With quite a bit of shoulder-to-shoulder jockeying for position, how do the decade's best in Paris rank now that the dust has settled on the terre battue?
...Roland Garros is the slam with which Williams is *least* immediately associated, so it says something that even in her "worst major" she won two titles and reached a third final (both tied for tops in the decade) in Paris during the 2010's. In many ways, what she did at RG might be in the running when it comes to Williams' biggest career accomplishments, as she rebounded from her only career 1st Round slam exit (vs. Virginie Razzano in '12) to refocus her efforts for a late career run and solidify her legacy in granite. Spending much time in Paris while teaming up with coach Patrick Mouratoglou after the Razzano loss, Williams improved all aspects of her game, learning to rely as much on the thoughtful point construction that leads to wins on clay as she always had the big serve and groundstrokes that worked so well on hard and grass courts. Closing one of the few remaining "holes" in her career resume, having not won in Paris since 2002, Serena won twice in three years (2013 & '15) in her thirties -- at the tournament that had bedeviled her for years, as she hadn't reached a semi there in a decade -- and finally closing the title gap between herself and Steffi Graf and Margaret Court on the all-time slam lists.
In all, Williams went 30-5 in Paris in the 2010's, and would likely be the runaway choice as the top RG player of the decade, save for stiff competition from Maria Sharapova. Both put up similar numbers, but while the Russian's turnaround was more "noteworthy" because of her longtime issues with the clay and shoulder surgery, Williams, too, battled back from her own health issues (she nearly died from a pulmonary embolism in 2011). She also collected a women's doubles title all the way back in '10 and, as she has every time they've met since 2004, won the only head-to-head RG encounter between herself and Sharapova in the '13 final.
Serena crosses the mythical finish line ahead by a stride.
=============================
2. Maria Sharapova, RUS
...Sharapova reclaimed her career in the middle years of the decade after having nearly lost it due to a misdiagnosed shoulder injury that required surgery. Unable to rely on her serve as she had early in her career, the Russian had improved every other aspect of her game, enabling her to compete (and often dominate) on the clay surfaces on which she once unfavorably compared her abilities to "a cow on ice." She reached three straight finals between 2012-14, with two titles (the first of which completed her Career Slam and was the first slam win by any player in tennis history who'd undergone career-threatening shoulder surgery) bookending a loss to Serena Williams.
Heading into the final quarter of the decade, Sharapova seemed in good standing to top this list. Both she and Williams went 2-1 in finals during the decade, but Sharapova had a slightly better overall record (34-5, though 0-1 vs. Serena), had double the number of Top 10 wins (4 to 2) and posted one additional Round of 16 or better result (6 to 5). But the Russian's suspension and injury-related absences made her something of a ghost in Paris in the final stages of the decade. She missed RG three of the final four years, though she showed the ability (when healthy) to still compete deep into the tournament, reaching the QF in 2018.
Ultimately, Sharapova's lack of a properly good close to the decade likely cost her the top spot.
=============================
3. Simona Halep, ROU
...no one's journey played out like a wonderful storybook fairy tale quite like Halep's in the 2010's. A junior RG champ in 2008, she resiliently battled through years of disappointment, crushing defeats, physical exhaustion and mental fatigue to overcome her own personal foibles (largely, a sometimes-crushing strain of perfectionism that often sliced through her confidence just when it *should* have been soaring) before enjoying the fruits of her efforts in 2018, finally winning her maiden slam crown in Paris at a point in her career when she could truly appreciate it and the hard work, trail and error that made it possible. The win came in her third RG final in five years (and fourth in a major) and was likely the most heartwarming and well-received triumph on the grand slam stage since Jana Novotna's belated trip to the winner's circle of a major twenty years earlier.
The Romanian's decade-long quest, and it's brilliant ending, was so affecting that it's easy to forget that she began the decade going 1-4 in the tournament before sometimes dominating the RG storyline in the decade's final years. More than any other player this decade it is Halep who is the one inextricably linked to Roland Garros this decade, nearly as closely associated with it as her idol Justine Henin was in the 2000's.
In many ways, Garbine Muguruza's RG numbers for the decade are actually *better* than Halep's (even with the Romanian's win over the Spaniard in the '18 SF), but one would be hard pressed to find any other order by which to list the two than with "Si-mo-na" being right here, where she deserves to be.
=============================
4. Garbine Muguruza, ESP
...you know all those issues with consistency that have dragged Muguruza's career down from the great heights at which it should always exist? Yeah, well, that's really not an issue for the Spaniard at Roland Garros. In Paris, her results have been remarkably stable. In seven appearances, she reached the Round of 16 or better in each of the last six years of the decade (she has seven in the other three slams combined for her career), winning in '16 and reaching the semis two years later. Mugururza's maiden slam title run included a win in the final over Serena Williams, a victory that wasn't even her *first* over the all-time great at RG. She'd defeated her in the 2nd Round in '14, too. That same year, she reached her only slam WD semi along with countrywoman Carla Suarez-Navarro.
Based strictly on numbers, Muguruza may rightly have earned the #3 spot on this list. But, as noted, Halep's career is so instantly and intrinsically tethered to Roland Garros that the Romanian's intangible "extra credit" work, however unfairly, forced the Spaniard into the #4 slot.
=============================
5. Francesca Schivaone, ITA
...Schiavone's stunning 2010 title run ushered in a decade that crowned six maiden slam champions in Paris, and kicked off a revelatory run of success by Italian women in the event during the timespan. The (already) veteran (though she actually hadn't yet turned 30) Schiavone had as many Top 10 wins (3) in her title run as Serena had in Paris the entire decade, but probably what's least remembered about her RG career is that she followed up by returning to the final in 2011. The only woman to repeat in Paris since 1996 is Henin as part of her three-peat from 2005-07. Schiavone's results waned as the decade progressed, but her fire and competitiveness didn't. She played in her eighteenth straight RG main draw in 2018, her final slam appearance.
=============================
6. Samantha Stosur, AUS
...the most accomplished player in Paris this decade who never won a title, the Aussie reached one final (2010) and two semis (2012/16). Stosur posted 31 match wins (she won the U.S. Open in '11, but has only had 20 there in the 2010's), and they weren't cheap ones, either. They included four Top 10 wins and victories over players named Henin, Williams, Williams, Halep (3 times!), Jankovic, Stephens, Petrova, Cibulkova and Safarova. In an odd note, she was something of the tournament's Zelig/Forrest Gump figure, noteworthy by her *proximity* to history even if she wasn't making it herself. Four times in the decade the singles championship went through her, as Schiavone (2010), Sharapova (2014), Muguruza (2016) and Ostapenko (2017) all defeated her en route to the title (and Kuznetsova did it in '09, as well).
=============================
7. Li Na, CHN
...Li became the first Asian slam title winner at Roland Garros (2011), but she's more closely associated with the Australian Open, where her Halep-like quest for the title finally culminated in an everybody-cheers moment in 2014 in her third final appearance in Melbourne, where she also broke the mold when it comes to entertaining acceptance speeches. In fact, Li played in Paris in only the first half of the decade, and her 4r-2r-1r results after her title run played out like afterthoughts to the main event. The impact of Li's '11 title have only recently started to be seen with the influx of top junior talent from China. It's a trend that will likely only grow throughout the *next* decade.
=============================
8. Sara Errani, ITA
...Errani's RG success, after a slow 1-4 start from 2008-11, came on the heels of Schiavone's title. And from 2012-15, the pint-sized Italian was arguably a Top 3 player in Paris. She strung together RU-SF-QF-QF results in singles during the stretch *and* teamed with countrywoman Roberta Vinci to reach three straight doubles finals (2012-14), winning the first of what would be five major titles (and a Career Doubles Slam) shared between the two over a three-season span.
=============================
9. Sloane Stephens, USA
...Stephens' decade of play at Roland Garros can be separated into two distinct eras: the potential-laden early career run of four straight Round of 16 results from 2012-15 during which she was never quite able to get "over the hump," then the post-foot surgery period after she finally morphed into "Future Sloane" and won the U.S. Open in 2017. Since her title run in NYC, Stephens has revisited (and improved upon) her earlier success in Paris, reaching a final (she led Halep by a set and a break) and another QF to close out the decade. Barring injury, even with her waxing-and-waning focus at times, it's easy to believe that she'll *eventually* lift the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen.
=============================
10. ???
...in truth, there are about nine realistic prospects for this final spot (or, really, maybe *none*, depending on how you look at it). Two won RG singles titles in the decade, while three others picked up multiple trophies in doubles. Two reached two singles semifinals. Two appeared in singles *and* doubles finals.
Here they are in alphabetical order (you can make your own pick, then see which one I went with)...
Timea Bacsinszky, SUI: returned to game after injury-related absence in '14 (first slam MD win since '10), posted SF-QF-SF results from 2015-17 (led flu-ridden Serena in '15 semi)
Ash Barty, AUS: 2019 singles title (was 2-5 previously); 2017 WD final
Jelena Jankovic, SRB: best run of RG results (w/ 2007-08 SF) were in 2000's, but SF, QF and two 4r in first half of decade. Ended w/ three straight 1st Round losses.
Madison Keys, USA: came down the stretch of the decade on a 4r-2r-SF-2r-SF-QF run
Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS: '09 champ, but not past QF in 2010's. Three QF and three Round of 16 finishes. Ended with back-to-back 1st Rd. exits.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands, USA: 3-0 in finals: 2015/17 WD and '15 MX champ
Kristina Mladenovic, FRA: 2016/19 WD titles, '13 MX F, '17 WS QF (and three Top 10 wins over Li, Muguruza and Bouchard)
Alona Ostapenko, LAT: 2017 champ at age 20, but 0-3 in other MD appearances
Lucie Safarova, CZE: '15 WS finalist and 2015/17 WD titles
=============================
=============================
2. Kristina Mladenovic, FRA: won the doubles in '16 with Caroline Garcia (the first all-French born champs since Lenglen/Vlasto in 1926), then in '19 with Timea Babos. Also a '13 MX finalist.
=============================
3. Bethanie Mattek-Sands/Lucie Safarova, USA/CZE: only played RG together three times, but followed up AO titles with wins in Paris in both '15 and '17 (the latter gave them three straight major titles)
=============================
4. Lucie Hradecka, CZE: in all, won WD (2011) and MX (2013) titles, reached five more WD semis and another MX final (2015)
=============================
5. Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA: three consecutive WD finals from 2012-14, winning in '12 to get the first leg of their Career Slam
6. Latisha Chan, TPE: in '19, she and Ivan Dodig became the first back-to-back MX winners in Paris in the Open era; reached the WD semis w/ Martina Hingis in '17
=============================
7. Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka, CZE/CZE: despite breaking up their partnership twice in the decade, they (somewhat under the radar) won the WD in '11 and reached semifinals in 2012/13/15. Both (Hradecka 2014 & '17/Hlavackova '18) reached the semis with different partners, as well.
=============================
8. Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina, RUS/RUS: reached two finals, winning in 2013.
=============================
9. Sania Mirza, IND: won the 2012 MX crown, and reached additional WD (2011) and MX (2016) finals
=============================
10. Katarina Srebotnik, SLO: 2010 MX winner, and a finalist in WD (2010) and MX (2011) early in the decade
=============================
11. Gaby Dabrowski, CAN: a three-time MX finalist from 2017-19, she won in '17
=============================
12. Anna-Lena Groenefeld, GER: 2014 MX champ, and a runner-up three years later
=============================
HM- Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova, CZE/CZE: the 2013 junior champs won the women's title in 2018
=============================
=============================
2. Yui Kamiji, JPN: in the post-Vergeer era, has won more RG titles than anyone, claiming three singles and three doubles crowns
=============================
3. Jiske Griffioen, NED: after playing doubles with Vergeer in the 2000's, Griffioen won one singles (2015) and two doubles (2013/15) titles at RG once she was gone
=============================
4. Diede de Groot, NED: a Vergeer protégé , de Groot became the first player to win all eight WC slam crowns when she picked up her first RG singles honors in '19. Ended the decade with back-to-back WD titles.
=============================
5. Marjolein Buis, NED: one of five women this decade to win in singles (2016) and doubles (2012)
=============================
2010/11: Ons Jabeur (2010 singles RU, 2011 singles W)
2011/12: Irina Khromacheva (2011 & 2012 doubles W)
[Bannerette Singles Finalists]
2016: Amanda Anisimova (RU)
2017: Whitney Osuigwe def. Claire Liu
2018: Coco Gauff def. Caty McNally
2019: Emma Navarro (RU)
[All-Czech Girls Doubles Champs]
2013: Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova
2015: Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova
[Firsts... and a Second]
2010: Elina Svitolina (first Ukrainian RG girls champ)
2013: Belinda Bencic (first Swiss girls slam champ since Hingis '94)
2015: Paula Badosa (first Spanish girls slam champ since Dominguez Lino '99)
2017: Osuigwe vs. Liu (first all-U.S. girls RG final since 1980)
2017: Whitney Osuigwe (first U.S. girls RG champ since Capriati '89)
2017: Bianca Andreescu/Carson Branstine (first all-Canadian jr. GD champs)
2019: Leylah Annie Fernandez (second Canadian girls slam champ; '12 Bouchard)
2008 Girls Singles champ --> 2018 Women's singles champ Simona Halep
2013 Girls Doubles champs --> 2018 Women's Doubles champs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova
[Sometimes it's Somewhere In Between...]
2010 Girls Doubles champ --> 2018 Women's Doubles champ Timea Babos
[And Sometimes, well...]
2010 Girls Singles champ --> still slam SF-less Elina Svitolina (even after leading Simona Halep 6-3/5-1 and holding a MP) in the 2017 QF
=============================
2011: China's Li Na is the first slam singles champion from Asia
=============================
2012: Li Na is the first RG defending champion to lose to a qualifier, falling to Yaroslava Shvedova in the 4th Round
=============================
2013: Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina are the first all-Russian RG doubles champions (Larisa Savchenko & Natasha Zvereva won in 1989 for the USSR)
=============================
2017: Angelique Kerber is the first RG #1 seed to lose in the 1st Round in the Open era
=============================
2017: Alona Ostapenko is Latvia's first slam singles champ, and the first unseeded winner in Paris in the Open era
2018: Alona Ostapenko is the first RG defending champ to lose in the 1st Round since 2005
=============================
2018: Simona Halep is the first Romanian slam singles champion since 1978
=============================
2019: 17-year old Amanda Anisimova is the first player born in the 2000's to reach a slam singles semifinal
=============================
2019: Johanna Konta is the first Brit to reach the RG semifinals since 1983
=============================
2019: Marketa Vondrousova is the first teenager to reach the RG singles final since 1997
=============================
2019: Ash Barty is the first RG women's champ from Australia since 1973
=============================
=============================
2010: Venus & Serena Williams win their fourth consecutive slam title, and become the first sisters to be ranked doubles co-#1 in WTA history
2012: Serena Williams loses in the 1st Round to Virginie Razzano, her only loss in (now) 71 career opening round matches at majors
2012: Maria Sharapova completes her Career Slam with the RG women's singles title
=============================
2013: at 31, Serena Williams becomes the oldest RG women's champ in the Open era
=============================
2015: at 33, Serena Williams becomes the oldest RG women's champ in the Open era
=============================
2016: Caroline Garcia & Kristina Mladenovic become the first all-French born duo to win the RG women's doubles since Suzanne Lenglen & Julie Vlasto in 1926. Gail Chanfreau & Francoise Durr won in 1971, but Chanfreau was Australia-born and began to play for France only after marrying French player Jean-Baptiste Chanfreau in 1968.
=============================
2018: Simona Halep is the sixth former RG junior singles champion to win the women's title
=============================
2019: Diede de Groot sweeps the singles & double titles to become the first player to win all eight wheelchair slam crowns in a career
=============================
=============================
2013: Serena Williams wins her first RG singles crown since 2002, with the eleven year (to the day) gap between championships being the longest span between title runs in tournament history
=============================
2014: Timea Bacsinszky wins her first slam MD match since 2010. She reaches the SF in 2015 and '17.
Vi siete divertiti?
Did you enjoy it?
@rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/mQBfFPBVib
— Francesca Schiavone (@Schiavone_Fra) May 28, 20152015: Francesca Schiavone outlasts Svetlana Kuznetsova in 3:50, winning the third longest women's match in RG history
2015: 2008 RG champ Ana Ivanovic reaches her first slam semifinal in seven years
=============================
2019: Two-time slam finalist Vera Zvonareva plays her first MD match at RG since 2011
=============================
=============================
2010: Two-time finalist Dinara Safina's final RG
=============================
2011: Former #1 Kim Clijsters' first RG since 2006 is also her final RG
=============================
2012: Wheelchair all-time great Esther Vergeer's final RG
=============================
2013: Elena Baltacha's final RG (The Brit retired in November '13, and married her coach Nino Severino that December. She was diagnosed with liver cancer in January '14, and died the following May at age 30.)
=============================
2014: 2011 champ Li Na's final RG
=============================
2016: 2008 champ Ana Ivanovic's final RG
=============================
2017: Former #1 Jelena Jankovic's final RG???
=============================
2018: Aga Radwanska's 47-slam MD appearance streak ends
=============================
2018: 2010 champ Francesca Schiavone's final slam appearance
=============================
2019: Former WS finalist and two-time WD champ Lucie Safarova's final career event
=============================
[2011]
Li Na trailed Petra Kvitova 3-0 in the 3rd set in the Round of 16
[2013]
Serena Williams was down 2-0 (w/ BP for 3-0) in the 3rd set vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova in the QF
[2015]
Serena Williams, suffering from the flu, trailed Timea Bacsinszky by a set and a break in the SF
[2015]
Serena Williams trailed Lucie Safarova 2-0 in the 3rd set in the Final
[2017]
Alona Ostapenko trailed Simona Halep 6-4/3-0 (w/ BP for 4-0) in the Final
[2018]
Simona Halep was down a set and a break to Sloane Stephens in the Final
[2019]
Ash Barty trailed Amanda Anisimova 7-6/3-0 in the SF
=============================
2011: Andy Murray watches Caroline Garcia play Maria Sharapova in the 2nd Round, dubs her a future women's #1 player
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
=============================
2012: Virginie Razzano hands Serena Williams her first career slam 1st Round defeat
=============================
2013: Kristina Mladenovic reaches the Mixed doubles final
=============================
2016: Alize Cornet has "cramps drama" vs. Tatjana Maria
Cornet probably not on Maria's Christmas Card list anymore after today's match. pic.twitter.com/rO6HLEzTxJ
— The Tennis Island (@thetennisisland) May 26, 2016
=============================
2016: Caroline Garcia & Kristina Mladenovic win the women's doubles
=============================
2018: Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic reach the singles QF
=============================
2019: Kristina Mladenovic wins the women's doubles
=============================
2010: Venus' "nude illusion"
2012: Sharapova's "Lion King" moment
2014: "Allez Simona"
2015: Serena's "flu match" semifinal comeback...
2016: Schiavone's "non-retirement"
2010 Champion @Schiavone_Fra said farewell to Paris after she lost vs Mladenovic 6-2 6-4 #RG16 (via @rolandgarros) pic.twitter.com/Fkp1HdsXsE
— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) May 24, 2016
To clarify: @Schiavone_Fra has not announced her retirement. “It was not the last one for me."
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) May 24, 2016
=============================
2016: Alize Cornet v. Tatjana Maria
2018: The bodysuit
Here are the cuts so far, 21 after the AO and 43 more now, with each player placed under their highest-level category. It leaves 98 players currently on the Top 25 Players of the Decade nomination list.
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES RUNNER-UP*
Justine Henin
Sabine Lisicki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST*
Elena Dementieva
Kirsten Flipkens
Ana Ivanovic
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
Tsvetana Pironkova
Magdalena Rybarikova
Zheng Jie
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Daniela Hantuchova
Ana Konjuh
Tamira Paszek
Yulia Putintseva
Shelby Rogers
Lesia Tsurenko
Alison Van Uytvanck
Zhang Shuai
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Iveta Benesova
Casey Dellacqua
Laura Siegemund
Abigail Spears
Heather Watson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Shuko Aoyama
Jen Brady
Harriet Dart
Kimiko Date
Margarita Gasparyan
Eri Hozumi
Miyu Kato
Andreja Klepac
Varvara Lepchenko
Christina McHale
Monica Niculescu
Makota Ninomiya
Anastasia Rodionova
Alicja Rosolska
Astra Sharma
Taylor Townsend
Galina Voskoboeva
Yang Zhaoxuan
Zheng Saisai
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Jarmila Gajdosova
Melanie Oudin
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
Nuria Llagostera-Vives
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST*
Laura Robson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Vera Dushevina
Marina Erakovic
Klaudia Jans-Ignacik
Michaella Krajicek
Anabel Medina-Garrigues
Chanelle Scheepers
Tamarine Tanasugarn
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
Irina-Camelia Begu
Chuang Chia-jung
Teliana Pereira
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS*
Daniela Di Toro
Florence Gravellier
Korie Homan
Sharon Walraven
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
Akgul Amanmuradova
Chan Chin-wei
Aldila Sutjiadi
Here are the official remaining nominations, in descending order of category "importance," with the five (in blue) players who are newly qualified as of the end of this RG. Two players (in orange) were promoted to a new highest recognition category for 2010-19, as well.
The cuts begin to get *mildly* serious here, though newly-nominated players get an automatic pass this time around, and any players with the potential to "add on" to their accomplishments will at least stick around until Wimbledon. After that, only legitimate (or mostly so) contenders for the final Top 25 will survive until the U.S. Open, after which the Top 25 countdown will soon begin.
