Articles by Steve Tignor

Splendor in the Grass: On turf triumphs by Federer, Kvitova, Lopez

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 19:32:00 +0000

It really would be nice to have a full grass-court season, wouldn’t it? This weekend you could see the variety that it would bring to the tours. After two months of clay-lovers having their way, it was time for the turf warriors to take a turn, and a title or two, in the sun. Petra Kvitova, Roger Federer, Feliciano Lopez and Marin Cilic all showed off their grass-court chops in a series of finals that gave us more than their share of mastery, suspense and emotion. Here’s a look at four takeaways from the week before the week before Wimbledon.

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1. Life Starts at 35

The top seeds were long gone from Queen’s Club by Sunday—No. 1 Andy Murray, No. 2 Stan Wawrinka, and No. 3 Milos Raonic had all lost in the first round five days earlier. But by the end of Sunday's final, nobody missed them. Instead, two familiar faces, Feliciano Lopez (the 2014 runner-up) and Marin Cilic (the 2012 champion and 2013 runner-up) were putting on a see-saw classic. These two tournament mainstays didn’t hold anything back physically or emotionally; each had a match point in the third-set tiebreaker, and each had took a turn fighting through their nerves and succumbing to them. Lopez’s eventual win appeared to mean as much as to him as winning Wimbledon would. Maybe more.

“Queen’s is the best,” Lopez said of the tournament he had loved to watch as a kid, and which he had come one point from winning three years ago. “You feel the atmosphere here...For me, holding the trophy, it’s the best feeling I can have.”

The 35-year-old Lopez, whose parents had flown in for the final, called it the best week of his career. After reaching the final in Stuttgart the previous Sunday, he beat four higher-ranked players—Wawrinka, Tomas Berdych, Grigor Dimitrov and Cilic—to win this 500-level event. The victory sends him back up to No. 25 in the rankings, which means he could face a high seed in the third round at Wimbledon. Few seeds, no matter how high, are going to be want to see his lefty serve coming toward them, or slicing away from them, next week.

Whatever happens then, Lopez’s win at Queen’s showed us the the upside to the aging of the sport. Who needs new faces when you can see a 35-year-old face win a title for the first time, and celebrating as if he’d never won anything before?

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2. Nice Guy Finishes Second

As memorable as Lopez’s victory speech was, Cilic’s words in defeat were even more striking. The Croat had won the event before, but he wanted this one every bit as badly as Lopez. Maybe he wanted it a little too badly.

Getting fired up doesn’t always work well for Cilic, who is more naturally low-key. When he shanked his final forehand—an anti-climactic end to a climactic last 20 minutes of the match—Cilic briefly looked inconsolable. His handshake with Lopez was a drive-by, and as he sat down he was grumbling to himself. But by the time he was interviewed by Sue Barker, Cilic was smiling in appreciation of the quality of play, and generously telling Lopez that he deserved to win. Cilic, 28, has always been one of the tour’s gentlemen, but I’m not sure I’d seen him prove it quite as definitively as he did in defeat at Queen’s.

Even more than Lopez, Cilic, who has been to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon the last three years, will be a dark horse at the All England Club. If he can close when he has the chance—if he can be a little less gentlemanly on the court than he is off it—he could even win the title.

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3. Keeping Her Eyes on the Prize

What can explain Petra Kvitova’s comeback from a knife attack, all the way to a title in Birmingham, in just half a season? There’s her natural, upbeat, low-drama demeanor, of course. Kvitova takes things in stride, and from the start she seems to have done her best to put this frightening disruption in her life behind her and focus on the future.

But there was also something else, something that has driven her throughout her career, something that she keeps in the front of her mind at all times: the prospect of returning to Wimbledon. Few players have ever loved a tournament the way Kvitova loves the Big W, and not missing the 2017 edition was motivation enough for her.

“From the beginning, Wimbledon was the tournament that was in my mind,” Kvitova said after her 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Ash Barty in the Birmingham final. “For me, Wimbledon is in my heart. It’s the biggest one.”

With her Birmingham title, Kvitova is certainly ready to play Wimbledon, and with the women’s field in flux, she may be ready to win it for a third time. She was her traditional hot-and-cold self against Barty, but her shotmaking and determination were more impressive against a tougher opponent, Kristina Mladenovic, in the semifinals. If Kvitova can hit with the kind of steady depth that she did in that match, she can beat anyone.

