A year after handing Serena Williams her only career 1st Round slam defeat, Virginie Razzano was back in the RG draw via a wild card. She reached the 3rd Round, tying Marion Bartoli for the best women's singles result by a Pastry at the '13 event.
Bartoli had had to scramble to keep pace, overcoming Olga Govortsova in the 1st Round in 3:14, though the rain-delayed and interrupted contest actually lasted most of the competitive daylight hours, starting at noon but not finishing until nearly 6:30 pm. She'd been a break down three times in the 1st set, but won it in a tie-break. Bartoli rallied from 5-3 down in the 3rd, saving two MP. She finally won on her own 5th MP, after having elicited groans from the French crowd after DF'ing on her first.
It would be Bartoli's final appearance at Roland Garros. She'd become a surprise first-time slam winner at Wimbledon a month later, then after playing three more matches (only two of which she completed), she announced her retirement just forty days after winning at SW19, saying that her body could no longer cope with the pain from the injuries that had plagued her throughout her career.
Despite an attempted comeback in 2018, Bartoli never played another professional match.
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Jamie Hampton had the best slam of her injury-riddled career, reaching the Round of 16 after posting wins over #25-seeded Lucie Safarova, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova and #7 Petra Kvitova before finally losing to Jelena Jankovic. Her Paris run was part of the Bannerette's best extended stretch of a promising, but curtailed, time on tour. In 2013 alone, at 23, she played in her first tour singles final (Eastbourne) and reached the 3rd Round or better in three majors after previously being 2-7 in MD slam matches. She reached the Top 25 for the first time in July, and finished at a season-ending best #28. But after an early semifinal result in 2014 in Auckland (a match that she never played, handing Venus Williams a walkover), a hip injury resulted in six surgeries in eighteen months.
Six years later, after a few hints over the stretch about a potential comeback attempt, Hampton hasn't played another professional match.
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Ukraine's Elina Svitolina and Spain's Garbine Muguruza made their Roland Garros MD debuts, with both winning a match (Mugu defeated Karolina Pliskova, in her second RG). While Muguruza would go on to become a maiden slam champ in Paris three years later, Svitolina's most memorable moment has been her squandered opportunity in 2017 (leading Simona Halep by a set and 5-1, and holding a MP, before being bageled in the 3rd) to reach her elusive first major semifinal.
Meanwhile, Canadian Genie Bouchard got her first career slam win (def. Tsvetana Pironkova) in her major MD debut before losing to Maria Sharapova in the 2nd Round. A season later, she'd reach the SF at the Australian Open and Roland Garros, as well as the Wimbledon final.
The 2013 RG was the last for Russia's Nadia Petrova, a continually star-crossed singles semifinalist in 2003 and 2005. Petrova was the First Seed Out in '13, letting slip a 4-2 3rd set lead and losing to Puerto Rico's Monica Puig (the girls RU in '11) in her slam debut. Puig, 19, would reach the 3rd Round.
Brit Elena Baltacha played her final Roland Garros, losing to Marina Erakovic in the 1st Round to fall to 1-4 in MD matches in Paris for her career. She'd die less than a year later.
She played at the final two majors of 2013, losing in the 1st Round at Wimbledon and in qualifying at the U.S. Open. After retiring in November, she was diagnosed with liver cancer in January '14, and passed away the following May 4.
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Playing in their first slam final, Hordettes Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina won the first of their multiple major titles, defeating defending champs Sara Errani & Roberta Vinci to become the first all-Russian duo to win in Paris (Larisa Savchenko & Natasha Zvereva, neither "Russian" by birth, had won as Soviets representing the USSR in '89). Makarova/Vesnina have so far reached seven slam finals, winning three, and are only an Australian Open title (0-2 in AO F) from completing not only a Career Doubles Slam but also becoming the first first duo to *ever* win all four slams, the year-ending championships and Olympic Gold.
Lucie Hradecka won the mixed doubles title, her second major crown ('11 RG WD), with Frantisek Cermak, defeating Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor in the final.
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37-year old German Sabine Ellerbrock claimed her maiden major slam crown, following up her Australian Open Wheelchair singles final (in the first post-Vergeer tennis slam) with a win in the RG final over #2-seeded Dutch player Jiske Griffioen, playing in her first singles slam final after winning eight previous major titles in doubles (seven of them with Vergeer). Unseeded, Ellerbrock had already defeated #1 Aniek Van Koot in the semis. Her path to a WC career began later than most, as she had played tennis for 25 years before a '07 post-surgery infection had led to the amputation of her right foot.