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES CHAMPION* (18)
Victoria Azarenka
Marion Bartoli
Ash Barty
Kim Clijsters
Simona Halep
Angelique Kerber
Petra Kvitova
Li Na
Garbine Muguruza
Naomi Osaka
Alona Ostapenko
Flavia Pennetta
Francesca Schiavone
Maria Sharapova
Sloane Stephens
Samantha Stosur
Serena Williams
Caroline Wozniacki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES RUNNER-UP* (11)
Genie Bouchard
Dominika Cibulkova
Sara Errani
Madison Keys
Karolina Pliskova
Aga Radwanska
Lucie Safarova
Roberta Vinci
Marketa Vondrousova
Venus Williams
Vera Zvonareva
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST* (14)
Amanda Anisimova
Timea Bacsinszky
Kiki Bertens
Danielle Collins
Julia Goerges
Jelena Jankovic
Johanna Konta
Ekaterina Makarova
Elise Mertens
Peng Shuai
Andrea Petkovic
Anastasija Sevastova
CoCo Vandeweghe
Elena Vesnina
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST* (15)
Belinda Bencic
Caroline Garcia
Camila Giorgi
Kaia Kanepi
Dasha Kasatkina
Maria Kirilenko
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Petra Martic
Kristina Mladenovic
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Nadia Petrova
Yaroslava Shvedova
Barbora Strycova
Carla Suarez-Navarro
Elina Svitolina
*YEAR-END TOP 10* (0)
--
*EIGHT-OR-MORE WTA SINGLES TITLES - 2010-19* (0)
--
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION* (20)
Timea Babos
Cara Black
Latisha Chan
Gaby Dabrowski
Gisela Dulko
Anna-Lena Groenefeld
Martina Hingis
Hsieh Su-wei
Liezel Huber
Vania King
Barbora Krejcikova
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Sania Mirza
Kveta Peschke
Andrea S.-Hlavackova
Lucie Hradecka
Nicole Melichar
Lisa Raymond
Katerina Siniakova
Katarina Srebotnik
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10* (2)
Demi Schuurs
Rennae Stubbs
*OLYMPIC SINGLES QF-OR-BETTER* (1)
Monica Puig
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST* (0)
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL* (7)
Raquel Atawo
Duan Yingying
Johanna Larsson
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez
Alison Riske
Aryna Sabalenka
Xu Yifan
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL* (1)
Angel Chan
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS* (8)
Marjolein Buis
Diede de Groot
Sabine Ellerbrock
Jiske Griffioen
Yui Kamiji
Aniek Van Koot
Esther Vergeer
Jordanne Whiley
*WHEELCHAIR DOUBLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC TITLE* (0)
--
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS* (1)
Wang Qiang
Australian Open 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Li Na, CHN
3.Victoria Azarenka, BLR
4.Angelique Kerber, GER
5.Kim Clijsters, BEL
6.Caroline Wozniacki, DEN
7.Naomi Osaka, JPN
8.Maria Sharapova, RUS
9.Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
10.Aga Radwanska, POL
[Doubles]
1.Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
2.Bethanie Mattek-Sands/Lucie Safarova, USA/CZE
3.Martina Hingis, SUI
4.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
5.Svetlana Kuznetsova/Vera Zvonareva, RUS/RUS
HM-Serena Williams/Venus Williams, USA/USA
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Yui Kamiji, JPN
3.Diede de Groot, NED
4.Jiske Griffioen, NED
5.Aniek Van Koot, NED
First up, a look back at the 2010 edition...
In one fell swoop, Schiavone's 6-4/7-6(2) win over Samantha Stosur in the women's final made her the first female Italian slam champion (none had reached a final, and the last semifinalist was in 1954), the first woman in the Open era to win in Paris while ranked outside the Top 10 (#17), the oldest first-time major champ (29 years and 347 days, some three months older than '98 Wimbledon winner Jana Novotna) and the woman with the second longest wait (her 39th major, behind Novotna's 45) before winning a slam.
Schiavone's win was a forerunner to the decade's other late-blooming champions. Three of her four-time Fed Cup winning teammates -- Sara Errani ('12 RG), Roberta Vinci ('15 U.S.) and Flavia Pennetta ('15 U.S.) -- also reached slam finals, with Pennetta winning to become the *new* oldest (33) maiden major winner. Schiavone reached another final in Paris in 2011. Three players won slams later in their careers, with Pennetta (49th event, the new record), Marion Bartoli (47th at '13 Wimbledon) and Caroline Wozniacki (43rd at '18 AO) all surpassing Schiavone on the all-time list; while Alona Ostapenko broke the Italian's record by winning RG in 2017 when ranked #47.
One of Schiavone's "first/last" marks remains, though. Thirty-five slams later (and with just three champions left to be crowned in the decade), she's the last woman armed with a one-handed backhand to win a major title.
While Stosur didn't win her maiden slam crown in Paris in 2010 (she would a season later at the U.S. Open), her run was quite remarkable. While becoming the first Aussie woman to reach a slam final since 1980, she defeated future #1/RG champ Simona Halep in her slam debut, ended former #1/RG champ Justine Henin's 24-match winning streak in Paris (ultimately ending her RG career) in the 4th Round, and upset world #1 Serena Williams in the QF (saving a MP) to become the first Australian woman to post a #1 victory in a slam since 1999.
A year before losing to Schiavone in the Roland Garros final, Stosur has defeated the Italian 6-4/6-2 in the 1st Round in Paris in 2009.
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None of the 2010 RG singles semifinalists had previously won a major title, making it the first time that had occurred in a slam since the 1979 Australian Open. One of those semifinalists was Elena Dementieva, who retired from her match vs. Schiavone. It would be the Russian's last of nine SF-or-better slam results (she reached two finals in '04). She advanced to the Round of 16 at the U.S. Open in the summer and played in her last singles final (her 32nd) in Tokyo that fall, then shocked many by publicly announcing her retirement from the sport at age 29 following her final round robin match (a loss to Schiavone on Day 4) at the WTA Championships. She never won a major title, but was an Olympic singles Gold medalist in 2008 in Beijing when Hordettes swept the WS medal stand.
Schiavone vs. Stosur represented the first time two first-time slam finalists had faced off since Roland Garros in 2004 (Myskina def. Dementieva).
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Playing in her first Roland Garros since 2007, back-from-retirement four-time RG champ Justine Henin reached the Round of 16, where she saw her 24-match tournament winning streak ended by Stosur. Her streak remains the third-longest by a woman in Paris behind only Chris Evert (29) and Monica Seles (25).
The Belgian would injure her elbow at Wimbledon a month later and would announce her final retirement following the Australian Open in January 2011. Henin's final win at Roland Garros was a 3rd Round victory over Maria Sharapova. The Russian ended the Waffle's 40-set RG streak in the match, but ultimately saw Henin rally from 0-2, love/40 down in the 3rd set to win, converting on her fifth MP.
Meanwhile, in the same event in which Henin saw her RG legacy come to an end, a player who idolized her -- Simona Halep -- saw hers begin. The Romanian qualified to reach her first slam MD, where she too lost to Stosur. Halep has since completed back-to-back #1 seasons in 2017 and '18, and in the latter year finally won her long-awaited maiden slam crown in Paris.
In a 2nd Round match, Svetlana Kuznetsova did what she's always done in her career, experiencing a "whole life in a day" vs. Andrea Petkovic. In a match that included several rain delays, Petkovic had served for the win at 6-4/5-4, 40/love. Kuznetsova eventually saved four MP before winning on her own fourth MP, 4-6/7-5/6-4.
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In just her third career slam singles MD, 24-year old South African qualifier Chanelle Scheepers reached the Round of 16. She's the only player from her nation -- as well as the entire continent -- to advance so far in a major during the decade. Scheepers retired in 2015, having reached a pair of tour-level singles finals (winning in Guangzhou in '11, losing in Bastad in '14) in her career but only advancing to the 3rd Round twice more (both in 2011) in the remaining nineteen slam MD in which she appeared.
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After reaching the singles final in 2008 and '09, Dinara Safina was upset in the 1st Round by Kimiko Date-Krumm, who as 39 became the second oldest woman (V.Wade '85) to win a Roland Garros MD match. Safina had led 4-1 in the 3rd set, but ultimately went down to defeat in a match in which she had 17 DF. For Date it was her first slam win since the 1996 Wimbledon.
The Russian never played in Paris again, and never won another slam match (0-2). The former world #1's final year on tour was 2011, but she didn't officially retire until 2014.
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Venus and Serena Williams won the women's doubles title, claiming their fourth consecutive major title and 12th slam crown with a 6-2/6-3 victory over Kveta Peschke & Katarina Srebotnik. They both rose to the co-#1 doubles position for the first time after the tournament, a spot they held for the next eight weeks. Playing sparingly, they've added just two more WD majors since, at Wimbledon in 2012 and '16.
Srebotnik also reached the Mixed doubles final, winning her third career RG MX crown and her second with Nenad Zimonjic (2006).
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Dutch wheelchair great Esther Vergeer took the women's singles title (the 15th major win of her career) with a double-bagel win over countrywoman Sharon Walraven. Vergeer had opened play in the tournament with a 1st Round win over Jiske Griffioen, who'd later go on to reach WC #1 (2015) and win four singles majors.
Vergeer and Walraven lost in the WD final to Aniek Van Koot & Daniela Di Toro (HUN/AUS), ending Vergeer's streak of slam doubles titles at twelve (appearances) dating back to 2005. She'd win the next eight before a loss in the 2012 Wimbledon semis in what was her final slam.
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Elina Svitolina became the first Ukrainian to win the RG girls title, defeating Tunisia's Ons Jabeur in the final. Having risen as high as #3 on the WTA tour as a pro, Svitolina has still yet to reach a slam semifinal. No player in tour history has won more singles titles (13) than she without at least one such result in a major. In the RG quarterfinals in 2017, Svitolina led Halep 6-3/5-1 and twice served for the match, then after failing to convert a MP in a 2nd set TB lost a love 3rd set to the Romanian in a mere twenty minutes.
Elsewhere in junior play, future RG champ (2016) Garbine Muguruza qualified to reach the girls MD, then lost in the 2nd Round to another Ukrainian, Lyudmyla Kichenok. Jabeur's run to the final included wins over Caroline Garcia (2nd Rd.) and Sloane Stephens (QF), and she teamed in the girls doubles with Nour Abbes to upset the #1-seeded Pliskova twins in the 1st Round.
Timea Babos and Stephens won the junior doubles title, defeating Spaniards Lara Arruabarrena & Maria Teresa Torro Flor in the final. Stephens would go on to reach the women's singles final in 2018.
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Day 6, due to weather delays and a string of suspended matches, produced quite possibly the most star-studded single day schedule in slam history, as pretty much *all* of the greatest players of their generation took to the court on the same afternoon. In action on the women's side were Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova (Kim Clijsters didn't play RG in '10), while the men's schedule saw Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray hit the courts.
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FASHION REPORT: Venus shocked with her corset dress, and flesh-colored/"nude illusion" undergarments...
While Jelena Jankovic positively glowed on her way to the semis...
When (Schiavone) hopped up to shake Stosur's hand at the net, her white shirt was covered in red. On this day, winning a grand slam didn't have to be pretty... even when the new champ's game turned out to be far more beautiful than anyone anticipated.
Over the years, climbing into the stands in celebration of winning a slam title has almost became a rote, forced and unnecessary procedure since Pat Cash impetuously inaugurated the trend at Wimbledon back in 1987. But that wasn't the case with Schiavone's trip to the seats. After climbing over the railing and wading through the stands to get to her cheering section (she was ultimately dragged into it, really), she received a group hug of epic proportions in one of the most heartwarming scenes following any slam in recent memory. Ah, those life-loving Italians.
But the Schiavone scene didn't end there. In the trophy ceremony, she continued to let her joy flag fly.
Singing along with the Italian national anthem (the music was surprisingly monotonous, so I assume the words have great meaning), she flashed the huge smile that once again threatened to steal the world. A few feet away, Stosur, now sans sunglasses, looked down and ahead as she tried very hard to not allow her obvious-in-her-naked-eyes deep emotions of disappointment to consume her. A few moments later, while addressing the crowd, Schiavone turned to the Aussie and told her to not feel too sad, saying, "You are young. You can do it." Even after substituting her opponent's dream with her own, Schiavone was still able to make her (finally) flash a smile. Stosur seemed to be thankful for the moment of relief... even if in the back of her mind, she might have been thinking that she's only three years younger than the "old" Italian.
In between hugging and lovingly kissing the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen as if the occasion was the reuniting of herself with a long lost child she never knew she had, Schiavone still managed to grab the microphone one last time to thank trophy presenter Mary Pierce (it's the tenth anniversary of her RG title), telling her how much she loved her and was glad that she was there. The Frenchwoman seemed truly touched by the unexpected gratitude.
Sometimes, you can almost viscerally sense the moment when a player becomes something more in everyone's mind's eye from that day forward and forever. Anyone who watched Jana Novotna cry on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent could never be an uninterested bystander the rest of her career. Even more than her heroic play today, it was Schiavone's oh-so-thankful, oh-so-joyful, oh-so-life-affirming post-match moments that served as the moment for the Italian and anyone who was watching her. Nasty comments, intense rivalries and in-your-face outbursts often garner the most headlines in tennis, but it's the small, more intimate moments like this that make a player go from a familiar name to a person that you can't help but want to see succeed. Needless to say, it was a nice change.
Two weeks ago, you would have been thought demented to say it: "Francesca Schiavone is the champion of Roland Garros." Now, you would be called a crazy genius. Wonders never cease.
* - "I never believe I've lost until I'm shaking hands. And sometimes I don't believe it then, either." -- Serena Williams
* - "After Miami, she just felt like I wasn't good enough to play with anymore." -- Cara Black, on Liezel Huber
* - "Whenever we mentioned something about the #1 ranking Cara would just tighten up. For me it was never 'Liezel Huber the #1 player.' But I felt for her it was 'Cara Black the #1 player.' Who cares what the ranking is?" -- Liezel Huber, on Cara Black
Just weeks before the 2010 RG (in April), the doubles duo of Black and Huber had suffered a nasty break-up after a five-year stretch that saw the pair win four majors (in seven finals), claiming three-fourths of a Career Doubles Slam (coming up just a 2005 RG final loss short), along with two WTA Championship crowns and 28 total WTA titles. Neither ever won an elusive first RG doubles title, though Black did complete a Career Mixed Doubles Slam.
* - "I wasn't like this ten years ago. I decided to express myself, to be free, to be able to share my joy. Why not? When you give, you also can receive. If you remain closed, there's no exchange. I love to exchange. I love to give." -- Francesca Schiavone
Nearly a decade later, the memory of Schiavone's title in Paris *still* can't help but put a smile on the face of even those with the hardest of hearts.
2010 was all about Francesca. A year later, yet another "people's champion" was crowned in Paris.
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.
The 2012 edition would be no exception...
Maria Sharapova, 25, finally claimed her first Roland Garros title with a 6-3/6-2 win over Sara Errani in the final, completing a Career Slam and becoming the first player to win a major after having shoulder surgery. The Russian's misdiagnosed injury in '08, after she'd had a dominant run to her most recent slam win at the Australian Open that year, led to the surgery that put her career in jeopardy. Her long comeback had seen her improve her overall game by working on her movement, increasing her variety and altering her serve-first tactical approach, which all combined to make the slower clay a more viable surface for success. While she'd performed adequately in Paris before the injury and subsequent change of course, reaching two QF and a SF, it was always something of an uphill battle she inevitably lost. Ultimately, what played out helped to cement Sharapova's place in the sport's history by transforming her from a self-described "cow on ice" on clay courts to the player who was actually the tour's most dependable player on the surface in the middle years of the 2010's.
NOTE: (from WTA Backspin on June 9, 2012)
It's always nice to have a moment of levity in the post-match ceremonies of a slam, considering the loser has to watch -- often through tears -- as their opponent celebrates a few feet away. We got one on Court Chatrier as the players were being introduced to be awarded the ceremonial hardware, when "runner-up Maria Sharapova" was announced. Everyone laughed, including Sharapova (who shrugged and lifted her hands in a "what can ya do?" sort of way), and a smiling Errani jumped up with her arms in the air and finally had her "championship moment." Hey, she'll always have Paris.
Errani's run made it *three* straight years with an Italian in the RG women's singles final. She'd been just 1-4 in the tournament for her career before 2012, but posted consecutive wins over two former RG winners (Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova), the '11 U.S. Open semifinalist (Angelique Kerber) and '10 RG finalist/'11 U.S. Open champ (Samantha Stosur), both of them Top 10ers, en route to her maiden slam final.
She doubled up on major finals by reaching and winning the women's doubles with countrywoman Roberta Vinci, defeating Maria Kirilenko & Nadia Petrova in the final for what would be the first of three slam crowns won over the course of a year by the pair, as well as the initial entry in an eventual Career Doubles Slam the Italians that was compiled over the course of twenty-five months, concluding with a win at Wimbledon in 2014. The title run gave the duo nineteen straight wins that spring (four straight titles), and twenty-seven in a row on clay.
Perhaps the biggest moment of the tournament came on Day 3 when #5-seeded Serena Williams suffered the first (and still only) 1st Round loss at a major in her spectacular career. After previously having been 46-0 in the opening rounds of slams, Williams was upset by #111-ranked Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano, who was in the MD again a full year after having played at RG in '11 just days after the death of her fiance/coach.
Williams had dominated the spring clay season, winning her first seventeen matches on the surface (winning titles in Charleston and Madrid, then handing a walkover to Li Na in the Rome semis). For her part, Razzano had seen a hip injury limit her to just seven matches in 2012 up to that point.
Williams had seemed on her way to a victory, having won the 1st set and leading 4-0 and 5-1 (and serving two) in the 2nd set TB. It was at that point that Serena stopped play in the middle of a point to ask chair umpire Eva Asderaki to check a mark on the baseline. The questioned Razzano shot was ruled to have been in, and suddenly Williams' seemingly secure advantage quickly unraveled, as the weirdness that has often engulfed her at RG did so again.
Soon after, Asderaki (who'd infamously docked Serena for in-point hindrance vs. Sam Stosur at the '11 U.S. Open) interrupted a point being controlled by Williams, a point from a having MP, and ruled it to be replayed due to a missed line call (replays indicated that she was right to have done so). Razzano then won the replayed point. Razzano's play then began to force Williams errors, and the Pastry won six straight points to take the TB 7-5 to send things to a deciding set. Serena sat in her chair during the changeover and cried.
Razzano reeled off seven points in a row to begin the 3rd set, and soon led 4-0. It was then that Asderaki began to call several hindrance rule violations on the cramping French vet due to the loud gasps she was making after shots. Still, Razzano fired an ace to lead 5-0.
At 5-1, 30/love on Razzano's serve, Asderaki's hindrance call cost the Pastry a point and gave Williams a BP. Razzano's big serves nearly pulled the game out, but Serena broke on BP #3 for 5-2. Serving at 5-3, 30/30 Razzano was again called for hindrance and another point penalty gave Williams a BP once again, this time to get the set back on serve.
The French woman managed to serve out the win, holding in a 25-minute, 12-deuce game in which she survived five BP and won on her eighth MP, winning 4-6/7-6(5)/6-3 in 2:47.
In a match during which Williams was booed for dropping her racket after missing a shot, Razzano was serenaded by the French fans after what was surely the greatest moment of her career.
Venus Williams would then lose to Aga Radwanska in the 2nd Round. The 1st & 2nd Round losses by the siblings are still their worst ever combined slam result.
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Defending champion Li Na was ousted in the Round of 16 by Yaroslava Shvedova, becoming the first DC in Roland Garros history to lose to a qualifier. Of course, the #142-ranked Shvedova was no mere qualifier. While she was the lowest ranked player to reach the QF in Paris since 1983, she'd also reached the final eight there in 2010.
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Top-seeded Victoria Azarenka (working with retired former #1-ranked Pastry Amelie Mauresmo as a support coach) narrowly avoided an historic 1st Round upset at the hands of Italy's Alberta Brianti, rallying from 7-6/4-0 down (and points for 5-0) to win 6-7/6-4/6-2. Had Azarenka lost it would have been the earliest exit ever at Roland Garros for a #1 seed.
Five years later, another #1 seed *would* suffer such a defeat in Paris.
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Notable slam debuts in Paris: qualifiers Karolina Pliskova (lost 1st Rd. to Marion Bartoli) and Kiki Bertens (lost 1st Rd. to Christina McHale).
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In her fifth slam appearance, future RG finalist Sloane Stephens posted her maiden Round of 16 result at a major, where she lost to Samantha Stosur. Meanwhile, a year after she upset then-#2 Kim Clijsters in Paris, Arantxa Rus ended Serena conqueror Razzano's run in the 2nd Round and advanced to the 4th Round, her first (and still only) such result in a slam.
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The remarkable career of Esther Vergeer added a final slam flourish with the 30-year old Dutch great winning her sixth consecutive RG wheelchair singles crown in her final appearance at the event, and in what turned out to be her final slam singles competition. She lost just three games in three matches, defeating future #1 Yui Kamiji 3 & 0, then double-bageling both Sharon Walraven (SF) and Aniek Van Koot (F) to wrap up her 21st major singles title. It left her undefeated (18-0) for her RG career (she never lost a WS match in her slam career), and extended her overall match-winning streak to 457. It would ultimately reach 470 (she was 559-1 from March '01 forward), ended only by her retirement from the sport in early 2013.
Vergeer also won her 21st (and final) WD major, her fifth RG doubles title (11-1 career), taking the crown with Marjolein Buis with a win over Sabine Ellerbrock & Kamiji (both future multi-slam winners) in the first career slam final for both. She'd make her final slam appearance a month later at Wimbledon, losing in the WD semifinals (though she *did* win a "3rd Place" match to officially close things out). The WC singles competition at the All-England Club didn't begin until 2016, or else she'd likely have many, many *more* slam trophies.
The September Paralympic event in London in '12 meant that the U.S. Open wheelchair competition was not held. Naturally, in what turned out to be her final event, Vergeer won her fourth singles and third doubles Gold medals.
The Dutch great ended with 42 total slam crowns, and her unmatched singles career included 148 titles, including a streak of 120 in a row. She spent thirteen consecutive years at #1, a total of 668 weeks. Her last loss in singles had come in January 2003 to Aussie Daniela Di Toro, and she only faced one MP (vs. Korie Homan in the '08 Paralympic Gold Match) during her 470-match win streak.
Said Vergeer on the occasion of her retirement, "To be honest, I don't really know or remember what it feels like to lose in singles. I know what it's like to lose a Monopoly game and I don't like that."
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Sania Mirza claimed her (so far) only Roland Garros crown in the mixed doubles, taking the title with Mahesh Bhupathi (their second title-winning slam run as a duo). Mirza lost the 2011 WD final and 2016 MX finals in Paris.
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Germany's Annika Beck defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (SVK) to claim the girls singles crown, an early highlight of what would be a short career. Beck won two tour-level titles in 2014-15, but injuries eventually drove her from the game at age 24 when she retired in 2018. AKS had reached the final after defeating top-seeded Taylor Townsend and #5 Katerina Siniakova before losing to #2 Beck.