“I just love grass,” Kvitova said. “It feels like home. I love the movement on grass. I love the flat shots, I love the serve and volley and the drop shots and the slice. I love everything about it.”

Kvitova loves it so much that she seems to have planned her return so she wouldn’t feel any extra nerves playing at Wimbledon.

“It’s even better that I already played in Paris,” she said, “as at Wimbledon I won’t feel the same pressure that I would have done if that was my first Grand Slam back.”

Everyone should love something as much as Petra Kvitova loves Wimbledon.

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4. Eight Wasn’t Enough

Roger Federer knows a thing or two about loving Wimbledon, and living to play it again. The seven-time champion skipped the entire clay season so he would be ready for grass. As of today, after his 6-1, 6-3 win over Alexander Zverev at the Gerry Weber Open on Sunday, it looks like he made the right decision.

This was Federer’s fourth win in four finals in 2017, and after his semifinal victory over Karen Khachanov, his second in as many days against a young ATP gun. The 35-year-old Federer still doesn’t have any trouble staying with players who are a little more than half his age.

“It’s great to get off to a good start,” Federer said after his ninth win in Halle, “and then remind yourself that you’ve been playing good tennis all week.”

“It’s a boost to me personally, with my confidence,” he added, “knowing that my body is in good shape. Mentally, I’m fresh again and I’ve gotten used to match play.”

If there were any doubts before this week, they’ve been put to rest: Federer, at 35, one year after injuring his knee in the semifinals on Centre Court and looking as if he may never be back there again, is the favorite to win Wimbledon.

Week in Preview: Djokovic, Kerber aim for turnarounds at Eastbourne

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 03:01:00 +0000

Eastbourne is the last-chance saloon of grass-court tournaments. For players looking for a last-minute tune-up before the Championships at Wimbledon, it’s pretty much the only game in town, or out of town. That’s doubly true in 2017, when this little seaside town event will be headlined by two big stars in desperate need of some tuning up, Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber. Here’s a look at who else in the Eastbourne fields, and in this week’s men’s grass event in Turkey.

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Aegon International Eastbourne (WTA)

Eastbourne, England
$753,900; Premier
Grass
Draw is here

Eastbourne is a small town and a small site, but a big field travels there for its WTA event. This year’s 56-player draw includes Kerber, wild card Simona Halep, French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, local favorite Johanna Konta, world No. 3 Karolina Pliskova, French Open semifinalist Timea Bacsinszky, French quarterfinalist Kristina Mladenovic, Garbiñe Muguruza, Caroline Wozniacki and Birmingham champion Petra Kvitova.

Kerber reached the Eastbourne final in 2012 and 2014, but if she was looking for a place to get in a few quick wins and maybe a title before defending her runner-up finish at Wimbledon, this might not be the place for her. Still, after getting a tough draw and losing in the first round in Paris, she’ll probably be happy to start against either Naomi Broady or Kristyna Pliskova here.

First-round matches to watch:

—Barbora Strycova vs. Genie Bouchard

—Naomi Osaka vs. Riza Ozaki, in an all-Japanese affair

American to watch: CiCi Bellis. The teenager, who is having a sneaky-good season, will start Julia Goerges.

Potential third-round match with ramfications: Konta vs. Ostapenko

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Aegon International Eastbourne (ATP)

Eastbourne, England
$693,910; 250 ranking points
Grass
Draw is here

Djokovic has traditionally skipped the Wimbledon warm-up events. After two months of heavy competition on clay, he didn’t feel like he needed the matches, and he was usually right. This time, though, after his disappointing quarterfinal effort against Dominic Thiem at Roland Garros, the Serb is looking to mix it up, and he’s probably right again. A title, or even just some positive play, could help him turn the page after Paris and give him a boost for Wimbledon. He’ll start against either Jiri Vesely or Vasek Pospisil.

Also here: Gael Monfils, John Isner, Steve Johnson, Sam Querrey, Mischa Zverev.

Player to watch: Daniil Medvedev. This talented but unorthodox young Russian pushed Grigor Dimitrov to three sets at Queen's Club. He opens against Querrey this week.

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Antalya Open (ATP)

Antalya, Turkey
$550,000; 250 ranking points
Grass
Draw is here

Before I clicked on the draw for this event, I wondered who would be heading to Turkey the week before Wimbledon. I should have known: Thiem, the man who would play 52 weeks of the year if he could, is the top seed.