Griffioen would go on to win four singles slams, including becoming the first solo Wimbledon WC champ in '16, and reach #1.
Griffioen teamed with Van Koot to win the doubles, her ninth slam WD title, and the duo would ultimately complete a Grand Slam by sweeping the four majors in 2013.
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Belinda Bencic became the first Swiss junior girls slam champ since Martina Hingis at Wimbledon in 1994, defeating Germany's Antonia Lottner in the singles final. Bencic, coached by Melanie Molitor (Hingis' mother), would add the Wimbledon girls title a month later.
Czechs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova defeated Beatriz Haddad Maia & Domenica Gonzalez (BRA/ECU) to claim the junior doubles. The pair would win at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, as well. Five years later, they teamed as pros to win the Roland Garros and Wimbledon women's doubles titles and become the WTA's co-#1 ranked players.
FASHION REPORT: While she didn't win a match, Simona Halep's Lacoste throwback look is worth a years-later second glance...
Sloane Stephens in pastel blue and chartreuse...
For more than a decade, the fates have often conspired against Serena Williams and thwarted her attempts to win a second Roland Garros crown. From "The Wave" of Justine Henin to "The Upset" by Virginie Razzano nine years later, it was always something. But this time, it was Williams' dominant self that was the something in Paris.
Again. Finally.
In a Parisian sequel eleven years in the making, Williams defeated defending champion Maria Sharapova 6-4/6-4 in the women's final in the first match-up in the RG championship match-up of the world's #1 and #2-ranked players in eighteen years.
As it turned out, it took nearly a "perfect storm" to lead Williams back to the same spot, on the exact same date in June, where she began her "Serena Slam" run in 2002. Her own health issues, those of her sister Venus, and that single loss to Razzano (in the 1st Round a year ago, Williams' only opening match exit ever in a slam) that focused her sights on her personal goals, career legacy and her joy at being able to ably pursue both. Since her tear-laced exit from Paris last spring, one could sense that Williams wouldn't leave France this June without her long-elusive second RG crown, but the tangible proof that Serena has provided over the span that she is once again the best women's player on the planet has been overwhelming. Going into the final with just three losses in seventy-six post-Razzano matches, Williams has been picking up slams, high-level titles and Olympic Golds like they've been trinkets at a sidewalk bazaar. But it was always the Coupe de Suzanne Lenglen that has made her eyes grow large, because it had been playing hard-to-get for oh-so-long. Bringing the City of Light closer to her heart, Williams joined forces with French coach Patrick Mouratoglou over the past year, allowing all her best attributes, both on and off court, to be both uncovered and sharpened in the process. Maybe no more drastically than on the clay, where she's transformed herself from a simple basher of the ball to a thoughtful, point-constructing and sliding force that no longer allows a bad stretch -- ala the one vs. Razzano -- to ruin her entire day.
Pretty much, she's just been content with ruining the day of nearly every opponent who crosses her path. On Saturday, that unlucky foe was Sharapova.
Tossing aside her racket and falling to her knees, Williams raised her arms in euphoric amazement over her return to the Roland Garros winner's circle, before burying her head in her hands on the terre battue. Serena was finally back where she belonged... she'd just arrived fashionably late for her belated Parisian soirée.
Much credit goes to Sharapova for her return to the final to defend her title, and for her avoiding the sort of soul-crushing (well, for everyone but Maria, who's rebounded pretty well) implosion that occurred when she was blitzed by Serena in a love 3rd set in Miami and 6-1 opening stanza in Madrid earlier this season. But sometimes, there's only so much a player can do. This was one of those times.
Of course, Sharapova knows all about taking something from Serena and then spending most of the next decade having her take it back, usually out of her hide, on a continual basis. And as Serena addressed the crowd on Chatrier in fluent French following the final, one had to wonder whether this tournament might get the "Sharapova treatment" from Williams over the next couple of years as she chases down the few all-time greats that remain ahead of her on the career slam title list, as well as a few Roland Garros crowns that might have "wrongfully" eluded her over the years.
Other than that, what's the next big goal for Serena? Only history knows for sure... and it'd be wise to have eyes in the back of its head if it knows what's good for it.
* - "I think for Serena, nothing is out of reach. If she really wants something, it is very difficult to stop her." - coach Patrick Mourataglou
* - "I feel like my career is almost beginning again or something." - Serena Williams