Hordette Irina Khromacheva successfully defended her girls doubles crown, taking the title with (then) fellow Hordette Dasha Gavrilova with a win over the all-South American duo of Montserrat Gonzalez & Beatriz Haddad Maia (PAR/BRA). Gavrilova had been the year-end girls #1 in 2010, while Khromacheva did the same in 2011.
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FASHION REPORT: After winning the Australian Open while donning white shorts, Victoria Azarenka disappointingly (for many) played in Paris in a dress.
Meanwhile, Svetlana Kuznetsova debuted a new tattoo that read, "Pain doesn't kill me, I kill the pain."
Maria Sharapova has traveled a long road to get back to "super." But, as is often said, it's the journey that makes the destination.
The now 25-year old Sharapova first burst onto big-time scene eight years ago, not in London when she won her first career slam title, but in Paris, when as a 17-year old she reached her first major quarterfinal at Roland Garros a month earlier. Back then, the slower red clay never seemed to fit the Russian who was always looking to go somewhere and get there as fast as she could. With a game based around a big serve and powerful groundstrokes, the six-foot-two, usually gracefully-attired Sharapova wasn't as graceful a mover on the terre battue. She even likened her ungainly attempts to a resembling "cow on ice."
Having injured her shoulder earlier in the (2008) season, only to have the injury misdiagnosed and made worse with continued play, Sharapova was forced to have rotator cuff surgery. She missed the Olympics, two slams, and nine months of action as she saw her ranking fall outside the Top 100 and her entire tennis career flash before her eyes. When she returned, she wasn't quite the same. The serve that she'd relied on, and upon which her entire game seemed to gain strength (and weakness) in the past, was no longer a "given" weapon. Upwards of nearly twenty double-faults in a match weren't uncommon, as she tinkered with her service mechanics and saw her confidence dip in and out for nearly two years.
But that started to change last spring and summer. Sharapova's service woes began to even out, and she worked hard to improve her fitness and court movement. After having the most successful clay season of her career, her confidence was high. After winning Rome, she said, "This is just the start of everything."
Jumping around and twirling in air like a big 25-year old kid immediately after her victory, Sharapova in some ways almost inadvertently recalled the image of Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen, for whom the second show court at Roland Garros and women's championship trophy is named. A six-time RG champion in the 1920's, Lenglen was known for her showy, flashy on-court moves and fashion sense... and lives on in a series of in-match photos and video clips that make her seem like a ballerina posing for the camera, trying to look as graceful in the air as humanly possible. At the very least, a case can be made that Sharapova might be the most glamorous woman to hoist the RG woman's trophy since the current coupe's namesake did it back in 1926.
Prior to the post-match trophy ceremony, there was Sharapova climbing into the stands, kissing babies and even lifting one to the skies like a scene from "The Lion King," adding a few more tags -- politician? Queen of the Serengeti? -- to a career job resume that includes stints as a businesswoman, model, spokesperson, (currently) fiancee, (soon-to-be) candymaker and one of the all-around best competitors in the sport. Unlike many of her fellow champions, though, who found the world to be their oyster after finding grand slam success, Sharapova has never lost track, first and foremost, what it was that got her there -- her tennis -- or lost her desire to be the best that she could be at it.
It says something about her that it was Sharapova who has become the first player to win a slam following shoulder surgery, for it speaks well to the drive that has always lurked beneath her glossy, fashionable exterior. In effect, it's always been her secret weapon. Finally, after a long, painful and, ultimately, affirming four years, it is once again. Many players who'd climbed as high as she once did would have given up and accepted the "dying out" nature of the supernova-like brilliance she once experienced. But not Sharapova. She dug in and worked harder than ever, and today she receives the spoils of her efforts. Nearly a half-hour after the conclusion of match, Sharapova was still levitating around the court on her own personal Cloud Nine. Calling her victory the "most special" of her career, she saying she'd, "never felt this happy."
* - "I remember when I met her when she was 13, she always told me she wanted to be #1. First, she said, 'I want to be a star,' and I said, 'Whoa, what does that mean? Does that mean you want to make lots of money?' 'No,no,no,' she said. 'I want to be #1. That's what a star is.' She was emphatic about being #1." - Billie Jean King, on Maria Sharapova
* - "You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good. You play good, they pay good." - Sloane Stephens tweet
* - "I've had so many outs and I could've said I don't need this. I could've said, 'I've got the money, I've got the game, I've got the career victories and grand slams.' But when your love for the game is bigger than those things, that's when you continue to get up." - Maria Sharapova
* - "I'm excited because now I'm going to have more Twitter followers." - Sloane Stephens, after reaching her first slam Round of 16
* - "I thought when I won Wimbledon at 17, that would be the most treasured moment in my career. But when I fell down on my knees today I realized this is extremely special, even more so." - Maria Sharapova
In 2013, after years of remarkable achievement but often a decided lack of focus, Serena Williams returned to Paris one year after her biggest slam disaster... and righted the "wrong" in the most emphatic way possible.
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
In 2014, Roland Garros' most compelling mid-decade performer once again rose above the fray...
...while a quest that would finally be fulfilled in the decade's latter stages would leave its first official mark on the tournament.
The three-hour final was the first three-set women's championship match in Paris since 2001, with Halep being the first Romanian woman to reach a major final since Virginia Ruzici at RG in 1980. Halep's decade-long quest for glory in Paris truly hit its stride in 2014, as she'd been just 1-3 at Roland Garros prior to her runner-up result. Since the 2013 tournament, Halep had risen from outside the Top 50, winning seven titles and earning a #4 seed in Paris. Four years after her first RG final, in her third try, she'd finally win her maiden major in 2018.
For Sharapova, after falling to Serena Williams in the '13 final, it was a case of returning to her dominant (or at least successfully fighting) clay court form of the decade's middle years. The win over Halep was her 20th consecutive three-set victory on the surface, and her fourth in her last four rounds of play in Paris in '14. The four-match stretch had started in the 4th Round against Samantha Stosur when she rallied from 6-4/4-3, 30/30 down to win nine straight games to defeat the Aussie. In the QF, Garbine Muguruza led 6-1/4-3, but Sharapova won ten of the final twelve games to advance. She then staged another comeback from a set down vs. Genie Bouchard in the semis.
The #1, #2 and #3 seeds all exited the tournament before the Round of 16.
#1 Serena Williams, the defending champ, was upset in the 2nd Round by 20-year old Muguruza (reaching her second straight slam 4th Round as an unseeded player), who'd go on to reach her first slam QF. At 2 & 2, it was Serena's worst slam loss, while Muguruza had previously been 0-7 vs. the Top 8 and never won a set. An increasingly flustered Williams had just eight winners to twenty-nine unforced errors against a Muguruza gameplan which featured many hard shots fired down the middle of the court.
As a child, Serena was Muguruza's favorite player. She admitted after the match that she would watch -- analyze -- her idol's matches on television, then try to emulate her in practice. “Since I was a child, I thought, oh, I want to play against Serena on Center Court. And today was the day, and I think I did very good." Meeting Williams at the net after her biggest career victory, Muguruza said her idol offered her encouragement. “She said that if I continue playing like this, I can win the tournament," she revealed, adding, "I said, I will try. I will try!"
Over the next two years, the Spaniard would reach three slam finals, winning two majors. In 2016, she'd defeat Williams in the RG final to claim her maiden slam crown.
#2 Li Na, the '11 champ, lost in the 1st Round to Kristina Mladenovic, becoming the fourth reigning AO champ to drop her opening match in Paris in the Open era. She was the first to do it since 2000, and just the second in thirty-five years. Li would play just one more slam event (Wimbledon), and announced her retirement in September.
#3 Aga Radwanska was knocked off by Ajla Tomljanovic in the 3rd Round, ending the Pole's streak of seven straight slam Round of 16-or-better results.
Serena's loss was coupled with one by her sister Venus on the same day, just 63 minutes apart. It was the fourth time the siblings had lost on the same day at a major, but the third time it'd happened in Paris. Venus fell in three sets to 19-year old Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, who notched her first career Top 30 win to reach the 3rd Round despite the Slovak never having before won back-to-back MD matches at a tour-level event. Williams had been up a set and a break in the match. It was Venus' ninth straight loss before the 4th Round in a major, a career worst stretch that would reach eleven by the end of 2014.
Said Venus of AKS: "She's going to be even better as she continues to play. I see wonderful things for her."
Almost immediately after losing in Paris, Serena and Caroline Wozniacki, who'd lost in the 1st Round and just had her engagement to golf Rory McIlroy broken, put their troubles behind them in Florida, where they were spotted attending a Miami Heat playoff game.
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Joining Sharapova and Halep in the semifinals were Genie Bouchard and Andrea Petkovic.
Bouchard, 20, would back up her breakout Australian Open semifinal from earlier in the season by defeating Carla Suarez-Navarro in a 7-5 3rd set (after trailing 5-2) in the QF to make it back-to-back major final four results. She lost in three to Sharapova, but a month later would add another slam success: a final at Wimbledon, a first at a major for a Canadian-born woman representing Canada.
After climbing as high as #4 later in 2014, despite a QF in Melbourne in '15, Bouchard had difficulty backing up her career year, as she lost in the 1st Round at RG & Wimbledon. She seemed to regain her form with a Round of 16 run at the U.S. Open, but a lockerroom slip and fall that resulted in a concussion sent her results in reverse, and a lawsuit battle with the USTA over the accident (though Bouchard ultimately prevailed) was a perfect storm of difficulties that has resulted in inconsistency (at best) and a sinking ranking ever since. After a #7 finish in 2014, she hasn't finished another season in the Top 45.
The oft-injury plagued Petkovic defeated Sara Errani 2 & 2 in the QF, becoming the first German to reach the RG semis since Steffi Graf in 1999. It's been Petko's only Round of 16-or-better result at a major since she recorded three slam QF finishes in the 2011 season (and a 4th Round at the '10 U.S. Open).
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Italy's stretch of great results in Paris in the first half of the decade ebbed a bit more in '14, but Sara Errani posted her third straight QF-or-better singles result (a 15-3 run at RG from 2012-14), and she and Roberta Vinci reached their third straight doubles final. A month later they'd complete their Career Doubles Slam with a Wimbledon title run.
2010 champ Francesca Schiavone fell in the 1st Round to Ajla Tomljanovic. It was just her second opening match defeat in Paris in fourteen MD appearances, and her first since 2009. It would turn out to be the first of four such early exits in her last five RG appearances.
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Pauline Parmentier was the surprise Last Pastry Standing in Paris, reaching the Round of 16 in a career best slam result.
In the 1st Round in doubles, Kristina Mladenvoic teamed with Flavia Pennetta to defeat the all-French duo of Alize Cornet & Caroline Garcia. Two years later, Garcia & Mladenovic would form a lethal doubles duo, combining forces to lead France to the Fed Cup final and becoming the first French pair to win the RG WD since 1971.
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Young players making their mark:
* - in her slam debut, 18-year old wild card Taylor Townsend became the youngest U.S. woman to reach the 3rd Round in Paris since 2003 (Ashley Harkleroad)
* - Sloane Stephens reached her third consecutive RG Round of 16 (sixth straight at a major), where she lost to Simona Halep. Four years later, they'd meet for the title with the same result.
* - qualifier Kiki Bertens recorded her first RG MD win en route to her maiden slam Round of 16 result. Up to that point, the 22-year old Dutch woman has been 2-8 in career slam MD matches. Two years later, she's reach her maiden slam SF in Paris.
* - 2013 RG girls champ Belinda Bencic, 17, made her Paris MD debut, losing to Venus Williams, 6-4/6-1. The Swiss teen had led the veteran by a break at 3-2 in the 1st set.
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The 2014 Roland Garros featured the return to grand slam tennis of Switzerland's Timea Bacsinszky. Injuries had led to her essentially being in and out of the sport for much of the 2011-13 seasons (finishing #242-#185-#285 after being between #50-59 from 2008-10), and she had seemed set to move on in life by taking up a career in hotel management. But after beginning to feel healthy again, and after receiving an email in May '13 saying that she was eligible to compete in a Roland Garros qualifier, Bacsinszky took up the offer. She lost her opening match, but had caught the tennis bug once again. With her career revived, she qualified to reach the RG MD in '14, her first at a major since the U.S. Open in 2012, and her 1st Round win over Maryna Zanevska was her first since RG '10.
She'd go on to reach the semifinals in Paris in two of the next three years and rise into the Top 10. In 2015, she led Serena Williams by a set and a break in their SF before losing the final ten games.
Meanwhile, Paris saw the close of the slam singles career of Anabel Medina-Garrigues with her qualifying loss to Tereza Smitkova. It ended the Spaniard's streak of 41 consecutive MD appearances in majors, and left her as one of only two players in WTA history (w/ Anna Smashnova) to have won 10+ singles titles but never reach a slam quarterfinal. AMG played doubles until her retirement in 2018, and has recently worked as a coach and is currently the ESP Fed Cup captain.
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As usual, Svetlana Kuznetsova was involved in an epic singles match in Paris. This time, she won it. In 3:13, the '09 RG champ out-dueled Petra Kvitova, overcoming a 3-1 3rd set deficit and the Czech serving for the match at 5-4 and 7-6. Kuznetsova failed to convert two MP of her own at 6-5, but finally managed to get her first win in four tries vs. Kvitova in a 6-7(3)/6-1/9-7 contest to reach her tenth Round of 16 at RG in eleven years.
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The doubles title was taken by Hsieh Su-wei & Peng Shuai, who defeated three-time finalists Sara Errani & Roberta Vinci to claim their second slam ('13 Wimbledon) as a duo. The pair, friends and oft-doubles partners since childhood, held the #1 ranking for twenty weeks between February and June of 2014, sharing it for one week before RG and then three more after winning the crown.
It would be Hsieh/Peng's last (as of now) of twelve titles together (eight in 2013-14), as the professional partnership that first began in 2008 ended at the close of the '14 season after Peng took issue with Hsieh's supposed lack of commitment to training. They briefly reunited in 2016 and '18, reaching the AO semis and Dubai final in the latter season, but appeared to split for good after sparring on social media over differences regarding the services of a fitness trainer who'd been shared by the two.
Anna-Lena Groenefeld took the mixed doubles crown, her second MX slam win of her career ('09 Wimbledon), with Frenchman Jean-Julien Rojer, defeating Julia Goerges & Nenad Zimonjic in the final.
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Dasha Kasatkina became the first Russian to win the junior title at Roland Garros since 1998 (Nadia Petrova), defeated top-seeded Serb Ivana Jorovic in a three-set final. Her win in Paris gave Russia back-to-back girls slam winners, following up Elizaveta Kulichkova's win in Melbourne. Four years later, Kasatkina would reach her first career QF at a major at Roland Garros en route to breaking into the Top 10 later that year.
In doubles, Romanians Ioana Ducu & Ioana Loredana Rosca came out on top, becoming the first all-ROU pair to take the GD at Roland Garros in twenty-four years. While Rosca has gone on to have a successful career on the ITF circuit, Ducu chose to go another way. After finishing out the '14 season, she gave up the sport to pursue a medical career. In her final two events that fall, Ducu won her lone pro title (a $10K doubles crown in Sharm El Sheikh, along with a singles SF) and another WD final (and singles QF) at the site a week later.
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Japan's Yui Kamiji, 20, won her first wheelchair singles slam crown, defeating three former/future slam winners -- Jordanne Whiley, Jiske Griffioen and Aniek Van Koot -- in order en route to the title. Kamiji would sweep the RG titles, joining with Whiley to defeat Griffioen/Van Koot in the doubles final. She and Whiley would win a Doubles Grand Slam in '14, taking all four majors as well as the year-ending Masters event. In all, the pair won seven straight slam/Masters WC titles from 2013-15.
Kamiji, who had become the new wheelchair #1 in May, also won the U.S. Open singles later that summer and ended the '14 season holding six of the seven slam crowns in the sport, only missing the Australian Open singles (she was RU). By the end of the decade, Kamiji had risen to second place on the all-time career slam s/d titles list (w/ 20 heading into the '19 RG), behind only Esther Vergeer.
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FASHION REPORT: Aga's (short-lived) run in her flower dress deserved better...
Venus' effort didn't hang around for very long, either...
Said Jelena Jankovic of *her* dress: "I think it's very French. I love it."
Meanwhile, we all know the Romanian fans travel well. But they also coordinate their wardrobe...
We can't stop the arrival of the future, nor can we rewrite the events of the past. And over the last two weeks in Paris, no one could find a way to stop Maria Sharapova at Roland Garros, either. Not the older, nor the younger. Not one player's destiny, nor the impatience of another to experience ultimate grand slam success, could divert the 27-year old Russian from once again -- for a fifth time -- having the tournament of a lifetime.
Try as she might -- and she did try with all she had at her disposal, managing to come closer to succeeding than any other woman over the past two weeks -- Romania's Simona Halep could not grasp Sharapova by the ankle and pull her back down to earth as she was in the process of once again rising above her opponent, the crowd and the court just as this year's women's singles final reached a critical stage in the deciding set. Lifting her game to a different level at the most crucial moment yet again, Sharapova emerged with a 6-4/6-7(5)/6-4 victory in a three-hour battle against a 22-year old who was appearing in the first major final of her career. After the first three-set RG final in thirteen years, nine-time slam finalist Sharapova offered up the judgment that it was the "toughest grand slam final" in which she'd ever played.
No one dared argue with her verdict, either.
Sharapova served wide on match point, and Halep couldn't keep her return inside the lines.
Moving toward the net on the point, Sharapova saw the ball land out. After having shouted her lungs out all week celebrating her accomplishments, this time she quietly -- almost daintily -- dropped her racket and fell to her knees, covering her face with her hands and burying it in her lap. Though surely most people had, at least on some level, expected to possibly see this moment on the final weekend of this Roland Garros, Sharapova obviously wasn't one of them.
But that's what makes Sharapova such a great champion, isn't it? She takes nothing for granted. She didn't when she won her first slam crown as a 17-year old at Wimbledon nearly ten years ago. She didn't today when she became the first Russian player -- male or female -- to win the same slam more than once. And if reaches this same moment again in the future, she won't then, either.
Of course, being who she is, quiet will never do. After shaking Halep's hand, the still-wound-up Sharapova fell to her knees a second time, this time with her racket in hand... and she celebrated in far less quiet manner.
Sharapova, after so many people -- few of them REALLY paying attention -- have openly wondered why someone with so much going on in her lucrative off-court life would choose to put herself through so much training in order to continue to play tennis, did her level best at this tournament to prove precisely why she does so. The best competitor in the world of tennis loves the sport. And she loves to win. Everything that goes into making that happen as often as possible is just part of the process.
Left by her injured and/or upset generational contemporaries to block the door being charged by the army of NextGen would-be-stars looking to make a name for themselves, Sharapova personally eliminated twentysomethings Garbine Muguruza, Genie Bouchard and Halep -- all in three-setters -- in her final three matches at this slam. She might have taught them all a few things about what it'll take to become a real champion one day, too. Not to mention to still be able to call themselves that a full decade later.
It's been quite a career that Sharapova has put together. And, really, it's a testament to her -- both the teenage and current versions -- that she's been able to do it. She's always seemed different from the rest, equally capable of being both a superstar AND a champion. All these years after everyone first saw such traits in her, she's been all that and, as she's often shown, quite a bit more, too.
* - "I think doesn't matter who plays today against me, I always lose the match today, because I don't think she was put a lot of pressure from me." "I think today just I gave it away for the match." "Nobody say if you are #2 in the world, you have to win all the matches." - Li Na, after her loss to Kristina Mladenovic
* - "I have a couple words to describe it, but I think that would be really inappropriate, so I’m going to leave it at that." - Serena Williams, after her loss to Garbine Muguruza
* - "Before I felt very small. But today I thought, I’m not going to feel very small." - Garbine Muguruza, after upsetting Serena Williams
* - "Best friend on tour, I don’t have one. I don’t think the tennis tour is the place to have friends. For me, it’s all competition. And I think it’s important to just remember that we’re going to play against each other. It’s not like we’re teammates. To me, it’s kind of more competitive." - Genie Bouchard
* - "It's great sometimes to get knocked down because you have to get back up. I love getting back up. I love the challenge." - Serena Williams
* - "I will not forget this match." - Simona Halep, after losing the final
* - "If somebody had told me... at some stage in my career, that I'd have more Roland Garros titles than any other grand slam, I'd probably go get drunk. Or tell them to get drunk. One or the other." - Maria Sharapova
* - "It says that she's very fit. It says that she's very determined. And it says that she never gives up." - Sharapova coach Sven Groenefeld
* - "You're not just born being a natural clay court player. OK, maybe if you're Nadal. But certainly not me. I didn't grow up on it; didn't play on it. I just took it upon myself to make myself better on it."" - Maria Sharapova
While a resurgent Maria Sharapova had managed to seize the spotlight in Paris during the decade's middle years, in 2015 Serena Williams once again reminded everyone that she hadn't gone anywhere, and wasn't planning on doing so anytime soon, either.
The win gave Williams three straight slam titles (the last person to do that was... herself in 2002-03), and a month later she'd complete her *second* "Serena Slam" with a Wimbledon championship run (her bid for a 2015 Grand Slam, which would have been the first since Steffi Graf's in 1988, was famously ended by Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semis).
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In 2015, the dynamic duo of "Team Bucie" took Paris by storm.
Well, NEARLY all of it, anyway, as they had a hand in all three women's championship matches at Roland Garros (coming within a Serena of sweeping them all). Lucie Safarova came into RG sporting just a 5-4 clay court record in the spring, but she timed the peaking of her game perfectly with her arrival on the terre battue. A year after reaching her first slam semi at Wimbledon, Safarova thrilled her many fans (around the world and in the stands, as well as the lockerroom) with efficient serving, tremendous defense and the (finally) hard-won confidence to be aggressive offensively when the opportunity arose, sweeping through six matches without dropping a set -- defeating four Top 20 players, including former champs Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic -- to become the first Czech woman to reach the RG final since Hana Mandlikova in 1981.