Also here: Paolo Lorenzi, Fernando Verdasco, David Ferrer.

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TURF TALK: CONSIDERING THE TOURS AS WIMBLEDON BECKONS

Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:16:00 +0000

Week in Preview: Federer, Murray in action; Azarenka returns to tour

Mon, 19 Jun 2017 13:55:00 +0000

Are you getting used to the three-week break between Roland Garros and Wimbledon? Or does it still feel a little luxurious? This is the third year since the All England Club moved its dates back a week. While that may not sound like much of a change, it qualified as a major upheaval in the tennis world, and it has allowed something approaching a grass-court season to bloom in June. These days, the old Wimbledon warm-ups, at Queen’s, Eastbourne and Halle, have their own warm-up events, in Stuttgart and Nottingham.

Still, tennis on turf is a sprint rather than a marathon. Seven days after the tours left Paris, we’ve reached the first summit of the grass swing on the men’s side. Queen’s and Halle, two 500-level events, will be headlined by a pair of Wimbledon champions who can use the matches. While the women’s draws aren’t as strong, they will contain the biggest news of the week, when a former No. 1 makes her 2017 debut.

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Aegon Championships (ATP)

London
$2,056,786; 500 ranking points
Grass
Draw is here

Not many 500-level events can survive a withdrawal by Rafael Nadal and still feel pretty good about their draws, but Queen’s is one of them this year. With the extra week, the bump up in ranking points and the $2 million in prize money, the tournament has begun to verge on the star-studded. Five-time champ Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic, Marin Cilic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Grigor Dimitrov, Tomas Berdych and Nick Kyrgios are the top eight seeds. The Aegon has a history of predicting the Wimbledon winner, but in 2016 it went one better: Murray and Raonic played the final at Queen’s, and again three weeks later on Centre Court.

Also here:

2010 champion Sam Querrey

First-round matches to watch:

Cilic vs. John Isner

Kyrgios vs. Donald Young

Dimitrov vs. Ryan Harrison

Raonic vs. Thanasi Kokkinakis

Wawrinka vs. Feliciano Lopez

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Gerry Weber Open (ATP)

Halle, Germany
$2,056,786; 500 ranking points
Grass
Draw is here

OK, Nadal has won three clay-court events 10 times, but how many players can say they’ve won a tournament on 33 percent of the occasions that it has been played? Roger Federer can, at the Gerry Weber Open. The event is just 24 years old, but that’s long enough for Federer to have won it eight times.

As old hat as Halle is for Federer, though, he might need it more in 2017 than ever before. This year he comes in having skipped the clay season entirely for the first time, and having lost his only grass-court match so far, to Tommy Haas last week in Stuttgart.

Federer should be OK in his opener against Yen-Hsun Lu; in their three matches, Lu hasn’t taken a set. But the challenges should start soon after: first from German serve-and-volleyer Mischa Zverev in the round of 16, and then from Stuttgart champion Lucas Pouille in the quarters. If Federer reaches the latter stages of the draw, he’s scheduled to face Kei Nishikori in the semis and Dominic Thiem in the final.

Also here, in Thiem’s half: Alexander Zverev, who beat Federer on his way to the Halle final in 2016

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Aegon Classic (WTA)

Birmingham, England
$819,940; Premier
Grass
Draw is here

While the marquee won’t shine quite as brightly in Birmingham as it will in London this week, the tournament has a serious field, deceptively so. Dominika Cibulkova is the top seed, but the bigger names lay beneath. 2015 Wimbledon finalist Garbiñe Muguruza, two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, 2015 Wimbledon quarterfinalist CoCo Vandeweghe, French Open quarterfinalists Elina Svitolina and Kristina Mladenovic, England’s home-country hopeful and Nottingham finalist Johanna Konta: They’re all here.

First-round matches to watch:

Cibulkova vs. Lucie Safarova

Nottingham champion Donna Vekic vs. U.S. grass-court specialist Alison Riske

Alizé Cornet vs. Naomi Broady. What could go wrong there?

*****

Mallorca Open (WTA)

Mallorca, Spain
$226,750; International
Grass
Draw is here

Mallorca can’t offer the prize money or ranking points that Birmingham can, but it should have better weather, right? For an event this size, with not much history, it also has an intriguing draw. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Anastasija Sevastova, Caroline Garcia and Carla Suarez Navarro are the top four seeds, but it’s the wild cards who are the ones to watch: Former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka and 2013 Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki will return to the court for the first time in 2017.