In the final, she took advantage of Serena Williams' 2nd set slip to force a 3rd and take a break lead there before Serena turned things around. The result made Safarova the seventh Czech woman to reach the singles Top 10, while she also climbed into the doubles Top 5 after she and Bethanie Mattek-Sands (aka "Team Bucie") won their second straight slam title (in just their sixth tournament as a duo), defeating world #1's Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza en route to the final, where they won out over Casey Dellacqua & Yaroslava Shvedova.
Not only that, but BMS cleaned up in the Mixed, as well, taking the title with Mike Bryan to become the first woman to sweep both doubles competitions in Paris since 2001.
Finally, one of the stars of Roland Garros from the *previous* decade was heard from in the latter stages of the 2010's when Ana Ivanovic reached her first major semifinal in eight years.
At the time, Ivanovic's rush to the '08 RG women's title and assuming of the role of the world's #1 ranked player in the wake of Justine Henin's first (sudden) retirement seemed to signal a great, longtime run at the top of the game for the then-20 year old Serb. After all, she'd reached two previous slam finals in the previous year, at the '07 Roland Garros and '08 Australian Open. But it soon became clear that the harsher spotlight and scrutiny between the lines was not conducive to AnaIvo playing up to the level of her talent.
It should have been obvious when Ivanovic's team, who knew her best, decided not to tell her prior to her '08 RG semifinal vs. countrywoman Jelena Jankovic would mean the winner would become the new world #1, no matter what would happen in the subsequent final. With something so big at stake, she was left in the dark. They knew.
After winning the final over Dinara Safina, Ivanovic was never really the same shooting star who backed up her fame with similar big time results. She was #1 for twelve of the following thirteen weeks, but Jankovic ultimately finished the season atop the rankings while AnaIvo was #5 (actually one spot *worse* than she'd finished in '07). Ivanovic remained a big name, and finished her career with fifteen titles. But she never reached another slam final, and went 0-2 in high-level Premier finals, as well, after having gone 3-1 in such events prior to winning RG.
Ivanovic went seventeen slams without producing another major QF result, and twenty-seven before finally reaching the semifinals in Paris in 2015. She lost to Lucie Safarova. The Serb didn't use the result as a springboard to a "second life" as a resurgent slam contender, either. Instead, she never advanced past the 3rd Round in the remaining six majors at which she competed before announcing her retirement at age 29, before the start of the '17 season.
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Timea Bacsinszky, who a year earlier had essentially emerged from semi-retirement to win her first slam MD match in four years, returned to Roland Garros and put on a stunning run to the semifinals after never having previously been past the 3rd Round in a slam (and that had come in '08). The #23-seeded Swiss strung together upset wins over Madison Keys and Petra Kvitova to set up a semifinal match-up with Serena Williams.
Forever to be known as Serena's "flu match," this one featured the "bizarro" side of Williams' all-time career in a nutshell. She'll go down as one of the greatest players of all time, capable of laying waste to the field en route to numerous major titles. But unless they've witnessed certain aspects of "the Williams oeuvre" first hand, future tennis generations will have a hard time truly understanding the part of her career that has made matches like the one vs. Bacinsszky possible on what has seemed like a regular basis.
But even in a career full of "flipped switches" signaled by a well-placed roar or a thundering shot, Williams' 4-6/6-3/6-0 win stands alone. Battling a severe flu, coughing and often lumbering around the court in a deliberate fashion for a set and a half, Williams seemed ready to be sent packing. Trailing 6-4, and a break down at 3-2 in the 2nd, Williams hacked up something into a towel during the changeover... and then came off her chair and never lost another game.
As Williams charged toward her fourth win of the tournament after dropping the 1st set, Bacsinszky couldn't help but be chewed up by the gears of "Serenativity" in full production mode. Near the end, Serena chased down a wide ball, sliding across the backcourt and firing a forehand passing shot winner from behind the baseline. While still stretched out on the terre battue, she clenched her fist and stared into the face of the invisible enemy that once again had failed to get the best of her. A classic image to cement a classic win into the memory bank of history.
Starting with Francesca Schiavone's 2010 title run, Italians had seized the spotlight at every Roland Garros during the decade. Slowly but surely, that was changing.
While Sara Errani posted a fourth straight QF-or-better result (F-SF-QF-QF), it would be her last of the decade. Flavia Pennetta matched her career best RG result with a Round of 16 finish, but it would come in her final appearance in Paris, as she'd retire in October in the wake of her U.S. Open title run. Three-times running doubles finalists Errani & Roberta Vinci, after having completed their Career Doubles Slam in '14, had ended their partnership earlier in 2015 (the "official" stated reason: a greater focus on their singles play). Errani didn't play WD at Roland Garros at all, while Vinci teamed with fellow Italian Karin Knapp, losing in the 3rd Round.
Errani & Vinci, who very well could one day enter the Hall of Fame together for their doubles exploits on the WTA tour and in Fed Cup, only played in two more events together in their career, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, as well as one tune-up match in a tour event that same summer. Vinci would retire in 2018.
Meanwhile, Schiavone rebounded from her 1st Round exit in '14 with a 3rd Round finish, leaving another lasting impression in her 2nd Round clash with Svetlana Kuznetsova. As anticipated, Francesca and Sveta teamed up for another memorable slam "instant classic." At the 2011 Australian Open, they'd faced off in a slam record 4:44 marathon (w/ a 16-14 3rd set), while this "short" 3:50 affair was "only" the third-longest women's match in RG history. But that just condensed the drama into a shorter window. Schiavone held a set point in the 1st, but Kuznetsova took the lead on the fourth SP of her own. The Italian won the 2nd after being down an early break. In the 3rd, the Russian led 4-2 and served for the match four times, holding a match point, but Schiavone refused to give in, outlasting the '09 RG champ as the match ended with ten breaks of serve in the final eleven games. Schiavone won 6-7(11)/7-5/10-8.
So many emotions from 2010 champion @Schiavone_Fra after grinding out a 2R victory over #Kuznetsova. #RG15
https://t.co/e7Q9ECzvum
— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2015Vi siete divertiti?
Did you enjoy it?
@rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/mQBfFPBVib
— Francesca Schiavone (@Schiavone_Fra) May 28, 2015This classic French Open moment is brought to you by Francesca Schiavone. pic.twitter.com/a4j6CBuL0w
— Chris Oddo (@TheFanChild) May 28, 2015The win over Kuznetsova would turn out to be the '10 champ's final victory at RG, as she'd lose in the 1st Round each year from 2016 to 2018 and then retire that summer.
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Romanian Andreea Mitu was a surprise achiever in Paris, reaching the Round of 16 in just her second career slam MD appearance (after having fallen in qualifying in four of the previous five majors). The 23-year old had planned to quit the sport in 2014, only to suddenly find success with a Wimbledon Q-run and four ITF singles titles before the end of the summer. Come the '15 RG, Mitu upset world #12 Karolina Pliskova and former champ Schiavone en route to the 4th Round.
It remains the only slam at which Mitu, who became a mom in 2018, has ever won a MD match.
In a 1st Round match, Czech Denisa Allertova defeated Brit Johanna Konta in three sets in the debut RG appearances for both woman. But it was their very first *set* that proved to be historic. After neither player was able to break serve in the stanza, the two advanced to a tie-break that saw them combine for fifteen set points. After saving eight SP, Allertova converted on her own seventh SP to take the 19-17 TB, the longest ever at Roland Garros.
Meanwhile, Alison Van Uytvanck reached the RG quarterfinals, becoming the first Belgian to do so in Paris since four-time champ Justine Henin in 2007.
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20-year old Elina Svitolina reached her first career slam QF, having early in the tournament survived a three-hour contest against Yulia Putintseva. Putintseva had led 6-1/3-0, and held a 4-1 advantage in the 3rd set, as well. Svitolina ultimately won 1-6/6-5/9-7. After the tournament, she'd break into the Top 20 (#17) for the first time, surpassing Alona Bondarenko as the highest-ranked Ukrainian in WTA history.
Garbine Muguruza, 21, reached her second straight QF in Paris, defeating soon-to-be slam champs Angelique Kerber and Flavia Pennetta. A month later, she'd reach her first slam final at Wimbledon. A year later, she'd win her maiden slam crown at Roland Garros.
Sloane Stephens defeated Venus Williams in the 1st Round, adding her name to a select list, where it still stands today. Heading into the 2019 Roland Garros, Stephens was one of just two woman (w/ Ekaterina Makarova) who have defeated both Williams sisters in slam competiton but never risen to the #1 singles ranking. Over the next two seasons in 2016-17, three others who also held the distinction (Kerber, Muguruza and Ka.Pliskova) reached #1 and were removed from the list.
Stephens' 2015 RG run ended in the Round of 16 for a fourth straight year, falling to Serena Williams in three sets, 1-6/7-5/6-3. Stephens had been three points away from the win in game #10 of the 2nd set.
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Back at RG after a one year injury-related absence, Victoria Azarenka (a semifinalist in her last MD in Paris in '13) suffered her earliest defeat in the event since 2010, falling to Serena Williams in the 3rd Round, 3-6/6-4/6-2.
The match was made memorable/notorious by, first, Azarenka having led it 6-3/4-2, then due to controversy. Serving down 4-5 in the 2nd, on SP/BP for Williams, the Belarusian was angered by an important call that seemed have wrongly gone against her. A late "out" call on an Azarenka shot off the line was replayed after a ruling by chair umpire Kader Nouni. Williams had hit the ball before the linesperson's call, and the mark showed the ball to have been in. Azarenka in no way bought the notion that Serena's shot had been affected by the call.
Azarenka lost the replayed point, dropping the 2nd set. She audibly cursed and was given a code violation. After taking a 2-0 lead in the 3rd, Azarenka was increasingly frustrated by Williams, who raised the level of her game down the stretch. Serena won the final six games of the match, improving to 16-3 in their head-to-head series, and went on to win the title.
Due largely to a pregnancy break in 2016, and then a lengthy custody battle that curtailed her travel, Azarenka didn't win another match in Paris until 2019.
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Paula Badosa Gibert became the first junior slam champion to hail from Spain in sixteen years (Lourdes Dominguez Lino - '99 RG), defeating Russian Anna Kalinskaya in the girls final. As of 2019, she's still yet to make her MD women's singles debut in Paris.
Backing up their girls title in Melbourne earlier in the season, Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova became the second all-Czech duo ('13 Krejcikova/Siniakova) in three years to win the RG junior doubles crown, defeating the U.S. duo of Caroline Dolehide & Katerina Stewart in the final.
Meanwhile, Vondrousova also reached the junior singles semis at RG for a second straight year. In '14 she'd done it as an unseeded player, while she was the #1 seed this time around. Both times she lost to the eventual champion, Dasha Kasatkina in '14 and Badosa a year later.
Making her junior slam debut was Canadian Bianca Andreescu. The 14-year old made it through qualifying, then lost in the 1st Round to #16-seeded Kalinskaya. During the '15 season, Andreescu began working with former world #3 and Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat. Said the French woman, "(Bianca) can do many things, she has good hands and she's a very powerful girl," adding, "She has big goals and she is doing many things to reach these big goals."
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30-year old Dutch wheelchair player Jiske Griffioen swept the singles and doubles titles. Defeating countrywoman Aniek Van Koot in the singles final, Griffioen won her second straight major in 2015. The two combined to win the WD, ending the bid of Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley to win a sixth straight slam crown. It was the sixth slam crown won by the Dutch duo, all since 2012. Griffioen had won six previous WD majors with Esther Vergeer early in her career from 2006-08.
Following Roland Garros, Griffioen became the WC singles #1 for the first time.
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FASHION REPORT: Aga's diamond sparkle dress only lasted one match (she lost to Annika Beck, her worst slam result in Paris since 2007), but it lives on in mythic tales of tennis fashion...
Mladenovic's classic all-black ensemble will never go out of style...
Quite simply, Serena Williams is the most interesting champion in the world. She doesn't ALWAYS win majors, but when she does, she prefers to make them memorable.
As Williams has been mercilessly hunting down Steffi Graf's all-time slam title mark the last few seasons, it's worth noting that most of the German's 22 career slam title runs weren't particularly memorable for their "Grafic" drama. While Graf played seventeen three-set slam finals, winning thirteen of them, most of the dramatic slam moments and images that come to the mind's eye where she's concerned involve her opponents. The look of Martina Navratilova when she realized that she could hold back the overwhelming tide of the young upstart no longer. A crestfallen Jana Novotna crying on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent. An overmatched Natalia Zvereva getting double-bageled in Paris. Martina Hingis crossing over to the other side of the net and eventually having to be corralled by her mother (and that was during the German's final slam win in '99, after a three-year drought, knee surgery and the general knowledge that she was close to calling it a career -- making that win probably *her* most dramatic moment of all).
Oh, Graf played some great, tight finals (a 10-8 3rd set in a RG win vs. Arantxa Sanchez in '96, for example) but, though we know it wasn't the case, since she visibly betrayed few of her emotions on court during play, it was often easier to see her as something of a Fraulein Forehand machine rather than a massive collection of nerve endings and firing brain synapses sometimes struggling to find a way to work together to discover a way to achieve a lasting success on the final point of the match.
The far more emotionally demonstrative Williams hides nothing. In fact, she's a virtual kaleidoscope of expression. If she's feeling great, you know it (and hear it). If she's not, you know that, too. Sometimes even when you'd think she'd be feeling great, she's yelling (or more) at herself to get it together and play at an even HIGHER level. One that befits her abilities. Only Serena, as she did during the last two weeks in Paris, would think to say that she considered a come-from-behind victory at this Roland Garros to be "unprofessional." Early on, before things REALLY got hairy later in the tournament, Williams said, "I never set the bar low for myself. That means I accept defeat -- and I never accept defeat." She added, "I think you have to be mentally ready and prepared for anything. And I'm not ever going to put myself in a position where I say I'm not good enough, because I know I am."
Even with the sight of a TRUE "Serenativity" moment on court being similar to driving past a car accident -- you almost don't want to look at the carnage left behind from a fallen Williams opponent on one of her very good days, but you just can't help but do it -- Williams' slam runs usually come with at least one edge-of-your-seat moment that would have altered the course of the tournament if things had only gone slightly differently. Three of Serena's slam wins have come after she's saved match point during the event. Four more times opponents have served for the match against her, only to fail. At her last RG title run in '13 she was down a break in the 3rd, while during the past two weeks she came back from a set down four times, including trailing Timea Bacsinszky in the semifinals 6-4/3-2, a break down while she was suffering from a debilitating flu that caused her to appear ready to keel over at any moment during the match.
Maybe more than any of her previous nineteen slam title runs, the one that Williams finished off in Paris today may be her greatest, simply for what it took for her to reach the finish line. But that's just how she does it.
Serena has managed to carve out a niche in tennis history for herself where she is BOTH the dominating force AND the troubled champion fighting against outside and inner forces to overcome her circumstances and climb to the top of the tennis mountain. Again. And again. And again. Maybe only Andre Agassi (ironically, Graf's husband) was ever able to even come close to being able to manipulate the moments of a career in quite so many opposing ways. Not by treachery or cynical machinations (which marked Agassi's early career), no matter the whispers that still frustratingly linger in her wake after all these years, but by the act of Serena simply being Serena. For all her drama and athletic dramatics. For all her excellence, as well as the old frustrations that once led Chris Evert to publicly call for her take a chance on living up to the fantastic possibility of her talent before it was too late, for the good of herself and the sport. To all of Williams' positive attributes, of which there are so many, as well as to her faults, many of which most have a hard time agreeing upon, and some of which have been rounded off over the years for better public consumption. Serena is the total package. So much so, as with most stars that project a larger than life persona, that people will always have to agree to disagree about her on some level. Where Williams is concerned, three people could look at the same body of career evidence, with all the questions and athletic earthquakes combined therein, and you'd likely get three totally different opinions, both personally and professionally, and no one of the three would likely choose to truly alter their opinion no matter any conflicting evidence to the contrary that might be presented.
Serena is tennis' version of a flesh-and-blood Rorschach test.
But Williams still needed to win her third Roland Garros, or else all her extraordinary work in Paris will have gone for naught. Lost TO history, rather than another chapter in her drive to MAKE it. All that was required was one final push in the final against Lucie Safarova. A win would give her a third Career Grand Slam (only Graf has managed the feat), make her the first woman since 2001 to open a season with back-to-back slam titles, and become the first to win three consecutive majors since the "Serena Slam" run that saw her win four in row from 2002-03.
After forty-eight hours to recuperate from her illness, Williams came out like a house a-fire in the final.
Williams held for 5-2, winning her fifth consecutive game.
"Come onnnnnn!!!!"
There was no stopping her now. Serena took a 30/love lead on Safarova's serve, then when the Czech fired a shot long it was triple match point.
"Come onnnnnn!!!!"
Serena hooked a forehand return into the short court, and Safarova failed to get it back. It was over, and Williams had won. Again. 6-3/6-7(3)/6-2, pulling yet another rabbit out of a hat full of them... and surprising no one by it.
As Williams officially became just the second woman in the Open era to claim a 20th career singles slam, she let loose her racket and raised her arms to the sky. Her expression spoke volumes. Depending on which Serena one saw, there were various captions that could have been placed with it.
"Are you not entertained?" Or maybe, "I can't believe I just did this again... oh, wait, YES I can." Some might have even seen something along the lines of, "F*** this s***... now let me go to sleep for a week." Although, honestly, maybe you would have had to have been within earshot of the many moments in which she cursed herself out to have immediately gone with that last one. Hmmm, or maybe not. Either way, it was assuredly the most "drop the mic and walk off" moment as can be remembered in tennis in ages. At least since the end of the Connors/McEnroe era, I'd say.
Now, but not quite yet, Serena is more and more history's subject to examine. This win makes her 20-4 in slam finals. She's won seven straight, losing only one major final ('11 U.S. Open vs. Stosur) since 2008, and only once to a player not also named Williams since Sharapova shocked her in the Wimbledon final in 2004 (and then was made to never, ever forget it).
As things stand, Williams has now won seven slam titles since she turned 30. Graf won her last in the final days of her 29th year. And Serena doesn't look to be close to slowing down just yet, either. And why should she? What does she have to be afraid of? She's so far stared down illness, injury, life, death, controversy and all sorts of other things said or left unspoken. She's a living, breathing icon of sport, not just in the U.S., or in "women's sports." But in SPORT, period, all over the world.
There's no excuse not to appreciate that fact, for we'll never see the likes of her this way again. We've been lucky to have witnessed what we have so far, let alone what's left to see.
* - "I wanted to play on a smaller court. But that’s the way it is." - Caroline Garcia, after her 1st Round loss on Chatrier Court
* - "I can't make it here, it doesn't depend on the opponent, it depends on myself and I can't play here at the French Open and I hope it can change in the future." - Caroline Garcia
* - "For me, it's too much to play on this (Chatrier) court and next year I will ask to play on Court Number 9. A sort of hidden court where there's nobody there." - Caroline Garcia
* - "I never tried to be brilliant, I always tried to be efficient." - Timea Bacsinszky, on her successful game plan to defeat Petra Kvitova in the QF
* - "That call was bull****, everyone knows it" - Victoria Azarenka's reaction to a controversial call in her 3rd Round match vs. Serena Williams
* - "Not only is Serena one of the best women players of all time, she's also one of the best actresses." - British player Tara Moore, reacting on Twitter to Serena Williams' visible reactions to suffering from the flu in her SF match vs. Timea Bacsinszky
* - "Not sure why death threats are being sent. Opinions are nothing but that, I just value good sportsmanship and really feel for timea..." - Tara Moore, after receiving online threats due to her comments about Williams
* - "I think she's always known she's had the potential. She's just maturing. We all do. As she matures and starts to grow, she realizes what she hasn't done and what she has done and she kind of puts it together in a nice package now where she's able to accept and take control." - coach Rob Steckley, on Lucie Safarova
* - "I never set the bar low for myself. That means I accept defeat -- and I never accept defeat." - Serena Williams
* - "I think you have to be mentally ready and prepared for anything. And I'm not ever going to put myself in a position where I say I'm not good enough, because I know I am." - Serena Williams
As the 2010's began to wind down in Paris in 2016, the decade ended with a stretch similar to that with which it'd been ushered in -- one that embraced star-turns featuring a run of first-time slam champions.
After dropping her opening set in the 1st Round to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, Muguruza put her head down and ran off fourteen straight sets en route to her first slam crown (and just her third overall tour title) at Roland Garros, a run that included wins over former slam champs Svetlana Kuznetsova, Sam Stosur and #1 and defending champ Serena Williams (who'd defeated her for the '15 Wimbledon title) in the final, against whom she powered her way through with aggression and big groundstrokes. Defeating Williams for the second time in Paris (w/ her '14 2nd Rd. win), Muguruza simply outplayed Serena in the championship match, adding her name to the short list of woman who've beaten the (then) 21-time major winner in her twenty-seven career slam finals. The first Spanish woman to win a slam since 1998 (Sanchez), the first to reach a slam final since 2000 (Martinez), the first South American-born (Venezuela -- she said she considers herself "50%" Venezuelan) winner since 1990 (Sabatini), and the youngest slam champ since 2012 (Azarenka), 22-year old Muguruza rose to a career-best #2 and eventually held the #1 ranking for a month later in the seaon.
Serena Williams had been attempting to equal Steffi Graf's Open era mark of 22 slam singles titles, but for the third straight slam she'd come up short, once in the semis ('15 U.S.) and in back-to-back major finals in '16. And it was raising eyebrows. Such are the incredibly high standards for the all-time great.
The 34-year old world #1, even while seen as having taken a slight "step back" as three first-timers claimed slams since Williams had last completed her second "Serena Slam," it was was still worth noting that she'd managed to reach finals at six of seven slams, winning four. And while clay is considered her "least favored" surface, Serena had still racked up an 80-5 record on the surface since 2012.
The "panic" didn't last long, as Williams tied Graf by taking the Wimbledon ladies title a month later, then surpassed her in Australia in 2017, leaving her one short of matching Margaret Court's "all-time" record of 24 major wins. As of this post, she's gone 0-2 in slam finals in *that* attempt.