First-round matches to watch:

Azarenka vs. Risa Ozaki

Garcia vs. Jelena Jankovic

Roberta Vinci vs. Ricoh Open champion Anett Kontaveit

Francesca Schiavone vs. Eugenie Bouchard

Suarez Navarro vs. CiCi Bellis

Lisicki vs. Kiki Bertens

Vilas' 1977 French Open title was at center of epic 145-win campaign

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 14:00:00 +0000

As we bid adieu to Roland Garros, we look back at one of the greatest French Open runs of all time—in one of the most dominant single seasons of all time.

Guillermo Vilas pawed at the clay with his white Puma sneakers as he waited for his opponent to serve. The 24-year-old native of Argentina, who was known as the game’s most soulful philosopher, looked more pensive than ever as he stared at the baseline. At long last, his moment had arrived.

The year was 1977 and the place was Roland Garros. Vilas was playing Brian Gottfried in the French Open final and, for the first time at a Grand Slam event, he had reached championship point.

Sporting a small tree trunk for a left arm, the Young Bull of the Pampas had bludgeoned his way through the draw, losing only one set, and he had surrendered just three games to Gottfried. One more point and Vilas would win the most lopsided men’s singles final in French Open history.

Still, while he was ahead 5–0 and had reached championship point, Vilas had reason to be nervous. Two years earlier, in the semifinals at the U.S. Open, he had led Manuel Orantes, 5–0, 40–0—triple match point—in the fourth set before losing in five. But that was just the most infamous of his late-round defeats. Losses in the finals at the French Open, the Italian Open, the Australian Open and the U.S. Pro Championships had led the Argentine press to dub Vilas the “Eternal Second.”

As Gottfried trudged to the line, Vilas’ eyes darted toward his coach, Ion Tiriac. The glowering Transylvanian with the bushy beard, whose every twitch was suspected of being a signal to Vilas, had spent the last year steering his student, with a Svengali’s assurance, toward this moment.

“In 1976, I prepared to try to win my first Grand Slam,” Vilas recalls today. “I thought of all the details, but after three or four months I realized...that I could have brilliant ideas on the court, but I wouldn’t go beyond without a strategist.

“The next year, we already knew more, and Tiriac had promised that I would win a big tournament.”

Embed from Getty Images

Tiriac changed Vilas’ foot position on his serve, developed his backhand slice and encouraged him to be more aggressive. He drove him through lacerating, six-hour practice sessions. To Tiriac, Vilas was raw physical material; if he was going to make use of it, though, this sensitive soul—Vilas “couldn’t kill a fly,” Tiriac said—needed to toughen up.

Off court, Tiriac became a father figure to Vilas; no coach and player had ever been so attuned to each other during matches. Opponents joked that Vilas needed to look over to Tiriac to make sure it was OK to shake hands.

Yet the big win eluded them. Vilas began the 1977 season by losing in the Australian Open final to Roscoe Tanner. According to Vilas, though, that defeat gave him the final piece to his Grand Slam puzzle.

“I decided to play the Australian Open for the first time,” Vilas says, “and I was not wrong. I lost the final to Tanner, but I made strategic mistakes. I practiced 30 or 40 minutes before entering the court, and that was not enough. I took it as a lesson and from there I worked several hours before each major final.”

For Vilas, there was nothing that a few more hours on court couldn’t solve. At the ‘77 French Open, the hard work had finally paid off.

When Gottfried went into his service motion, Vilas began bouncing on his toes maniacally, as he did before every service return. Four shots later, a forehand pass proved too powerful for the American to handle. Vilas, the Eternal Second, had finished first.

“It was like breaking a giant piece of glass that was hanging over my head,” Vilas says.

The French crowd, which loved Vilas’ bohemian blend of the physical and the philosophical, roared its approval. A few spectators charged onto the court and tried to pull his headband off. It was a sign of things to come that summer.

Embed from Getty Images

In 1977, Vilas won 46 consecutive matches—a men’s Open era record—and 53 straight matches on clay, a mark only eclipsed by Rafael Nadal 29 years later. By season’s end, Vilas had won 17 titles and amassed a 145–14 record.