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Four unseeded players reached the quarterfinals, including Kiki Bertens. Previously known as mostly a Fed Cup star, the 24-year old was barely ranked inside the Top 100 a few months before Roland Garros when she finally had her spring awakening. She nearly carried the Netherlands into the FC final, won her first singles title in four years, then ran her winning streak to twelve matches, posting wins over four seeds (#5 Angelique Kerber, #29 Dasha Kasatkina, #15 Madison Keys and #8 Timea Bacsinszky) and becoming the first Dutch woman to reach the semis in Paris in forty-five years (Marijke Schaar '71), the first in any slam since 1977 (Betty Stove/U.S.), and the first unseeded woman from any nation to get so far at Roland Garros since 2003. Ultimately, a calf injury slowed her down just enough to prevent her from pushing #1 Serena Williams to three sets.
Meanwhile, the U.S.'s Shelby Rogers upset #17 Karolina Pliskova, Elena Vesnina, #10 Petra Kvitova (6-0/6-7(3)/6-0... oh, Petra) and #25 Irina-Camelia Begu to reach her (so far) only career slam final eight. Kazakh Yulia Putintseva upset #28 Andrea Petkovic and #12 Carla Suarez-Navarro to reach her maiden slam QF, and #102 Tsvetana Pironkova brought her slam "serial killing ways" to a whole new venue after previously mostly being a major force only on the grass at Wimbledon ('10 SF, '11 QF and '13 '4th).
The Bulgarian got past three seeds in Paris, defeating #16 Sara Errani, #19 Sloane Stephens and #2 Aga Radwanska, upsetting the Pole in a controversial match in which she trailed 6-2/3-0, and that took three days to complete, having seen suspended on its first scheduled day right when it appeared Radwanska was set to close things out, then rained out entirely the next day.
If the rain had held off for another fifteen minutes on Sunday one got the impression that Radwanska would have breezed through to her second career QF in Paris. Even after missing Monday's scheduled re-start, A-Rad's 11-2 head-to-head mark against Pironkova had seemed to signal a quick wrap-up. Another 15-20 minutes was probably going to suffice. But, well, then the conditions changed the entire ball game.
With the wet, super-slow and heavy conditions, Pironkova came out on fire, while Radwanska was out of sorts and way off her game as she lost the 2nd set. More rain seemed to possibly offer Radwanska a chance to regroup, but it just wasn't happening, as tournament officials refused to stop play on the grounds yet again. Having recently injured her wrist, Radwanska argued later that she was risking injury being forced to play in conditions with such heavy balls.
Pironkova grabbed a break lead early in the 3rd, and led 3-0 as the Pole was treated by a trainer for her wrist. The Bulgarian ran her streak to ten games (at 4-0) before Aga finally staged a brief rally. But it was too little, too late. Radwanska broke Pironkova in game #5, held for 4-2 and twice got to within getting back on serve in the 3rd set in game #7. But the Bulgarian held, then served out the match two games later for an improbable 2-6/6-3/6-3 victory, winning twelve of fifteen games to reach her first final eight in Paris.
World No.102 @TPironkova shocks Radwanska in 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 comeback win!
— WTA (@WTA) May 31, 2016
Sets @RolandGarros Quarterfinal vs Stosur! pic.twitter.com/AgImI0X4WD
Cult hero Tsvetana Pironkova, take a bow.
— Courtney Nguyen (@FortyDeuceTwits) May 31, 2016
Radwanska loudly objected to being forced to play in the conditions, as did Simona Halep that day after losing to Samantha Stosur.
Agnieszka Radwanska not happy to have to play in the rain. “It’s not a 10k tournament. It’s a Grand Slam.” pic.twitter.com/KHsUtfz5pR
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) May 31, 2016
Pironkova: “It wasn’t perfect, but that’s the way it is.” pic.twitter.com/1bJwKcQeIz
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) May 31, 2016
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Australian Open champ Angelique Kerber had a career year in 2016, winning in Melbourne and at the U.S. Open and reaching the Wimbledon, Olympic and WTAF finals in a #1 season. But her success didn't extend to Roland Garros, the only major at which she's never reached the semifinals.
Dealing with a shoulder injury, the German became the fifth reigning AO champ in the Open era to lose in her opening match in Paris. The third since 2000, she was actually the second to fall in such a fashion in three years (Li Na '14). But that's the only way her loss to Kiki Bertens was a "true upset," though, as the Dutch woman was in the middle of a wildly successful run (the match was consecutive win #8). The loss would prove to be Kerber's first of three 1st Round RG exits in the final four years of the 2010's.
Timea Bacsinszky followed up her career-best semifinal run from 2015 with a quarterfinal finish that included a win over Venus Williams. It was her third QF-or-better slam result in the last five, after having never advanced past the 2nd Round in nineteen MD slam appearances (and four qualifying attempts) from 2005-14. In 2017, she'd reach her second RG semifinal in three years.
Meanwhile, Samantha Stosur reached the semifinal stage for the third time in the decade, defeating Simona Halep in Paris for the *third* time during the span (2010,'11 & '16). The two-day, 4th Round match was played in the same controversial, heavy, rainy conditions that caused many players, including Halep, to question the logic of forcing players to play (and risk injury) under such circumstances. The loss was the Romanian's fifth prior to the QF stage at the last seven slams.
As usual, the Aussie was a nearby participant/spectator to Roland Garros history, losing in the final four to eventual champ Garbine Muguruza. It was the third time in the 2010's -- w/ '10 Schiavone & '14 Sharapova -- that the RG champ went through Stosur to get the title. The same thing also happened in 2009 (Kuznetsova), and would occur again in '17 (Ostapenko).
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Italian prospects continued to swirl in Paris as the decade moved to 2016.
Flavia Pennetta had won the U.S. Open title the previous summer, but retired before the end of 2015. At Roland Garros, U.S. Open runner-up Roberta Vinci lost in the 1st Round, as did former RG finalist Sara Errani and '10 champ Francesca Schivavone. Camila Giorgi again failed to win more than one MD match in Paris, while Karin Knapp (3rd Rd.) turned out to be the most successful player from Italy in the competition, advancing past Victoria Azarenka in the 1st Round (via a 3rd set retirement) and reaching the 3rd Round.
Let me back up, though, because Schiavone's '16 RG experience was, shall we say, unique?
On Day 3, 35-year old lost to Kristina Mladenovic in their 1st Round match, 6-2/6-4. But the story wasn't the match, it was that Roland Garros had tweeted out the Italian tennis legend's "retirement announcement," so when the crowd gave Schiavone a standing ovation as she left the court, bending down to grab a handful for red clay dust before she stepped out of sight, it was viewed by many as a lovely, intimate final tribute to a great champion.
2010 Champion @Schiavone_Fra said farewell to Paris after she lost vs Mladenovic 6-2 6-4 #RG16 (via @rolandgarros) pic.twitter.com/Fkp1HdsXsE
— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) May 24, 2016
But it'd meant even more, you know, if the "retirement announcement" had been legitimate. Which it wasn't. And Schiavone wasn't exactly pleased with the whole thing, either. She made a point afterward to say that SHE would be in charge of when she walks away, and that this was NOT the moment when it would happen. She'd be at Wimbledon, she confirmed, and didn't seem to close the door at all on being back in Paris in 2017, either (she actually played RG in 2017 *and* '18 before walking away for good).
To clarify: @Schiavone_Fra has not announced her retirement. “It was not the last one for me."
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) May 24, 2016
Early in 2016, Schiavone had narrowly missed out on a record 62nd straight slam appearance in Melbourne, not being eligible for automatic entry and then losing in qualifying, thereby failing to play in a slam MD for the first time since the 2000 Wimbledon. She rebounded well, winning her first title in nearly three years in Rio and returning to the Top 100 before the start of play at Roland Garros.
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Two-time Roland Garros champ Maria Sharapova was forced to miss the first of back-to-back visits to Paris after being given a two year suspension (she served fifteen months) for a failed drug test at the Australian Open which detected the recently banned meldonium. It was the first time the Russian hadn't appeared in Paris since before her debut there (in her second slam MD) in 2003. She'd played in the junior competition in 2002, as well.
She'd return in 2018, reaching the quarterfinals, then miss 2019 due to injury.
===============================================
Fifteen years after her Roland Garros MD debut as an 18-year old, Daniela Hantuchova was forced to go through qualifying for the first time to play in Paris for a 14th year. Ranked #172, the 33-year old Slovak accomplished the task without dropping a set in three matches. After having won in her opening RG 1st Round match in 2001 to Alexandra Stevenson (she lost in the 2nd to Conchita Martinez), Hantuchova lost her opening match to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in 2016.
Hantuchova retired in the summer of '17, ending a career that was a successful one, but hardly the spectacular one that seemed possible early on. She reached three quarterfinals in her first nine career MD appearances in majors (2001-03) and climbed as high as #5 (2003), but reached just two more (one a SF in the AO in '08, the other a U.S. QF in '13) in her final fifty-one.
Meanwhile, a year after reaching her first slam semifinal in seven years in Paris, Ana Ivanovic played in her final Roland Garros. The '08 champ lost in the 3rd Round to Elina Svitolina (being coached that season by Justine Henin - below). AnaIvo lost in the 1st Round at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in her final two slam appearances in '16, then retired before the start of the '17 campaign.
The tournament saw the RG MD debut of teenagers Alona Ostapenko (as the #32 seed) and Naomi Osaka (ranked #101), who faced off *against* each other in the 1st Round. Osaka won 6-4/7-5, making the Latvian the First Seed Out en route to what would be a 3rd Round finish (def. by Simona Halep). By the end of the 2018 season, *both* has been crowned grand slam singles champions, with Ostapenko winning the Roland Garros title in 2017.
2014 girls champ Dasha Kasatkina (as the #29 seed) made her MD RG debut, reaching the 3rd Round, where she dropped a 10-8 3rd set to Kiki Bertens.
Elsewhere, two Romanians (Halep & Irina-Camelia Begu) reached the Round of 16 in Paris for the first time since 1997 (Spirlea & Dragomir), '09 champ Svetlana Kuznetsova reached her eleventh RG Round of 16 in thirteen years, while Sloane Stephens' run of four straight ended. Former #1 Jelena Jankovic, a three-time semifinalist ('07-08 and '10) lost in the 1st Round for a second straight year after having previously reached the 4th Round or better seven times in eight years between 2007-14.
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Caroline Garcia & Kristina Mladenovic were crowned doubles champions, becoming the first all-French duo to win in Paris since 1971. They were the first all-French *born* Pastries to win since 1945, during the WWII stretch during which the tournament doesn't recognize the results as "official" (the event during those years is referred to as the "Tournoi de France")... so they were actually the first French-born WD champs since 1926! Half of that title-winning duo from ninety years earlier? None other than "La Divine" herself, Suzanne Lenglen... for which a stadium and the women's singles championship trophy are named.
An argument could be made that the Pastries were THE dominant figures of the clay court season in '16. They went 22-1, winning four titles in Charleston, Stuttgart, Madrid and Paris. Their titles came with wins in finals over the likes of the tour's best slam title-hoarding pairs -- Hingis/Mirza (twice), Mattek-Sands/Safarova and Makarova/Vesnina -- and in the middle of their multi-month run they also delivered the deciding doubles win (over NED's Bertens/Hogenkamp) in the semifinals that sent France to the Fed Cup final for the first time since 2005. Of course, by the next spring, they'd ended their partnership in nastily public fashion after Garcia decided to focus on her singles (and also skip Fed Cup), leading Mladenovic to attack her patriotism and intelligence in very unbecoming outbursts. Come 2019, the duo "reunited" (if only between the lines, but at least it was all amicable) on the doubles court to send France into another FC final.
Venus & Serena Williams competed in the RG doubles competition for the first time since they won the title in 2010 (they'd been in the '13 draw, but withdrew after the start of play), losing in the 3rd Round to Kiki Bertens & Johanna Larsson, who'd also defeated defending champs Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova in the 1st Round..
Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza came into Roland Garros looking to complete a non-calendar Grand Slam after having won three straight majors (and gone 12-2 during the clay season), only to be upset 6-3/6-2 in the 3rd Round by young Czechs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova, who'd been crowned the girls doubles champions in 2013 (a season during which they won three-quarters of a Junior Doubles Grand Slam). The Czechs didn't decide until a few days before the tournament sign-up date to actually play together in Paris, as RG was just their third tournament together in '16. They ultimately reached the semifinals.
Krejcikova & Siniakova would go on to win the RG title two years later and become the #1-ranked doubles players at the end of the '18 season.
Hingis rebounded from her disappointing doubles result, combining with Leander Paes to win the mixed (career slam #22 - 5 WS, 12 WD, 5 MX... to which she'd add another WD and 2 MX in '17). The duo defeated Mirza and Ivan Dodig in the final, the fourth of five seeds defeated in five matches -- and completed a Career Mixed Slam that came together over the course of just six majors dating back to the 2015 AO.
Coming into 2016, there hadn't been a woman from Turkey in a slam singles MD since Ipek Senoglu in 2010. But at this Roland Garros there were TWO, as Cagla Buyukakcay and Ipek Soylu both made it through qualifying. For Buyukakcay, it came after twenty-one failed attempts to make it through the Q-rounds at a major dating back to 2010.
For her part, Buyukakcay transformed into "the Sania Mirza of Turkey," collecting more "first Turk to" honors than she'll ever have time to admire. Leading into Paris she reached her maiden career tour-level semi and final (both firsts for Turkey) in Istanbul, where she became the first Turk to win a WTA singles title. She climbed into the Top 100 (a Turkish first, as well), qualified for Roland Garros (the first Turk in the Open era in a slam MD, with Soylu right on her heels) and even notched her first career slam MD match victory (ditto) over Aliaksandra Sasnovich. Soylu lost to Virginie Razzano in the 1st Round.
Buyukakcay would go on to play MD matches for the first time at Wimbledon (2016) and the Australian Open (2017), and post additional 1st Round wins in New York ('16) and Paris ('17).
===============================================
In a 2nd Round match, French Pastry Alize Cornet defeated Germany's Tatjana Maria, 6-3/6-7(5)/6-4. Of course, as has long been the case, with Cornet, there also comes drama, controversy, (some would say) over-celebration and (often, from opponents) charges of "bending the rules" (conservatively) to fit her personality between the lines. In this case, it all revolved around cramping, questions about said cramping, medical timeouts, questions about said medical timeouts, and the scene of the French woman not looking like she was cramping during points but then complaining of severe pain between them. Needless to say, Maria wasn't pleased.
So did Cornet & Maria actually shake hands or not? https://t.co/fIMPKaP1C6 pic.twitter.com/9yUOf6i420
— Christopher Clarey (@christophclarey) May 27, 2016
Cornet probably not on Maria's Christmas Card list anymore after today's match. pic.twitter.com/rO6HLEzTxJ
— The Tennis Island (@thetennisisland) May 26, 2016
Cornet moving like a Gazelle during points. Appears partially paralyzed in-between points. Are you not entertained?
— The Tennis Nerds (@TheTennisNerds) May 26, 2016
Maria on Cornet: "It's not fair play, what she did...she had cramps! She takes physio for her left leg because her right leg was cramping."
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) May 26, 2016
A day later, Maria was still at it, threatening a lawsuit against the various organizations for not adhering to "their own rules." And, naturally, since The Most Interesting Tour in the World was involved, Cornet and Maria *just so happened* to also be schedule to play a doubles match against each other soon after their singles dust-up. Probably smartly (hmm, or maybe not), the RG organizers scheduled it on a remote court with no TV stream. Everything went smoothly, with Cornet coming out on top again, joining with Madison Brengle to defeat Maria & Magda Linette in three sets.
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16-year old Rebeka Masarova won the RG girls singles title, joining Martina Hingis (1993-94) and Belinda Bencic (2013) as Swiss junior champions at the event. The #12 seed, Masarova defeated the #1 Olesya Pervushina (SF) and #2 Amanda Anisimova (F) en route to the title. In 2018, Masarova began to represent Spain. Anisimova was the first U.S. girl to reach the final in Paris since Ashley Harkleroad in 2002.
Czech Marketa Vondrousova, who'd lost in the semis to the eventual champion in 2014 and '15, this time around was defeated by Pervushina in the 3rd Round (Vondrousova had a MP). The 3rd Round had also seen Polish qualifier Iga Swiatek defeat #10-seeded Bannerette Sonya Kenin, then lose to Russian Anastasia Potapova (#4) in the quarterfinals.
Flashforward three years to the 2019 Roland Garros women's draw: Vondrousova reached her her maiden slam final, Anisimova reached her maiden slam semi, Swiatek reached her first Round of 16 at a major, Potapova upset #5 Angelique Kerber and Kenin took out #10 Serena Williams.
The duo of Paula Arias Manjon & Olga Danilovic (ESP/SRB) won the girls doubles.
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28-year old Marjolein Buis became the latest Dutch player to become a slam singles champion, as her maiden win at Roland Garros added her name to the list (w/ Jiske Griffioen and Aniek Van Koot) of her fellow countrywomen to win major crowns in the wake of the retirement of THE Dutch WC legend, Esther Vergeer after the 2012 season. Buis defeated the 2013 winner, Germany's Sabine Ellerbrock, 40, in the final.
Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley took the doubles title, their seventh slam as a pair. They won a Grand Slam in 2014, and with this win had claimed eight of the last ten WC doubles slam titles (and Kamiji 9 of 11, having won the AO with Buis in '16).
Now where will I put this beauty?! #massive ???? pic.twitter.com/ODUPFCyl2I
— Jordanne Whiley MBE (@jordannejoyce92) June 4, 2016
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FASHION REPORT: French wild card Alize Lim appeared in one of the more original "get-ups"... err, I mean fashionable outfits. Well, it was something...
#WTA Fashion: 2016 French Open best dressed? @AlizeLim wearing the @lecoqsportif jumpsuit pic.twitter.com/mU89t7aEWC
— Tennis Photos (@tennis_photos) May 28, 2016
Go go girl ?????? @AlizeLim #RG16 pic.twitter.com/gLfUcg5HTX
— le coq sportif (@lecoqsportif) May 24, 2016
While countrywoman Kristina Mladenovic went (modernized) old school with a look that brought to mind the head wraps days of French tennis/fashion/cultural icon Suzanne Lenglen...
[Best About-What-You'd-Expect Moment... i.e. Aga vs. Barbora]
WUT just happened?! Ninjas unite on Lenglen. #RG16 https://t.co/X0WTf1a3NA
— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 27, 2016
On the final Saturday of play in Paris, for Garbine Muguruza it wasn't too cold. It wasn't too hot, either. Actually, it was just right for a new Roland Garros champion.
Meanwhile, for Serena Williams, it was a catch-22.
That winning feeling! #RG16 pic.twitter.com/1KFI4CK96I
— WTA (@WTA) June 4, 2016
While world #1 Williams was once again seeking career slam title #22, as well as to join Steffi Graf as the only players to win all of the four majors at least four times each, her 22-year old Spanish opponent was seeking some history of her own. It'd been eighteen years since a woman from Spain (Arantxa Sanchez '98 RG) won a major title, and sixteen since another (Conchita Martinez '00) played for such an honor in Paris. Additionally, with a victory, Venezuela-born Muguruza would become the first women's slam champion born in South America since 1990 (Gabriela Sabatini '90 U.S.).
For Serena, though, a win would be a case of gilding an already-legendary career with yet another accomplishment, one of many on her racket in 2016, one season after she fell short in her attempt for a rare Grand Slam. ... But the task at hand didn't involve records and career accomplishments, it was about besting Muguruza. And unlike most of the players Williams faces, that's not necessarily a case of if-Serena-is-on-she'll-win. The big game of the Spaniard means she's capable of challenging Williams without the defending champ needing to have an "off" day for her to have an opportunity to notch a victory. ...
Eleven months after Serena defeated her in the Wimbledon final, Muguruza got her second chance at Williams on a major final stage that has traditionally been a nondiscriminating cradle of maiden slam winners, crowning first-time slam champs of the premature (Ivanovic), moment-grabbing (Majoli, Myskina) and late-arriving (Schiavone, Li) variety with regularity over the years but, also, in true Goldilocks fashion, also showing a willingness to reward a truly special newcomer (Evert, Graf, Sanchez, Seles, Henin) at a time that was "just right," providing her with the taste of success that would be a prelude to so much more in a Hall of Fame career. ... In other words, while Williams was still the "favorite," unlike most times when Serena fails to be the last woman standing, anyone who was "shocked" or "stunned" by what happened on Court Chatrier on Sunday really hasn't been paying very close attention.
Muguruza got the chance to serve out the match, the title, and the first moment of the rest of her life. A big forehand put her up 30/love. After a defensive volley from Muguruza, Williams pushed her reply outside the line. MP #5 had arrived, with the Spaniard up 40/love and her first slam title on her racket. Then, in an unexpected turn in a match defined by stinging groundstrokes, with Serena near the net, Muguruza lobbed a ball over her head. Williams gave chase. After initially looking as if it would go long, the ball suddenly dropped from the sky and landed in, causing even Williams to laugh at her own plight. Muguruza was just too good today. Even SHE couldn't beat her.
Welcome to the latest installment of The Most Interesting Tour in the World.
Serena applauded the shot then, after the (at first) disbelieving young Spaniard picked herself up off the terre battue, gave her a warm congratulatory hug. Muguruza had won 7-5/6-4. All tests passed. Breakthrough complete. ...
With the rare win over Serena in a slam singles final (the sixth in Williams' twenty-seven final appearances, but the second straight for the first time in her career), Muguruza concluded this Roland Garros on a fourteen-set winning streak, having been unwilling to surrender any since dropping her opening set of play on Day 2. At the time, I wondered what her ability to steady a potentially shaky ship in that first match might mean for her at this Roland Garros:
"Meanwhile, Muguruza can ponder whether this is the sort of match that can send her off on a big run at this Roland Garros, where her draw would seem to give her a brilliant chance at the QF, SF or even better result. She's 8-3 on clay this spring, and 9-2 at Roland Garros the last three years. Did the perception of her 2016 season change based on her survival in this match? Well, no... but it may have finally started the process. And that's not an unimportant thing.
It's after today that the baguettes get made."
Needless to day, the perception HAS been changed now. And Garbi has a pantry full of baguettes-for-life.
* - "It's not fair play ... She had cramps! She takes physio for her left leg because her right leg was cramping. She took a 15-minute break, and at the finish it was she who told me *I* was not [playing fair] ... Ask *her* -- I have no desire to talk to her." - an angry Tatjana Maria, following her controversial loss to dramatic Frenchwoman Alize Cornet
* - "She told me *I* was unfair. But it is *she* who was unfair, asking the umpire to give me time warnings. I did not violate the rules, and really had problems. It was tough for both of us." - Alize Cornet
* - "First it was the left leg, then the right leg ... The referee gave her a warning, then did not do anything. These are the rules. You cannot change the rules." - Tatjana Maria
* - "My husband is taking care of this ... maybe against the tournament, maybe it’s against the ITF, the WTA." - Tatjana Maria, a day after the Cornet match, threatening a lawsuit to remedy how things went down
* - "It was not the last one for me." - Francesca Schiavone, after the tournament erroneously reported that the 2010 champ was retiring
* - “I just tried to be calm even though inside I was like: ‘Aarrggh, there’s no way.'" - Garbine Muguruza, on winning the women's singles title
* - “I thought, how could Rafa have won nine of these? Right away I’m like: ‘That’s impossible to do it again.’ It’s great for us. For Spanish people this is the tournament. When you’re a kid and you practice on clay you’re always: ‘Oh, I wish I could win Roland Garros.’ Today is a great day.” - Garbine Muguruza
Roland Garros had seen all sorts of first-time champions through the years, including quite a few in the 2010's. But no one had ever seen anything quite like "Latvian Thunder" in 2017.
Alona Ostapenko, who turned 20 in the closing days of the tournament, roared into the slam record books in '17. The world #47 became the first Latvian to win a major, the youngest RG winner since Iva Majoli in 1997, the youngest slam champ since Maria Sharapova in 2006, and the youngest first-timer since Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2004. The first unseeded RG women's champ in the Open era, she was also the first woman to make her maiden tour-level title a major since Barbara Jordan won the Australia Open in 1979. The last *man* to do the same? Guga Kuerten in Paris in June 8, 1997... the day Ostapenko was born.Perhaps, her fate was written in the stars.
A virtual force of nature during her historic run, "Latvian Thunder" rode her big-time groundstrokes to wins over a former slam champion (Sam Stosur) and a former #1 (Caroline Wozniacki), then knocked off Simona Halep in the final as the Romanian was trying to become both. Against Halep, Ostapenko trailed 6-4/3-0, and faced three BP for 4-0, before turning the tables on the two-time RG finalist by unleashing a string of winners (she had 54W/54UE in the match) from a racket that produced 299 over the course of seven matches in Paris as she fearlessly and without conscious authored one of the more miraculous and unexpected paths to a major title in memory.
After several years of disappointments and near-misses, Halep added another one in the RG final in 2017. She'd been seeking her maiden slam title and the #1 ranking in her second career final in Paris, and had had to stage a miraculous comeback in the QF against Elina Svitolina just to get the chance.
A relentless force, Svitolina had opened the match firing huge and clean forehand blasts whenever and wherever she so desired. Flashing big, accurate groundstrokes that served to pull Halep from side to side as if on a string, she expertly constructed well thought out points while also displaying an urgency that naturally brought her forward to succinctly end rallies whenever she knew the time was right. She led 5-0 just twenty-four minutes into the action, and soon was on the cusp her first slam semi at 6-3/5-1.
In the past, before her brief split with coach Darren Cahill after he'd gotten fed up with her on-court negativity after a loss in Miami in March, Halep might have looked for an escape hatch and as quick an exit from the match as possible. But after touting her transformation into a "2.0" version of herself since she righted her personal ship, coaxed Cahill to return, and immediately attacked the clay season with positivity, confidence and, ultimately, sustained success, Halep didn't do such a thing here. While she admitted later that she *did* indeed feel that the match was lost, she nonetheless kept on trying. Eventually, it worked.
Of course, it helped that Svitolina's own nerves came into play. Having never been so close to a slam semi before, the Ukrainian's level of play dipped at the worst possible time. She served for the match at 5-2 and 5-4, coming within two points of the win, but failed to put it away either time. Halep eventually took the lead and held four SP, but Svitolina pushed things to a TB. Svitolina led the TB 4-2, and eventually had her first MP. But after failing to convert it, she saw the house come down on her head. On Halep's fifth SP at 7-6, the Romanian's forehand smacked into the net cord, popped up and dribbled over onto Svitolina's side of the court to give the Romanian the TB.
The match was going three, but it was already over. While Svitolina couldn't let go of the chance that had slipped from her grasp, a fully confident Halep cruised. She broke Svitolina to open the final set and soon found herself holding serve at love to end a 6-0 set that had lasted just twenty minutes.
Exit Elina: Tough loss for Svitolina today, she was very close to sealing the deal. pic.twitter.com/w6XDcIYrcp
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) June 7, 2017
As the decade comes to an end, Halep has since gone on to win her maiden slam in Paris ('18) and finish at #1 in back-to-back seasons. Svitolina, though, is *still* seeking the maiden slam semifinal that slipped through her grasp here, and stands as the only player in WTA history with 13+ singles titles to have never advanced to that stage in a major.
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The previous December, Petra Kvitova was already looking at a splintered offseason. She was breaking in a new coach (Jiri Vanek), and a stress fracture in her foot had delayed her training regimen. She was still wearing a boot on that foot when she was the victim of a knife-wielding intruder during a home invasion on December 20, 2016. What came next was disbelief and fear from all corners of the tennis world, while Kvitova was safe, she would soon undergo four hours of emergency surgery on her racket hand to repair tendon and nerve injuries that jeopardized her career. Guarded optimism pronounced the surgery a success, but with a six-month recuperation period.
Come May, though still not 100% healed nor yet with total feeling back in all the fingers, and unable to fully close her left hand, Kvitova was back on court in Paris, just two weeks after having again picked up a racket, announcing that she was going to return earlier than expected and play Roland Garros. The sound of the rejoicing from all corners of the tennis world was deafening, and often accompanied by tears. This time the good kind.
On the opening Sunday at Roland Garros, with her team in the stands sporting t-shirts emblazoned with "Courage. Belief. Pojd!," the Czech opened play on Chatrier and in quick order became the first player to advance to the 2nd Round, defeating Julia Boserup 6-3/6-2.
P??jd
— WTA (@WTA) May 28, 2017
Welcome back @Petra_Kvitova! pic.twitter.com/CkMoNox5aZ
There were more tears from all corners... but Kvitova held it together better than anyone.
Who says good things don't happen to good people?
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The quarterfinal match-up between defending champ Garbine Muguruza and France's own Kristina Mladenovic allowed the Pastry to steal some headlines on Day 8. But not all of them for the right reasons.
The Pastry won the match, 6–1/3–6/6–3, despite committing sixteen DF.
But, what with Mladenovic at the center of the match, the discussion couldn't just be about her beautiful game, or engagingly emotional, energetic, athletic and entertaining brand of tennis. Over the preceding year or so, there had grown a cringe-worthy aspect to her tour success, both on and off court. And that continued during the match, as *the* story of the day quickly became how Mladenovic would rile the always rile-able French crowd. She'd often let loose with shouts after Muguruza errors (usually in the Spaniard's native language, which had been part of the Kiki psychological arsenal for a while, it should be noted) and otherwise do all the sorts of things she'd rail against if an opponent did it while *she* was on the other side of the net.
Defending champ Muguruza falls, and admonishes the pro-Kiki crowd on her way to the locker room. #RG17 pic.twitter.com/CzxzPVoPvu
— Chris Oddo (@TheFanChild) June 4, 2017
When the French crowd, actively cheering against her (more than just *for* Mladenovic) all day, was invited to applaud her as she walked off the court in defeat, Muguruza wagged a disapproving finger in the air, essentially saying, "No-no-no, you're not going to play that game now." Naturally, it only brought her a chorus of more boos. In her post match press conference, Muguruza needed a moment to collect herself when asked about the whole shouting-and-applauding errors situation. After returning to the microphone, she noted how she's heard that Mladenovic can supposedly "speak 25 languages," so she can "do what she wants to do."
(The comment was a sly reference to one of the personal aspects about herself that Mladenovic had touted earlier in the year when attempting to compare herself favorably in every way to Caroline Garcia.)
Afterward, Mladenovic found no problem with her actions, then defended her public petty and immature castigation of former doubles partner Garcia by framing things in a way that made it appear as if Mladenovic had been the victim in the situation, seeing that she lived a "values"-based life.
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The 2017 Roland Garros was missing Serena Williams *and* Maria Sharapova (as well as Vika Azarenka, who'd joined with them to form something of a ruling "triumvirate" atop the women's game in the early years of the decade), making it the first major with neither in the main draw since the 2002 Australian Open.
Sharapova's absence wasn't because of her recently-ended suspension. Well, at least not technically. The Russian returned in April after serving fifteen months, playing in three events. While a controversy swirled about whether Sharapova should be "rewarded" with a spot in the MD or qualifying, French Federation president Bernard Giudicelli announced that Sharapova would not be receiving a wild card in either. As it turned out, all the talk proved to be pointless, as an injury kept Sharapova off court until late in the summer hard court season. After just one tune-up match in Stanford, she played in the U.S. Open, her first slam since January '17. Sharapova upset #1 Simona Halep in primetime in the 1st Round and reached the Round of 16.
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Angelique Kerber's decade in Paris ultimately produced fewer overall match wins (17) than her output in the other three majors (20) in her career year of 2016 alone. As the #1 RG seed in '17, the German suffered her second straight 1st Round defeat in the event, falling to Ekaterina Makarova 6-2/6-2. With the loss, Kerber became the first #1 seed to lose in the 1st Round in Paris in the Open era, and the first at any slam to do so since Martina Hingis at Wimbledon in 2001 (to Virginia Ruano Pascual).
.@KateMakarova1 drops just four games to World No.1 Kerber in @RolandGarros opener--> https://t.co/S2g5YAyKXI pic.twitter.com/RwRpW0cYpC
— WTA (@WTA) May 28, 2017
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The women's singles draw again had it's share of notable accomplishments. A few...
* - Timea Bacsinszky reached her second RG semifinal in three years, traversing a route that included her second Round of 16 win in Paris over Venus Williams in two years
* - 2016 semifinalist Kiki Bertens was upset in the 2nd Round by 18-year old CiCi Bellis. Before posting another slam MD win (she lost in the RG 3rd Round, then went 0-3 in the next three slams), the promising Bannerette would soon see her career derailed by injuries. The tour's Newcomer of the Year award winner in '17, Bellis would leave the tour with wrist and elbow injuries in '18, leading to four surgeries over the course of a year and several aborted comeback attempts. As of this post, she hasn't played a match since March '18.
* - Naomi Osaka lost in the 1st Round to Alison Van Uytvanck, the Japanese star's only 1st Round exit in her first thirteen slam MD appearances
* - Caroline Wozniacki posted a Round of 16 win over Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach her first QF at Roland Garros since 2010. Kuznetsova's 4th Round result was the twelfth (a run that includes one title, another final, a SF and four QF) of her RG career, all coming over a 14-year stretch dating back to 2004. As is her wont, Sveta survived a 3-hour contest along the way -- a 7-6(5)/4-6/7-5 affair over Zhang Shuai in the 3rd Rd.
* - Karolina Pliskova, already a former slam finalist (U.S. '16), reached her first Roland Garros semifinal. The Czech would rise to #1 in July.
* - Qualifier Petra Martic, playing with a protected ranking (back injury) and having not recorded a MD slam win since the 2013 Wimbledon, reached the 4th Round after getting wins over the likes of #12 Madison Keys and #17 Anastasija Sevastova. Against #5 Elina Svitolina, the Croat led 5-2 and was up love/30 on the Ukrainian's serve... then dropped 20 of 23 points to end the match, losing after having served for the match at 5-4.
* - Jelena Jankovic, a three-time RG semifinalist (2007-08/10) played what very well could be her final match in Paris, falling in the 1st Round (her third straight such exit in Paris) to Richel Hogenkamp. The Serb's last match was at the '17 U.S. Open, but she's yet to *officially* announce her decision to retire.
* - Sam Stosur reached another Round of 16, her fifth of the decade (sixth since '09) at RG. Her loss to Alona Ostapenko was the third time in the 2010's (w/ a fourth time coming in '09) the champion's path to the title at some point went through her.
What was left of Italy's once strong and powerful contingent of Roland Garros contenders won just one 1st Round match in '16, with former champ Francesca Schiaovone, Robert Vinci and Camila Giorgi all losing in the 1st Round, while former finaliast Sara Errani was sent out in the 2nd.
Meanwhile, France put three players -- Kristina Mladenovic, Caroline Garcia and Alize Cornet -- into the Round of 16, the most since 1994. Mladenovic and Garcia reached the QF. Garcia's 4th Rounder was her first match against Cornet since she'd joined with Fed Cup teammate Mladenovic in mocking Garcia's claims of a back injury (she missed several weeks) in her attempt to turn down a nomination from the French Federation to play in a spring FC tie. The group tweet of "LOL" by Cornet and Pauline Parmentier in response to Mladenovic's attacks made it appear as if the rest of the team was falling in line with Kiki's bullying tactics.
At the end of the match, Cornet appeared to "kiss and make up" with Garcia, whispering something into her ear that elicited a smile.
It would be two more years before Mladenovic and Garcia would amicably exist together again during a Fed Cup tie (they won a deciding doubles match in the '19 semifinals) or greet each other at the net following their first head-to-head match since 2016 (soon after that Fc weekend).
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Ons Jabeur was a two-time RG girls finalist, losing to Elina Svitolina in 2010 and defeating Monica Puig to take the crown in '11. Come 2017, the 22-year old lost in the qualifying rounds, but made her MD debut in Paris as a lucky loser.
Posting wins over qualifier Ana Bogdan and #6-seed Dominika Cibulkova, Jabeur became the first Arab woman to reach the 3rd Round of a major.
What a story. @Ons_Jabeur made history with her win over Cibulkova on Day 4. Find out how: https://t.co/1LwHPvW7gB #RG17 pic.twitter.com/CvtMdJTIHl
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 31, 2017
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2016 girls runner-up Amanda Anisimova, 15, made her slam MD debut as a wild card. The first slam MD participant born in 2001 (and the youngest in the RG draw since '05), Anisimova led Kurumi Nara by a set and a break, and served for the match in the 2nd set before falling in three.
Marketa Vondrousova made her slam MD debut as a qualifier after giving up just six total games in three rounds of qualifying. The Czech posted a 1st Round win, then lost to Dasha Kasatkina in the 2nd Round. She'd also lost to the Russian in the junior girls singles semis in 2014, then saw Kasatkina take the title a round later.
In 2019, Vondrousova reached the women's final, while Anisimova adavnced to the semifinals at Roland Garros.
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2015 RG champs Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova ("Team Bucie") picked up their second title in Paris in three years, winning their third straight major title with a victory in the final over Aussies Ash Barty & Casey Dellacqua (the duo's first slam final, after playing in three in '13, since Barty's return from an early-career sabbatical of approximately sixteen months between late '14 and early 16).
A big smooch for the trophy!#RG17 pic.twitter.com/mBCDSW0Jzi
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 11, 2017
The pair headed to Wimbledon seeking a non-calendar year Grand Slam, but ultimately were forced to withdraw in the 2nd Round following BMS' knee injury in the 2nd Round of singles. Due to injuries and/or illness, the two would play only eight more matches together before Safarova retired at the '19 RG (where another Mattek-Sands injury prevented a final doubles pairing of the two).
With the defending champion duo of Garcia & Mladenovic broken up, the former skipped the WD competition entirely, while the latter reached the 3rd Round with Svetlana Kuznetsova. Meanwhile, the young Czech duo of Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova, former junior RG champs and women's semifinalists in '16, didn't play together. Siniakova teamed with Lucie Hradecka (a title, three SF and a QF w/ Andrea Hlavackova in the decade) to reach the semis, while Krejcikova & Chan Hao-ching (#12 seed) fell in the 3rd to Hradecka/Siniakova.
Martina Hingis, 36, made her final RG appearance in what was the *third* phase of her Hall of Fame career, losing in the WD semis with Latisha Chan, and falling in the 1st Round in the mixed with Leander Paes (they'd completed a Career Mixed Slam in Paris the year before). Hingis never won the singles at Roland Garros in the maiden phase of her career (finalist in '97 and '99), but she won a pair of titles in doubles (1998 & '00) and the one MX with Paes in '16.
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In the first all-Bannerette girls final in Paris in thirty-seven years (1980), #7-seed Whitney Osuigwe, 15, became the first U.S. winner of the RG junior title since 1989 (Jennifer Capriati) with a 6-4/6-7(5)/6-3 victory over #6 Claire Liu. She joined Kayla Day (U.S. '16) as a reigning junior slam champ, the first time Bannerettes had won multiple major girls titles over the span of a single year since 2012.
??????Congrats @whitney_osuigwe to win @rolandgarros girls singles #RG17 pic.twitter.com/86GLhvjL2r
— Yonex (@yonex_com) June 10, 2017
After seeing none occur since 1992, the RG final was the first of three straight girls slam finals to feature a pair of U.S. players -- '17 Wimbledon (Liu/Ann Li) and '17 U.S. (Amanda Anisimova/Coco Gauff) -- and the first of two straight in Paris ('18 RG: Gauff/Caty McNally).
Canadians Bianca Andreescu & Carson Branstine (the latter had changed from representing the U.S. since January) backed up their AO girls doubles crown with a second in Paris. The #1-seeded duo defeated the Russian #2-seeds Olesya Pervushina & Anastasia Potapova, 6-1/6-3. The most recent duo to win the opening two junior slam doubles titles had been Czechs Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova in 2015. Before that it was Canada's own Sharon Fichman & Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in 2006.
16-year-olds @Bandreescu_ & @carsonbranstine win their 2nd straight Grand Slam title together at #RG17 ????????: https://t.co/19H6s8PwXl pic.twitter.com/e4bDZkCnLH
— Tennis Canada (@TennisCanada) June 10, 2017
The top seeded juniors at the '17 RG turned into a particularly fast-starting lot on the WTA tour:
#1 Anastasia Potapova, RUS: in 2018, she reached two tour finals and then in '19 upset Angelique Kerber at RG at age 18
#2 Amanda Anisimova, USA: in 2019, won her first WTA title at 17, became first player born in the 2000s to reach a slam Round of 16 (AO), then reached the SF at RG
#3 Bianca Andreescu, CAN: in 2019, won Indian Wells at age 18 and reached the Top 25
#4 Marta Kostyuk, UKR: in 2018, at 15, was youngest to qualify for a slam since '05, then the youngest to win a MD match at a major since Martina Hingis in 1996. She reached the AO 3rd Round.
#5 Iga Swiatek, POL: in 2019, she reached her first tour final at age 17, as well as the RG 4th Round the week she celebrated her 18th birthday
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#2 seed Yui Kamiji picked up her fourth career slam wheelchair singles crown (second at RG) with a win in the final over former Paris champ Sabine Ellerbrock, 7-5/6-4. The German lost in the previous year's RG final, as well.
?? La jeune Japonaise Yui Kamiji ???? vient de remporter son 2e titre à Roland-Garros !
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 10, 2017
???? https://t.co/U584dCi5yX #RG17 pic.twitter.com/cIVtW1ML0N
Kamiji had defeated '16 champ Marjolein Buis in the semis, and joined forces with her to take the doubles with a win over the #1-seeded Dutch duo of Jiske Griffioen & Aniek van Koot. It was Kamiji's third RG doubles title, with the previous two coming alongside Jordanne Whiley (who'd missed the first four months of the year after suffering a wrist injury the previous December, and only played her first event of the season in Paris). It gave the Japanese woman a share of ten of the last thirteen slam doubles crowns.
Whiley teamed with new Dutch star Diede de Groot, losing in the 1st Round to Buis/Kamiji.
De Groot, 20, was making her RG debut in just her second career major appearance. As she had at the Australian Open, she lost her opening match (to Buis). She went on to reach the final as the next seven majors (heading into the '19 RG), winning five and claiming seven of the eight wheelchair WS/WD titles at least once in the span.
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FASHION REPORT: the green-and-white adidas outfits (with or without accompanying headband).
Perfectly simple, crisp, classic and such a nice match to the colors of the environs of the tournament's show courts that it wasn't the least bit irritating that *both* finalists were wearing the same thing. My personal favorite of the entire decade.
Your 2017 @RolandGarros Finalist @Simona_Halep and Champion Jelena Ostapenko! ?? #RG17 pic.twitter.com/5kLq7TcWKr
— WTA (@WTA) June 10, 2017
Karolina Pliskova's sleeveless Fila offering...
Bethanie Mattek-Sands' cherries jubilee...
Wearing their Petra-fied hearts on their chests... "Courage. Belief. Pojd!"
Courage. Belief. Pojd!
— Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) May 28, 2017
Kvitova makes winning return: ??https://t.co/F4ycp8HSsk pic.twitter.com/p76IakhO1V
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Though this year's Roland Garros kicked off without numerous big names in the draw, leaving open the possibility -- and maybe likelihood -- that a maiden slam champ would be crowned on the final weekend, the end result *still* turned out to be a surprise. A bevy of established veterans, former #1's, and previous as well as future major title winners all failed to seize control of the Paris stage over the course of the tournament's two-week run. But Jelena Ostapenko did. In fact, the
In the final, with a sly smile and her heart on her sleeve, Ostapenko closed out this Roland Garros the same way she'd played it from Day 1... without an ounce of fear, nor any desire to agonize about or overthink any lost opportunities. For the unseeded Latvian, redemption was always and forever just one thunderous groundstroke away.
Her opponent in the women's final, 2014 RG runner-up Simona Halep, has spent the spring clay court season trying to ingrain the sort of positive vibes and ability to "move on" from mistakes that Ostapenko seems to have come by naturally. For the Romanian, though, it's been a trial by fire -- including a brief split with coach Darren Cahill when he became fed up with her defeatist attitude -- to replace her own natural on-court negativity and perfectionist tendencies with something that propped her up in times of strife in the middle of a match rather than hasten a bitter end to the proceedings. Up until Saturday, it seemed to have worked. She'd been arguably *the* in-form player of the spring, had coaxed Cahill back into the fold, and at times appeared to reach her full height in Paris.
Early in the 2nd ... (Halep) was weathering Ostapenko's power, waiting for and getting the errors that helped her maintain a scoreboard lead. But Ostapenko never stopped firing those big shots, even as a flash of brilliance would soon be offset by a momentum-thwarting error. Eventually, though, her I'm-not-going-to-stop-so-try-and-stop-me mentality would start to pay off. ... In game #3, a hint of the change to follow would be seen. Halep nearly held at love, as an Ostapenko error sent both headed to the changeover area with the Romanian up 3-0. The call was then changed by the chair umpire. Halep still held for 3-0, but the game went to deuce. In retrospect, one might wonder if the game produced a tickle in the back of Halep's perfectionist's mind.