Asked to explain his rise to Grand Slam glory, Vilas summed it up:

“Once you win a big title, you want to win another one. If you win two, you want a third, and then you want them to build a statue of you in the middle of Buenos."

The end finally came with a defeat to Bjorn Borg at the season-ending Masters. Somehow Vilas had avoided facing his nemesis during his win streaks, but he couldn’t avoid him forever.

In the 1978 French Open final, Borg beat Vilas easily. For the Argentine, though, there will always be ’77.

“I got everything in one year, what other players get in five or six,” he said.

While the No. 1 ranking is missing, Vilas’ other statistics from 1977 have become legendary. At a time when the pros claim exhaustion after 70 wins, we can only look back in awe at Vilas’ 145.

“Tennis is always the same,” he says. “Each player adapts to the time he’s in. In 1977, I decided to play an almost unreasonable amount of weeks. Today, the best players enter fewer tournaments because they’re the ones they consider necessary to reach their goals.”

Vilas was destined to remain the Eternal Second. But 40 years later, his 1977 season remains unsurpassed.

WATCH: Rafa's unseen journey to his 10th French Open title:

Seven moments that defined the often-sublime 2017 French Open

Mon, 12 Jun 2017 01:41:00 +0000

At the start of this year’s French Open, I wrote that the men would be returning to their recent past, while the women would spend the next two weeks searching for their future. That’s pretty much how it turned out. Thirty-one-year-old Rafael Nadal reminded everyone why he’s the king of clay with his 10th title at Roland Garros, and 20-year-old Jelena Ostapenko broke out of the pack to give the WTA a fresh new face at the top of the game.

The tours never waste any time moving on from Paris. But before the sight of green grass wipes away the memories of red clay, here’s a look back at seven moments that defined Roland Garros in 2017.

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Does Anyone Want the No. 1 Ranking?

The women’s side of the tournament began with what may have been the least surprising major upset in tennis history. On Day 1, Angelique Kerber became the first top seed in the Open era to lose in the first round at Roland Garros when she went out in routine fashion to Ekaterina Makarova, 6-2, 6-2. That defeat completed a second straight disastrous clay season for Kerber. We’ll find out soon if this is her nadir for the year, as it was in 2016, or whether it’s a sign of a longer slump ahead. But while the German’s defeat seemed to signal wholesale carnage in the women’s field, that carnage never materialized—the WTA draw largely went to form after that.

Winning With a Heavy Heart

Steve Johnson threw caution to the wind and let his ground strokes rip in his first three matches in Paris. Twice, against Yuichi Sugita and Borna Coric, it worked; the third time, against Dominic Thiem, it didn’t. Johnson may have been playing with so much freedom because he wasn’t even sure how much he wanted to be there. His father, Steve Sr., a renowned Southern California tennis coach, had died suddenly at just 58 in early May. Tennis is about family for many of us, and that went double for Steve Jr., who was as happy hitting with his dad at home as he was competing on Centre Court at Wimbledon. It showed in the tears Johnson shed after his victories.

Kiki’s Legion of Lenglen

As loose as Johnson was playing, that’s how tight Kristina Mladenovic was to start in Paris. After three games of her opener against Jennifer Brady of the U.S., the French favorite was down 0-3 and had an injured back. But Mladenovic rallied to win 9-7 in the third, and rallied again to beat another American, Shelby Rogers, 8-6 in the third. By the time Mladenovic faced defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza on Court Suzanne Lenglen in the round of 16, she was powering forehands, pointing her finger at her forehead, and leading a rowdy army of French faithful. Mladenovic embraced the audience and took what emotional support they could give her in a way that another French favorite, Amelie Mauresmo, never did. But many felt the crowd crossed the line in its treatment of Muguruza. Team-sports fans will tell you that’s what professional athletics is all about, and they aren’t wrong. But not many tennis fans outside of Paris enjoyed hearing the defending champion get booed as she walked away.

Novak Doesn’t Have Paris Anymore

Twelve months ago, Novak Djokovic finished his French Open flat on his back, joyfully celebrating his first title there after a decade of futility. A year later, he finished his French Open by halfheartedly making his way through a bagel third set against Dominic Thiem. In 2016, Djokovic left Paris holding all four Grand Slam titles; in 2017 he left holding none of them. As far as opponents go, there have been worse losses during that decline; going out to Denis Istomin in Australia comes to mind. But as far as Djokovic’s own mindset goes, this was a low point. He said the defeat to Thiem, a player he had never lost to before, was essentially “decided” in the first set.