She needed to squash it. But she didn't.
A game later, Ostapenko reached GP and Halep tossed her racket as she walked to the backcourt. After not having a perfect hold in the previous game, it was clear that she wouldn't get one here, either... and it bothered her, just like it used to. Ostapenko's error (30-3 UE's) one point later was followed by Halep getting three chances to break for a double-break lead at 4-0 in the 2nd, but the Latvian held for 3-1. Though she still had the lead, Halep seemed to blink in the face of her final rush to a championship. Suddenly, her shots were no longer landing quite as deep, allowing Ostapenko to better impose her power upon her.
Halep recovered from the dropped set to hold from 15/40 down in the opening game of the 3rd, but she didn't change her tactics down the stretch, meaning that the course of what was to come would continue to be on Ostapenko's racket. With the lethal aspects of the Latvian's shot gradually increasing as the match had gone on, it was just a matter of time. As long as she could keep her nerve, that is.
Ostapenko admitted to being nervous after the match. But, on the outside, the youngster seemed to practically laugh at the thought.
Jelena Ostapenko wins her maiden Grand Slam title! https://t.co/tm3KSlKacZ
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 10, 2017
?? 1er titre du Grand Chelem pour Jelena Ostapenko ??#RG17 pic.twitter.com/yVyxLPJuOO
"At some point I was like a spectator on court," Halep admitted after the loss, acknowledging Ostapenko's ability to fire the ball out of range of her opponent (or, you know, into the net or past the baseline). And, to be sure, the thunder and lightning coming off the Latvian Force of Nature's racket didn't let up against the Romanian in the final. Her 54 UE's were equaled by her 54 winners (Halep was 8/10), meaning she accumulated 299 total winners in the event. An average of 42.7 per match. On red clay, no less.
One has to feel bad for Halep, and hope that this defeat won't be a setback for long in her efforts to become a "new Simona." She started Roland Garros with questions about her health, but answered them all, as well as most lingering wonders about the true nature of her attitude adjustment. She'll rise to #2 in the rankings, but will remember that her second opportunity to win a title in Paris ended just as her first did three years ago, with a loss in the final.
With a downbeat tone to her voice, Halep tried to be positive in the post-match ceremony. Calling it "a tough day," she nonetheless implored her team to "keep working. And let's believe." "I've been sick in my stomach with emotions for playing this final," she said, "So maybe I was not ready to win it." Saying she hoped to play another final in the future, only to finally *win* it. "It's my dream."
So, she's *still* not finished. But it'll only make the moment more amazing when she finally gets there. If she can remain positive, she will, too.
The Romanian, knowing how hard it is to have the honor of such a moment bestowed upon her, told Ostapenko to "enjoy it, be happy and keep it going because you're, like, a kid."
And she is. Technically.
But Ostapenko is also now a grand slam champion, and maybe one of the more unexpected -- and exciting -- ones in quite some time.
* - "I felt a bit disrespected because I'm big on human values." - Kristina Mladenovic, on her reaction to Caroline Garcia not going out of her way to satisfy her preference to personally discuss face-to-face the decision to end their doubles partnership (after Mladenovic had spent the first half of the year publicly disparaging Garcia's integrity, patriotism and intelligence, leading her Fed Cup teammates to gang up against their previous teammate on social media when she sought to skip a Fed Cup tie due to a back injury, huddling with tour playing BFF's to tweet criticism regarding the etiquette of other players she wasn't friendly with, showing contempt for the suspended Maria Sharapova and, in the 1st Round of RG, leading the charge in urging the French crowd to boo defending champ Garbine Muguruza and cheer her errors during their 4th Round match)
* - "Is she nervous or does she feel pressure? Maybe she drinks pressure." - Timea Bacsinszky, after losing to Alona Ostapenko in the semifinals
* - "I always had the possibility I could hit the ball really hard. If I have a chance to go for a shot, I'm trying." ... "Nobody taught me, it's just the way I play. And also I think my character is like that. I want to really hit the ball." - Ostapenko, on her game style
* - "At some points, I was like a spectator on the court." - Simona Halep, after losing to Ostapenko in the women's final
* - "I've been sick in my stomach with emotions for playing this final. So maybe I was not ready to win it." - Simona Halep
* - "It's my dream." - Halep, 0-2 in RG finals, on hoping to play in another in the future, only finally winning it
* - "I mean, I think I cannot believe I am Roland Garros champion, and I am only 20 years old." - newly-crowned RG champ Ostapenko
The sport's embodiment of resilience, Simona Halep and her long quest for a slam title finally came to a triumphant and affecting conclusion in her fourth major final, and her third in Paris in five years. After a career filled with near-misses, marathon matches and crushing defeats that had left her either heartbroken, physically spent or mentally exhausted (and often a combination of all those), Halep cemented her legendary status in Romanian sport by becoming the first from her nation to win a major title since Virginia Ruzici (her business manager) in 1978. Naturally, after having previously lost leads during her unsuccessful attempts, she dropped the 1st set vs. Sloane Stephens here and then staged a comeback from a break down in the 2nd to win in three.
In winning the Romanian became the first player to beat three slam champions in the QF (two-time major winner Kerber, who'd soon go on to win Wimbledon for #3), SF (reigning Wimbledon champ Muguruza) and final (reigning U.S. champ Stephens) to win a major title since Justine Henin, Halep's idol, did it at the 2007 U.S. Open. Her win made her the sixth woman to win both the junior and women's singles titles at Roland Garros.
While Stephens didn't win the title, it marked her second appearance in a slam final in the span of three majors. Returning from foot surgery, she'd put on a heated summertime run in North America in '17 and stormed to her maiden slam title at the U.S. Open. After having reached the 4th Round in Paris four straight years from 2012-15, Stephens' result came after having not played RG since 2016.
She'd had to escape an early round deficit against Camila Giorgi to do it, surviving the Italian serving for the match at 5-4 and 6-5 in the 3rd set of their 3rd Round encounter before winning 8-6.
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What a difference a year makes.
Back in Paris a year after winning her maiden slam title, Alona Ostapenko became the first defending champ in Paris to exit in the 1st Round since Anastasia Myskina in 2005 (and it happened on Day 1 on the opening Sunday...so NONE had ever exited so quickly).
The #5-seeded Latvian had trouble holding serve right from the start against Ukraine's Kateryna Kozlova. She would continually get the break back in the set, but would then be unable to avoid almost immediately giving it away again. After dropping the 1st set at 7-5, Ostapenko took a 2-0 lead in the 2nd, but soon fell behind a break at 3-2. The two traded breaks again in games 6 and 7 until Kozlova finally pulled away, even while dealing with a nasty blister on her heel, for a 7-5/6-3 win. Ostapenko had 48 unforced errors to just 13 winners.
For Kozlova, in just her second tournament back after cracking cartilage in her right knee at Indian Wells, it was her first career Top 30 win, and her second slam MD victory (w/ '17 U.S.). Ostapenko would go on to lose 1st Round matches in WD and MX, as well... then rebound with a semifinal run at Wimbledon.
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An unseeded Serena Williams, now a mother to a nine-month old daughter, finally played in her first slam since winning the 2017 Australian Open while secretly pregnant. In her first competition in Paris since losing the '16 final to Garbine Muguruza, she reached the Round of 16, defeating two seeds. Set to play Maria Sharapova in their first match up since the '16 AO quarterfinal after which the Russian had tested positive for meldonium, Williams withdrew with a pectoral muscle injury, the first singles walkover in Serena's grand slam career.
The 2018 event also served as the site of the return of two-time RG champ Sharapova, who'd missed the event the past two years due to suspension and injury (and a lack of a WC from the FFT). She produced the first QF run in a major since her return, which included a comeback from 3-0 down in the 3rd set in a 1st Round match against Richel Hogenkamp. Sharapova eventually lost to Muguruza in their first meeting in four years.
Meanwhile, Venus Williams was upset in the 1st Round by Wang Qiang. She was the first seed to fall in the event, and it gave her back-to-back 1st Round exits in majors for the first time in her career (following a '17 season that saw her put up RU-4r-RU-SF results in the slams at age 37, her best full-season combined results in majors since 2002).
The 6-4/7-5 victory was Wang's first career Top 10 win. She'd notch three more by the end of the season.
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As always at slam times, certain players stepped up for the first time on the big stage.
Swashbuckling 21-year old Russian Dasha Kasatkina, the '14 RG girls champ, reached her maiden slam QF, notching a win over #2-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the Round of 16 in a 7-6/6-3 win in which the Dane had served for the 1st set and led 4-2 in the TB, then saw the match suspended due to darkness at 3-3 in the 2nd.
30-year old Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu, once a top junior who had seen injuries nearly end her professional career, finally recorded her first slam MD win in the RG 1st Round over Vania King, and later upset #4 Elina Svitolina to reach the Round of 16. Shoulder and knee injuries had taken Buzarnescu off tour for so long a time that she was able to earn her Ph.D in Sports Science in 2016 while she was away from the game.
After being 0-for-16 in WTA qualifying attempts in her career (0-of-8 at majors), Buzarnescu had made her Top 100 debut at age 29 (the oldest on tour since '07) and finally made her tour MD debut (as a qualifier, finally) at the '17 U.S. Open. After her RG run as the #31 seed, the Romanian won two MD matches at Wimbledon and claimed her maiden tour title in early August in San Jose. The following week in Montreal, days after having made her Top 20 breakthrough, her season come to an abrupt end with a serious ankle injury in Montreal while playing Svitolina.
Elsewhere, 22-year old Maria Sakkari became the first Greek to reach the Roland Garros 3rd Round since 2003.
And #12 Angelique Kerber belatedly avenged her '16 1st Round loss at RG to Kiki Bertens by taking out the Dutch #18 seed in the 3rd Round, ultimately advancing to her first QF in Paris since 2012. A month later, the German would win career slam #3 at Wimbledon, leaving RG as the her only missing piece in a potential Career Slam.
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What a difference a year makes. Part 2.
Sometimes one year's results at a slam informs what is to come. Sometimes not.
At Roland Garros in 2018, Johanna Konta and Marketa Vondrousova both lost in the 1st Round. A year later, they'd meet in the semifinals in Paris. The other semifinal included Amanda Anisimova, a 2016 RG junior finalist who'd only played one slam women's MD match (at RG a year earlier) in '18.
In the 2nd Round, #17-seeded Ash Barty, who hadn't yet reached a slam Round of 16, met an *unseeded* Serena Williams (the first time Serena had been on the "lesser" end of such a match-up in a major since 'the '07 AO). Williams won 3-6/6-3/6-4, winning the first three-set match in her comeback after "flipping a switch" when down 6-3/1-1 to the Aussie.
A year later, Barty would win the women's title.
Come 2018, the last breaths were plainly visible of the 2010's great Italian surge, which had started in Paris with Francesca Schiavone's 2010 title run.
35-year old Roberta Vinci called it a career two weeks before the start of play in Paris in '18, joining the slam-winning Flavia Pennetta in retirement. Former RG finalist Sara Errani, 31, lost in the 1st Round to Alize Cornet after squandering a set and 2-0 lead against the Pastry. The only younger Italian woman of note in the draw, Camila Giorgi, reached the 3rd Round, but after twice failing to serve out the match fell to Sloane Stephens in an 8-6 3rd set.
Meanwhile, 37-year old Schiavone's slam career came to a quiet end, largely because no one *knew* that it had ended. Ranked #454, and after having made her way through qualifying to extend her RG MD appearance streak to eighteen years, Schiavone fell in two tie-break sets in the 1st Round to Viktoria Kuzmova. After she'd been upset when it was erroneously reported by Roland Garros media that she'd announced her retirement in 2016 (she was given a standing ovation as she left the court, with Kristina Mladenovic joining in after having posted a win in the match), Schiavone had been coy about her decision ever since. Everyone knew the end was *possible*, but without official word nothing was planned to commemorate it with any sort of farewell moment.
Schiavone played just one match during the grass season, then a month later went to Gstaad and faced Samantha Stosur on clay. After having lost to Schiavone in the '10 RG final, the Aussie won 6-3/6-2. It turned out to be Schiavone's final match, as once the U.S. Open began more than a month later she teased on social media that she'd be in New York to make a live announcement during the tournament. It turned out to be that her playing career had already ended, though no one had noticed. She announced plans to coach (and acknowledged the dream of one day coaching a slam winner just like herself), and briefly worked with Caroline Wozniacki during the '19 clay season.
Svetlana Kuznetsova fell in the 1st Round to Garbine Muguruza, her first one-and-out appearance in Paris since her debut in the event in 2003. It was her sixth straight loss to the Spaniard.
Meanwhile, after reaching two semifinals in three years in Paris, Timea Bacsinszky missed the event due to wrist surgery. Aga Rawanska, too, was absent due to injury, ending her string of 47 consecutive MD appearances in majors. She would retire at the end of 2018. And Lucie Safarova, a singles finalist in '15, played her final RG singles match in '18, a 2nd Round loss to countrywoman Karolina Pliskova. Safarova would play one doubles match at RG in '19, then officially announce her retirement from tennis.
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Five years after they'd won the RG girls doubles title, Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova claimed their maiden WD slam crown together in Paris, defeating three seeded teams -- #9 Bertens/Larsson, #3 Klepac/Martinez-Sanchez and #2 Hlavackova/Strycova -- before winning in the final over Eri Hozumi/Makoto Ninomiya.
The winners of Roland Garros, Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior doubles titles consecutively in '13, the Czech pair followed up their RG win by taking the Ladies crown at Wimbledon, too.
Despite losing in the 1st Round, Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina became the new doubles co-#1's after the tournament, but Krejcikova/Siniakova would ultimately finish the season atop the rankings.
Venus & Serena Williams played in the women's doubles competition at RG for just the second time since their '10 title run, falling in the 3rd Round. It was just the fifth time they'd played in Paris, with their first time being their maiden slam WD title run in 1999 before either had won a singles major.
In the Mixed doubles, Latisha Chan teamed with Ivan Dodig to defeat Gaby Dabrowski & Mate Pavic. Dabrowski/Pavic had won the '18 Australian Open crown, and Dabrowski was the defending champ in Paris (winning in '17 with Rohan Bopanna). It was the first career slam MX title for Chan, who'd won the U.S. Open doubles with Martina Hingis the previous season.
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If you believe age is just a number, then why should it matter more than just that?
— Mouratoglou Tennis Academy ?? (@MouratoglouAcad) June 9, 2018
Congratulations to @CocoGauff on winning the 2018 Girls' @rolandgarros title! ??#RG18 pic.twitter.com/buMTdXYrCc
15-year old Coco Gauff becaame the second straight U.S. winner of the Roland Garros girls title, with the #16 seed defeating unseeded Caty McNally in the fourth all-Bannerette slam junior final in the last five majors.
McNally had taken down a virtual (eventual?) murderers' row of opponents to reach the final, including #1 seed and AO girls champ Liang En-shuo (3rd Rd.), eventual '18 U.S. Open junior champ Wang Xinyu (QF) and soon-to-be Wimbledon girls champs Iga Swiatek (SF, saving a MP), who'd go on to reach the women's Round of 16 in '19. McNally & Swiatek went on to take the doubles title.
Gauff had advanced past Canadian Leylah Annie Fernandez in the semis (LAF would win the girls crown a year later). In July, she would become the youngest ever junior #1.
Japan's Yui Kamiji came to Paris as the #2-ranked wheelchair player in the world, having lost the top spot to Diede de Groot in March. By successfully defending her RG singles crown with a 2-6/6-0/6-2 win in the final over #2 de Groot, Kamiji managed to hold off the total immersion of the young Dutch star as the WC game's most dominant player, reclaiming her #1 ranking by extending her singles winning streak to seventeen matches since losing to de Groot in the Australian Open final in January.
It was Kamiji's sixth career slam singles crown, and third in Paris in five years.
Kamiji and de Groot returned later in the day to contest the doubles title. De Groot managed to not go home empty-handed, joining with fellow Dutch player Aniek Van Koot to defeat '17 champs Kamiji & Marjolein Buis 6-1/6-3.
De Groot reclaimed the #1 ranking during the grass season and has rarely, if (really) ever, looked back.
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FASHION REPORT: Serena Williams garnered as many headlines for what she was wearing as for what happened on the court. No wonder. Her shoes with built-in ankle braces were quite intriguing...
Just kiddin'. Of course, *the* big controversy was the skin-tight black "cat suit" Williams wore...
Naturally, it drew the attention/ire of FFT president Bernard Giudicelli, who expressed a desire for a change to the tournament's dress code that would "impose certain limits." Williams' outfit, he said, "will no longer be accepted. One must respect the game and the place."
For her part, Williams said the suit made her feel "like a superhero," and that she "feels like this suit represents all the women that have been through a lot mentally, physically, with their body to come back and have confidence and to believe in themselves. I definitely feel like it is an opportunity for me to inspire a whole different group of amazing women and kids."
Returning from having given birth to daughter Alexis Olympia the previous September and having recovered from a pulmonary embolism (a longtime problem for her) that almost caused her to die while giving birth, the full-length outfit was designed with Williams' particular health concerns in mind, as it was intended to protect against blood clots.
Sister Venus' attire was less controversial, but nearly as unique...
Meanwhile, Elina Svitolina's mysterious tattoo with "personal" meaning was playing peek-a-boo (for the first week, at least... then it was the Ukrainian herself who disappeared)...
That championship feeling for Simona Halep. pic.twitter.com/E76DyLT243
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) June 9, 2018
Over the sport's history, tennis has routinely produced players whose career journeys have resembled the path of the legendary daredevils who would get themselves shot out of a cannon. They fly far, fast and so suddenly that not only is everyone else stunned by their precocious accomplishments but, sometimes, so are they. A few of those players even come to *expect* such success, having never known anything else. Imagine that. We know it's true. We've seen it happen quite often, in fact. Some handle the celebration of *them* with aplomb, while others don't. But having blown through a door without ever really having been faced with being "locked out" of anything, they're presented with the early present of quite possibly being able to avoid the sort of dark passages where personal doubt can so easily lurk, and consume their already-attained dreams.
Simona Halep was most definitely not one of those players.
Some players, on the other hand, are made to wait. To work. To slog. To climb. To crash. To get back up again. To get knocked down once more. Some of those sort of players, in the end, never fulfill their greatest dreams and/or expected "destiny." But those that do are bestowed not only with the honor of lifting a grand slam trophy, but they're also rewarded with the even more significant, well-earned knowledge about just how hard it is to do it. Or to even get the chance. Once, twice, thrice or, for some, four times or more. But no matter how many chances that sort of player may get, *nothing* is assured. Nothing is going to simply be *given.* They know it. They've lived it. And so they go back to work.
Being made to live with such a harsh reality, though it may not be a fatal condition, over time becomes a load to bear that can become heavier and heavier. Some collapse under the weight of it all. After having been stopped just short of their career goal on multiple occasions, a cruel, frustrating and often heartless pattern which sometimes plays out for years at their expense, some may lose the will and stomach necessary to continue the fight. They may secretly begin to fear the opportunity they once strove for, not wanting to suffer the same fate yet again. Eventually, they could even cease being angry or frustrated when they come up short. It spares them the (even greater) pain that may have awaited them around the next corner.
Simona Halep was most definitely not one of those players, either.
Still others choose to muster the resiliency to pick themselves up again, put on a brave face in order to cope with the familiar pain, and then begin the process all over again, hoping for a different result the *next* time, or maybe the *next*, and if not then, then quite possibly the *next* time after that, whenever (or if) it might come. Thus, if the moment of action should some day arrive, the simple act of finally raising one's arms in triumph is not only one of elation, but also relief. Near incredulity, even. But also, finally, and most importantly, satisfaction.
Simona Halep became one of *those* players today in Paris.
Playing in her fourth career slam final, and third at Roland Garros since 2014, #1-ranked Halep came into her match against #10-seeded Sloane Stephens with not only her own checkered past -- three three-set losses in finals, a blown set-and-a-break lead a year ago in Paris against Alona Ostapenko, and a warrior-like effort this past January that nonetheless came up one victory short of completion in Melbourne -- but also the hopes and dreams of an entire nation on her mind. Perhaps no player has a more extensive (and boisterous, to say the least) traveling band of countrymen & women in her corner than Halep, likely the greatest player that Romania has ever produced, but her desire to achieve her own dream *and* make her nation proud was still missing the legacy-defining major title run that would end the country's 40-year slam drought. The last Romanian to be crowned a slam champ was Virginia Ruzici, Halep's mentor and manager, who won in Paris in 1978. Halep's junior title run in Paris a decade ago had made Roland Garros her most favored event, and her idolization of four-time RG winner Justine Henin (the two crossed paths during the week), as well as her own triumphs and failures on the terre battue in recent years, all have served to inextricably tie the Romanian to this particular slam. To win here would be everything. To lose here again would be, again, another devastating obstacle to overcome.
Up love/30 on Stephens' serve a game later, she got no closer as Sloane finally held serve for the first time in the 3rd set. But rather than beat herself up over seeing the closure of a *small* opening to end things there, she went back to work. Halep fired an ace (her first in the match) to take a 30/15 lead, then completed a smash at the net to reach match point.
In the end, there was no drama. In fact, the finish was quick. Stephens netted a forehand return shot and, just like that, Halep's career-long series of grand slam nightmares and neverending near-misses was over. Her 3-6/6-4/6-1 victory lifted the burden of the hopes of millions of her fellow Romanians from her shoulders, and cleared away the remaining cobwebs, scar tissue and scratchy feelings at the base of her own soul. She'd done it. Finally, she was the Roland Garros champion. The relief on her face was soon replaced by a brief version of disbelief, then satisfaction over her hard-earned accomplishment.
The moment @Simona_Halep became Roland-Garros champion!#RG18 pic.twitter.com/S1dDoOhwpp
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 9, 2018
Calling Paris her "special city," Halep would soon raise the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen overhead (after Stephens directed her during a little sideline coaching stint during the ceremony), officially lifting whatever cloud hovered over her career, securing a place in the hearts of all who saw her quest play out over the past few years, and settling into the warm cradle of tennis history.