Simona Says

Most players would have been hard-pressed, after squandering a 6-4, 3-0 lead in the French Open final, to put together a cogent and gracious concession speech afterward. But not Simona Halep. With dry eyes, she calmly gave credit to her opponent, thanked her somber, silent family in the stands— “Let’s keep working,” she told them hopefully, “let’s believe.”—and admitted that, “Maybe I wasn’t ready to win.” More than anything she does with a racquet, Halep’s strongest quality is her honesty. More than anything else that happened at this year’s French Open, I’ll remember her poise and her words in defeat.

To Be Young Again

That’s what the ever-more-mature sport of tennis felt like—young again—whenever Jelena Ostapenko was on the court these past two weeks. She was born on the same day in 1997 that 66th-ranked Gustavo Kuerten completed his surprise run to the title in Paris. The 47th-ranked Latvian’s happy romp to her own title, two days after her 20th birthday, had the same refreshingly unlikely feel. Ostapenko, firing away like a young Monica Seles, wouldn’t be denied; she won five matches in three sets, and came back from 0-3 and 1-3 deficits against the higher-ranked Halep in the final. When Ostapenko’s last backhand return rifled down the line and touched down in the corner for a winner, tennis fans all over the world jumped halfway out of their seats at the same time. The game can always use a jolt like that.

Finally Saying Uncle

From Steve Johnson thinking about his late father to Simona Halep consoling her parents and team after her defeat, family was one of the themes of this year’s Roland Garros. And that’s the way the fortnight ended, with a nice nod to family—specifically, Rafael Nadal’s family—by the French Tennis Federation. In honor of Rafa’s unprecedented 10th title, and his uncle Toni’s final trip to Paris as his traveling coach, the FFT invited Toni onto the trophy podium and presented both of them with a life-size replica of the Coupes des Mousquetaires (they were obviously pretty confident Rafa was going to win). Toni stood in the spotlight a little uncomfortably as Rafa told the crowd that winning 10 French Opens would have been “not possible” without him. The tribute, from the FFT and Rafa, was fitting. Uncle and nephew, who have won 15 major titles together, are the greatest coach-player tandem of all time. Seeing Toni come from off-stage to take a bow after all these years was a reminder that while tennis is an individual sport, it’s also so much more to the families who play it together.

Rafael Nadal’s 10th French Open title was his most masterful yet

Sun, 11 Jun 2017 18:46:00 +0000

Before the French Open men’s final, I thought that the result might hinge on how Stan Wawrinka felt about playing Rafael Nadal on clay. Would he feel the way he does when he meets Novak Djokovic in a major final? If so, Wawrinka clearly would believe he could win. Or would would he feel the way he does when he meets Roger Federer late in a Grand Slam? In that case, Stan would be a lot more pessimistic about his chances.

By the time Nadal had beaten Wawrinka for the title, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, the answer was obvious: it didn’t really matter what Stan thought. Nothing in tennis history compares to facing Nadal at Roland Garros, and no mountain in tennis history has ever been as hard to climb. With this victory, Nadal won his 10th French Open; that’s the most by one player at a single Slam in the Open era. He won it for the third time without dropping a set. And he won it with the loss of just 35 games; only Bjorn Borg’s run through Paris in 1978, in which he dropped 32 games, was more stunningly efficient.

Wawrinka has made a name for himself as a big-match player over the last three years. He was 3-0 in Grand Slam finals, and he had spoiled the party for Djokovic here by redlining his way through the 2015 final. But it was obvious from the start on Sunday why playing Nadal in Court Philippe Chatrier is an entirely different challenge.

Nadal looked nervous in the early going, and he was content to begin by moving back and defending. Chatrier’s vast expanse offers more room for that than virtually any other court in the world. Through the first set, Rafa launched his topspin missiles from far behind the baseline and forced Wawrinka to hit through him if he could. Stan tried—he had done it to the world No. 1, Andy Murray, two days earlier—but this consummate rhythm player could never find a groove or work his way into a normal rally.

Wawrinka was lucky when he could take any ball in his strike zone. Nadal’s heavy-topspin forehand forced Stan to hit the ball above his shoulders, and his wide-angle crosscourt backhand stretched Wawrinka and made it hard for him to get a good swing on a forehand. Stan was always reaching.