No better feeling ??#RG18 pic.twitter.com/luSwr33Mk2
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 9, 2018
The first kiss ????@Simona_Halep#RG18 pic.twitter.com/5Ygrpv7E8M
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 9, 2018
As the Romanian anthem played on Chatrier court, Halep rested her cheek on the trophy's lid, as it was evident that the memories of her entire tennis journey flashed through her mind. Through still more chants of "Si-mo-na!" during the ceremony, her 32 slam appearances, four finals, heartbreak, anger, injury, blood, sweat, tears and disappointment were now joined by a recollection of "triumph." It makes all the difference. All the "bad" moments were now mere stepping stones to *this* one.
It's finally yours, @Simona_Halep. ? pic.twitter.com/FKlTWsnetR
— ?? (@smashingaces13) June 9, 2018
In her interview with NBC's Mary Carillo's after the match, Halep admitted that when she was a little girl she "didn't have the courage to dream" of lifting the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen. But courage isn't something that the Romanian lacks these days.
Nearly seven months after the death of Jana Novotna, on the very day that the Czech was honored in a ceremony at Roland Garros, Halep can now be listed alongside the late Hall of Famer, who in so many ways is her "historical doppelganger", as a player once hounded by near-miss efforts in slams until finally overcoming and re-writing her career legacy with a single victory.
As much as it's overdue, more than anything else, it just feels right.
* - "It was a very bad day at the office... I was really pissed off." - defending champ Alona Ostapenko, after her 1st Round loss
* - "I call it like my Wakanda-inspired cat suit. It's really fun. Although we designed it way before the (Black Panther) movie, but still, it kind of reminds me of that. It was comfortable. I tried it on a couple of times before. Hadn't tried it on in a long time, like, over a month. So I was just winging it in the last minute." - Serena Williams
* - "I think my most favorite would be the one that I win." - Naomi Osaka, then #20, on her favorite slam tournament
* - "I have one croissant per day, and if I've been running a lot, two. I just smell butter, and I feel like having one." - Garbine Muguruza
* - "My head won it." - Simona Halep, on her three-set QF win over Angelique Kerber
* - "I was dreaming for this moment since I started to play tennis. I'm really happy that it's happened in Roland Garros in Paris. My special city." - Simona Halep
As the 2010's ended in Paris, the decade concluded just as it had begun, with a maiden slam champion lifting the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen. In 2019, it was a player who got there via an unconventional path, and rose to new career heights on the surface on which *she* least expected to ever find grand success.
Barty's one moment of edge-of-her-seat drama had come in the semifinals in a crazy momentum-shifting match against 17-year old old Amanda Anisimova. After winning 17 of 18 points to open the match and leading 5-0, 40/15, Barty had somehow lost the 1st set, and trailed 3-0 in the 2nd, with the Bannerette having won 17 straight points of her own. But once Barty capitalized on the slight slip in Anismova's game, her path to the title opened wide. She won in three, then dominated another teen, 19-year old Marketa Vondrousova, in the final as the Czech seemed a bit overwhelmed by the moment (and her first experiences on Chatrier Court).
Having taken a voluntary year and a half sabbatical from the sport in 2014-16, during which she played some professional cricket, in order to mature and learn to better handle the stress and expectation inherent in the career of a tennis prodigy, Barty's title run thereby set forth a potential new template for success on the WTA tour, which during the 2010's witnessed quite a few late-blooming stories authored by players who'd found their greatest tennis success after having stepped away (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes when forced to do so because of multiple injuries) in their mid to late twenties and then returned in a more healthy (physical *and* psychological) place.
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In all, Barty's run included just one win over a seeded player (#14 Madison Keys, an '18 semifinalist, in the QF), and three over players aged 20 or younger. This was largely because of a high number of withdrawals, injury-related early exits and upsets involving most of the tour's highest-ranked or biggest-named players.
#6 Petra Kvitova withdrew from the tournament, while two-time winner Maria Sharapova was out injured. #5 Angelique Kerber and #13 Caroline Wozniacki were physically limited and lost in the 1st Round. #4 Kiki Bertens, a pre-tournament favorite, retired in the 2nd Round. #2 Karolina Pliskova (3rd Rd.), #9 Elina Svitolina (3rd), #10 Serena Williams (3rd to Sonya Kenin) and '17 champ Alona Ostapenko (1st, her third in four RG appearances) all fell during the opening week. Meanwhile, world #1 Naomi Osaka's 16-match slam winning streak was ended by Katerina Siniakova in the 3rd Round.
Barty avoided defending champ Simona Halep when she lost to teenager Anisimova in the QF, and #26 Johanna Konta (who rode a surprisingly effective clay spring to the first RG semifinal berth by a Brit since 1983) when she failed to serve out both sets in a straight sets SF loss to Vondrousova.
In total, the semifinalist four were an unexpected quartet: two teenagers, a grass court-loving Aussie and the rare Brit succeeding on clay. They were a combined 3-12 in career matches at Roland Garros before going 20-0 to get within a win of the final.
Three of the four (all but Konta, who reached the stage at her third different major) were first-time slam semifinalists, and for the first time since the 1978 Australian Open none had reached a slam final in their career.
Anisimova was the first player born in the 2000s, male or female, to reach a major semi. The youngest slam semifinalist since Nicole Vaidisova in 2007 (AO), the youngest at RG since 1997 (Martina Hingis), the youngest U.S. player to reach the stage at a major since Venus Williams in 1997 (US), as well as the youngest Bannerette to get so far in Paris since Jennifer Capriati in 1990. With fellow semifinalist Vondrousova (19), it was the first time two teens reached the final four in a major since the 2009 U.S. Open (Wozniacki and Wickmayer) and the first time at Roland Garros since 2001 (Clijsters and Henin).
Vondrousova's appearance in the final was the first in a slam by a teenager since 2006 (Sharapova), and the last in Paris had come in 2007 (Ana Ivanovic, a year before her title run). She came up short of becoming the first Czech to win the RG crown since 1981, but officially added her name to the list of lefty Czechs legitimately seeking glory on the sport's grandest stages. Vondrousova was the sixth unseeded RG finalist in the Open era (only Ostapenko in '17 won it).
Meanwhile, in the first official RG without Poland's greatest player ever (Aga Radwanska), Pole Iga Swiatek (who turned 18 during the event) become the second player (after Anisimova, who first did it at the AO in January) born in the 2000's to reach the Round of 16 at a major; while 18-year old Indian Wells champ Bianca Andreescu recorded her first career MD win in Paris after missing the clay court season with an ailing shoulder. After the three-hour, two-day, back-from-a-set-down win the Canadian withdrew from the tournament, having come back too soon from her injury.
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Former #1 Victoria Azarenka, unseeded in Paris, recorded her first win at Roland Garros in four years. Since her controversial loss to Serena Williams in the 2015 3rd Round, pregnancy, legal issues, injury and a lack of match play had limited her to just two matches in the event over the last three years. But the Belarusian's 1st Round win over '17 champ Alona Ostapenko finally reversed that course. A round later, Azarenka nearly got her first #1 win since 2016 against Naomi Osaka. She led the US/AO champ 6-4/4-2, with a BP for 5-2. After rallying from 5-1 down in the 3rd, at 5-3 Azarenka was a BP away from getting back on serve, only to see an Osaka DF not called nor corrected by the chair umpire. She ultimately went out in what became a 6-3 final set.
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Czech Lucie Safarova's career came to a graceful end at the 2019 Roland Garros. Officially it was via a 1st Round doubles loss on Court 4 on Day 4 with Dominika Cibulkova filling in for the injured Bethanie Mattek-Sands as her partner. The retiring former RG singles finalist (2015) and two-time doubles champ (2015/17) exited as she played her career: as one of the tour's most beloved individuals, both inside and outside the lockerroom.
End of a successful career: @luciesafarova hugs @Cibulkova after playing her last career match at @rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/jAkNPjnEMd
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) May 29, 2019
.@luciesafarova gettings a big hug from @andreapetkovic after playing her last career match at @rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/AdB9N1Hcqm
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) May 29, 2019
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2nd Round losses by Caroline Garcia, Kristina Mladenovic and youngster Diane Parry meant no French women reached the 3rd Round for the first time since 1986.
While two-time slam finalist Vera Zvonareva appeared in her first MD in Paris since 2011, teenager Anastasia Potapova got the biggest win of her career (handing #5 Angelique Kerber her third 1st Round loss in Paris in four years) in her RG debut, and coutrywomen Anna Blinkova (who rallied from a break down in what threatened to be her final set in the event in four straight rounds in Q/MD play), Ekaterina Alexandrova and Veronika Kudermetova all reached their maiden 3rd Rounds at a slam, no Russians reached the Round of 16 in Paris for the first time since 2000. The absence of the injured Maria Sharapova (missing RG for the third time in the final four years of the 2010's) and early losses by '09 champ Svetlana Kuznetsova (1st Rd. for the second straight year), '18 quarterfinalist Dasha Kasatkina (2nd) and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (1st) contributed to the end of the streak.
Perhaps the most productive player at RG in the decade who didn't win a singles title, former finalist (and three-time semifinalist) Samantha Stosur was knocked out in the 2nd Round by Alexandrova. It was the 35-year old Aussie's worst finish in Paris since 2008. But, keeping to her Zelig/Forrest Gump-like tradition of being positioned *this* close to history throughout the decade, she was singled out by fellow Aussie Barty for praise in her on-court post-match interview after winning the singles title.
Italy's historic run at Roland Garros during the decade, which began in 2010 with Francesca Schiavone becoming the first Italian women to win a major title, ended with zero Italians in the 2nd Round in Paris for the first time since 1982. The only Italians in the MD were qualifiers Jasmine Paolini and Giulia Gatto-Monticone, who both lost in the 1st Round in their slam debuts.
For her part, Schiavone ended the decade watching from the sidelines as a physically limited #13-seed Caroline Wozniacki, who'd hired the Italian as a coach for the clay court season (only to then struggle with injury and barely get to utilize her expertise), lost in the 1st Round to Kudermetova. It was the Dane's fourth 1r/2r exit in six RG appearances since 2013.
Schiavone had beaten Wozniacki in the QF en route to her RG title in 2010. The two met five times after that match, all won by Woziacki, with the last match having been played in 2011, long before Schiavone's 2018 retirement.
Two years removed from her QF collapse against Simona Halep, Elina Svitolina ended the decade still having not reached the second week in Paris since the defeat. Nursing a knee injury all spring, the Ukrainian lost in the 3rd Round to Garbine Muguruza. She's the only player in WTA history with 13+ tour singles titles but zero slam semifinal appearances.
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Three years after being half (w/ Caroline Garcia) of the first all-French born team to win the RG women's doubles title since the 1920's, Kristina Mladenvoic won her second, this time with Hungary's Timea Babos. The win over Duan Yingying/Zheng Saisai (seeking to become the first all-CHN champs in tournament history) in the final was the second major win for Babos/Mladenovic ('18 AO) and the fifth overall slam title (3 WD/2 MX) in the career of Mladenovic.
The 1st Round exit of defending champs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova had already opened the door for Mladenovic's rise to the #1 doubles ranking, which she'd been assured of claiming even before the final was contested.
Latisha Chan & Ivan Dodig defended their Mixed doubles title, becoming the first duo to do so in Paris in the Open era (and the first in the tournament since Margaret Court & Ken Fletcher won three straight between 1963-65) by defeating the same team in the final -- Gaby Dabrowski & Mate Pavic -- they had in 2018. Dabrowski was playing in her third straight RG MX final (having won in '17 with Rohan Bopanna).
The most recent successful title defense at the slam level was the 1986-87 Wimbledon run from the brother/sister pair of Cyril Suk & Helena Sukova.
The juniors saw top-seeded Leylah Annie Fernandez become the second Canadian girl to be crowned a slam champion ('12 Wimbledon/Genie Bouchard) as the 16-year old defeated #8-seeded Bannerette Emma Navarro, 6-3/6-2. LAF was runner-up to Clara Tauson in the Australian Open junior final in January, while Navarro made it six different U.S. girls in the RG final over the final four years of the decade.
Navarro returned later and went home with the doubles title, teaming with Chloe Beck to defeat the #4-seeded Hordette duo of Alina Charaeva & Anastasia Tikhonova, 6-1/6-2. Beck/Navarro, like LAF, were runners-up in Melbourne.
Making her Roland Garros junior debut was 18-year old Elli Mandlik, daughter of former girls (1978) and women's (1981) champ Hana Mandlikova. A winner of two previous pro challenger titles in '19, #14-seeded Mandlik lost in the 1st Round to Slovakia's Romana Cisovská.
Armed with a (now) rare one-handed backhand, 16-year old Pastry Diane Parry was granted a wild card into the women's MD and her 1st Round win over Vera Lapko made her the youngest winner at RG since Michelle Larcher de Brito in 2009, and the youngest French player to do so since Alize Cornet in 2006.
Parry (w/ Fiona Ferro), also reached the 3rd Round in women's doubles, knocking off the likes of Aliaksandra Sasnovich/Taylor Townsend and #13-seeds Alicja Rosolska/Yang Zhaoxuan along the way. Seeded #2 in the junior draw, she lost in the 2nd Round to Aussie Annerly Poulos. In the girls doubles as the #1 seed with Natsumi Kawaguchi, Parry came up one round short of the final.
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History was made in the wheelchair competition, as Diede de Groot further earned her "Diede the Great" moniker, sweeping the singles and doubles titles at a fourth consecutive slam. It makes her the first player to ever win all *eight* slam titles in a career, as well as simultaneously reign as the champion in all eight disciplines.
The 22-year old Dutch #1 defeated #2 Yui Kamiji 6-1/6-0 in the singles final to "finally" claim the only slam title she'd yet to win, and won a pair of SF/F doubles matches (w/ Aniek Van Koot) on the same day to take the title there, as well.
A Champion of Roland-Garros.@DiedetheGreat defeats Yui Kamiji 6-1 6-0 for the Women's Wheelchair Tennis title ??#RG19 pic.twitter.com/u4O8Jj7oT1
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 8, 2019
In all, the numbers posted to this point by de Groot are downright Vergeerian:
* - the first to complete Career Slam in both singles and doubles
* - the first to simultaneously hold all eight slam s/d titles
* - four straight slam singles titles and five in a row in doubles, sweeping both competitions in four straight majors
* - sixteen straight slam finals, going 6-2 in both singles and doubles
* - 17 finals (8/10 in singles, 9/10 in doubles) in 10 career slam appearances
* - tied for second (w/ Kamiji) for the most WC singles slam titles (6) behind Vergeer (21)
* - half-way to the first 8-event Grand (x2) Slam in a single season in WC tennis history (there were only seven events when Vergeer played, so if de Groot can complete the Grand Slam in just one discipline *that* would be a first-time accomplishment, too)
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FASHION REPORT: the big brands went all out for this Roland Garros, as Nike's bees and flowers designs were worn separately or in combination, with the "faux tuxedo"-like bees outfits coming in both black and white versions...
Though the most striking design was probably that from adidas (with Mladenovic wearing it all the way to the WD title)...
The zebra look was back in some corners, but the similar-but-far-more-equal patterned black-and-white Fila ensemble worn by singles champ Ash Barty was better on the eyes (i.e. it didn't make anyone dizzy or cause inadvertent seizures)...
Meanwhile, Serena arrived with a Nike collaboration with designer Virgil Abloh that included a flowing warmup wrap emblazoned with the words that have come to define her -- "mother, champion, goddess" -- in French. Said Williams, "Those are things that mean a lot to me and reminders for me and for everyone that wants to wear it," adding the idea was to "remind everyone that they can be champions and are queens."
It all sort of reminded *me* of a recent Backspin Academy theater production...
When the wrap came off, a two-piece was revealed...
New tattoos have become part of the many new looks being debuted on the court. One of the more subtle versions (courtesy of Marketa Vondrousova)...
Though maybe the most tangible "fashion statement" wasn't a garment, but a court. The new Court Simonne-Mathieu featured a wrap-around greenhouse that immediately made it the most unique, must-see venue on the grand slam circuit...
Ash Barty's career path to a grand slam championship wasn't a common one. In fact, no one has ever done it quite like her. But for the 23-year old Aussie, she likely wouldn't have been crowned the latest queen of Roland Garros today if she hadn't done it her way.
There were probably more than a few casual fans (you know the ones) tuning into the latter stages of this week's happenings in Paris who were only *then* even becoming fully aware of the 23-year old. Sure, Barty's the only player in the entire sport whose versatility is on full *official* display due to the fact that she's the lone woman or man ranked in the Top 10 in *both* singles and doubles, but it's never been as if she's actively shoved her existence in the face of the sport and its followers. She didn't "stun the world" with an thunderous result on the big stage early in her Generation PDQ career, but has instead built one increasingly larger success upon another. She isn't physically imposing in stature, nor does she have the sort of loud, boastful or extroverted personality that forces eyes to divert and necks to crane whenever she's around. Instead, she's humble, and maybe a bit shy by nature. Her game doesn't pop with the sort of brute power that has carried the likes of Naomi Osaka to slam titles and international name recognition over the past year, either. Barty's game is far more varied and nuanced, and though her competitiveness is clear, a day of steady and studied play is viewed as an unqualified success in her book. No fireworks are necessarily required.
Even the noticeable evolution in on-court confidence that has significantly elevated her standing in the game over the past two seasons has arrived in typically understated fashion. Until now. On the sole basis of her 2019 success, attentions are finally focusing in her direction. Whether or not Barty ever dreamed of inviting so many guests to her party, all of a sudden it's become a crowded affair.
Barty's climb through the ranks has seen her go from child prodigy to Wimbledon girls champ, from being a multiple slam doubles finalist before her 18th birthday to making the decision to take a year and a half sabbatical from the sport for her own peace of mind due to the stress created by high expectations and the tough life of the WTA tour. From taking up a brief cricket career for the Brisbane Heat while she was away to walking back into tennis in 2016 with a refreshed attitude, a rare self-awareness when it comes to knowing how to deal with her chosen life, and possessing a sincere gratitude for everything that would subsequently come her way.
... There's the usual way, and then there's the Ash Barty Way.
It didn't take long for one of Barty's best attributes to become clear in the women's final against unseeded Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova on Court Philippe Chatrier. Due to the conclusion of a men's suspended (and further rain-interrupted today) semifinal, the women didn't walk onto the playing surface until about an hour and a half after the original scheduled start of the match, and the wait likely helped the Aussie win the initial battle of the day. The 19-year old had never stepped onto the court until her practice session there earlier in the day (yet another offshoot of the "disgusting," in the world of French Hall of Famer Amelie Mauresmo, decision by French Tennis Federation to not play the women's semis on the tournament's biggest show court on Friday), and that combined with the enormity of the moment for a player of such a young age -- Vondrousova was the youngest slam semifinalist since 2009, and was seeking to become the first teen to win a major since 2006, as well as the first from her nation to win in Paris since 1981 -- to prevent the lefty Czech from ever truly feeling comfortable.
As the Aussie ran to the net to get to a high bouncing ball, the Roland Garros title was presented on a platter for her enjoyment. She didn't push it away, putting away the final point with an overhead, then turning to her player's box (and coach Craig Tyzzer) and raising her arms in triumph a few feet from the umpire's chair.
Australia’s Greatest ????@ashbar96 is the 2019 Roland-Garros champion, defeating Vondrousova 6-1 6-3.
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 8, 2019
?? https://t.co/FJdsaBBRCP#RG19 pic.twitter.com/TMsAdEhHg3
Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust... the one from Down Under had won, due to some big-name absences and upsets, what had turned out to be an upside down slam. Barty's win, though, as so many of her results have done in 2019, set things right-side-up once more.
In her 6-1/6-3 win, Barty was never asked to be great or spectacular. She needed only to be her steady self to emerge with the victory, and on that mission her actions were perfectly by the book.
* - "It is a lot to carry, but so is being Serena Williams." - The One and Only, on her talked-about custom-made on-court ensemble
* - "Draws are meant to fall apart." - Sloane Stephens
* - "Who doesn't love drop shots?" - Anastasija Sevastova
* - "It's just a millimeter. It doesn't make you better or worse player. In the end, it's a bit of luck." - Seveastova, who won a 3:18 3rd Round match over Elise Mertens in which she saved five MP and won 11-9 in the 3rd set, a contest about which she said, "I didn't want the match the end because it was so much fun."
* - "When you step in on the court and you know you play your, I would say idol, you just gotta show your best. ... I live for this win, for these emotions and these moments. I’m going to do everything to experience it again and again and again." - Anastsia Potapova, after defeating Angelique Kerber
* - "I feel like I have improved a lot in this year since I won here. I'm a different person. I'm a better person. And now what it comes, it comes as a bonus. So I'm trying just to give my best every time I step on the court." - Simona Halep
* - "It's just really annoying." - Kiki Bertens, about her 2nd Round retirement
* - "I would just say I’m very disappointed in how I played, and I wish I could have done better. But I can’t turn time, so... You know, it’s weird, but I think me losing is probably the best thing that could have happened. I think I was overthinking this, like, 'Calendar Slam.' For me this is something that I have wanted to do forever, but I think I have to think about it like if it was that easy, everyone would have done it. I just have to keep training hard and put myself in a position again to do it hopefully." - Naomi Osaka, on her 3rd Round loss
* - "Yeah, I did feel some death stares there. But I tried not to over think it and do what I needed to do and do what I do best. I knew I just had to show the crowd, like, 'Listen, Sonya Kenin is in the house.'" - Sonya Kenin, on getting booed by the French crowd for just about every move she made during her win over Serena Williams
* - "I'm in love with this place." - Marketa Vondrousova
* - "I just played the best tennis of my life. I don't know how, and I don't know how I did it, but it just happened." - Amanda Anisimova, after upsetting Simona Halep
* - "I have grown as a person and obviously as a player, as well. But I have had some heartbreaking moments. I've had some amazing moments. But all in all, I have enjoyed every single minute. I think that's been the biggest thing, that I haven't had one ounce of regret. I felt like when I came back, it was my decision, we did it my way, and, yeah, it's paying dividends." - Ash Barty, on her two-year sabbatical and subsequent slam-winning career
* - "I’ve worked so hard. Now the only way to approach it is to enjoy it, embrace it, have fun and try to play with freedom. That’s when I play my best tennis." - Ash Barty
* - "I'm not the only person out here. I have an extraordinary group of people around me." - Ash Barty