“He made me hesitate,” said Wawrinka, who maintained that he “felt fit” after his five-set win over Murray two days earlier. “Then he was playing so aggressive. He doesn’t give you any time, especially on clay with the high bounce.”

After winning the first set, Nadal’s early nerves dissipated. He relaxed, moved forward, and began dictating. He was so confident that he came up with the shot of the tournament, a no-look running slap forehand into the corner that Wawrinka could only applaud. But as brilliant as that highlight-reel forehand was, it was Nadal’s backhand that did the lion’s share of the damage. No longer just a rally shot, Rafa has strengthened it over the last two years, and the payoff came today. I had expected Wawrinka to hurt Rafa with his crosscourt forehand, but if anything, the opposite was true. Nadal’s backhand was more than up to the test.

The same could be said for Rafa’s serve. That’s another shot that, with advice from new coach Carlos Moya, he has turned into a weapon this season. While his first-serve percentage was lower than normal, Rafa made up for it by getting free points when he needed them. He saved the only break point he faced, in the third game, with a service winner, and got out of a shaky game at 2-2 with a second-serve ace that fooled Wawrinka.

“He doesn’t give you any freedom with his serve,” Stan said. It isn’t often that Nadal’s opponents point out the strength of his serve, but he’s made it worthy of mention this year.

Was this Nadal’s best run at Roland Garros? Wawrinka thought so, but it’s hard to compare. At 21, Rafa may have been faster and more physically powerful, but his game at 31 his game is more complete.

In that sense, his 2017 is starting to resemble his friend and rival Roger Federer’s. Over the last year, Federer endured injury and came back hitting his backhand and return better than ever, and now Nadal has done the same. Federer turned his story from one of decline to one of resilience and evolution, and now Nadal has done the same. Federer ended four Slam-less seasons with his 18th major in Australia, and now Nadal has ended two Slam-less seasons with his 10th win in Paris.

“I worked a lot to be here,” Nadal said when he was asked if he ever doubted another major title was in the cards for him. “I was playing well since the beginning of the season. I thought, ‘If I’m healthy, I’m going to have my chances.’”

Nadal is 79-2 at Roland Garros. What may be most impressive is the fact that, on a court where he had never been beloved, he has won all 10 finals he has played without ever having to go to a fifth set. He has tamed his nerves every time, weathered rallies by his opponents every time, and closed the door early every time.

Wawrinka, as expected, tried to rally in the third set. Down 1-3, but with a game point, he flapped his arms and urged the crowd to help him. Then he belted a perfect inside out forehand that looked like it was going to be a winner. Except that it came back. So Stan belted another perfect forehand crosscourt, which also looked like it was going to be a winner. Except that it came back.

A third time Wawrinka appeared to have the point won, before Nadal reached down and threw up a high lob that landed a foot inside the baseline. When Wawrinka missed the overhead, the air went out of the arena, and out of Stan. Nadal had, as he had so many times before in Chatrier, rendered his opponent’s perfect shots useless.

And as he did after his first title in Chatrier, at 18, Nadal celebrated by falling onto his back, just behind the baseline. How does a player win a tournament 10 times? I said it after Rafa won La Décima in Monte Carlo this spring, and I’ll say it again after his La Décima in Paris: By playing every match as if it’s his last, and celebrating every win as if it’s his first.

Men's French Open final preview: Rafael Nadal vs. Stan Wawrinka

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 18:06:00 +0000

This match is, theoretically, a blockbuster. Rafael Nadal is 9-0 in French Open finals; Stan Wawrinka is 3-0 in Grand Slam finals. Rafa is the best ever on clay, but over the last three years Stan had made himself into one of the game’s premier big-match players. Nadal is 15-3 against Wawrinka, but Stan has beaten (an injured) Rafa in a major final, and has also beaten him on clay. Most important, if anyone has the shots to hit Nadal off the court, it’s Wawrinka. Rafa hasn’t dropped a set in six matches in Paris, and he has looked all but invincible so far. But Wawrinka upset Novak Djokovic when he looked all but invincible at this stage of the tournament two years ago.

Still, I say “theoretically” because many of us believed that Nadal’s semifinal with Dominic Thiem might also be a classic. Instead, Rafa lost seven games in three sets. That could happen with Stan, too; Nadal’s unbeaten record in Roland Garros finals shows that once he gets on a roll there, he’s basically impossible to stop. But Rafa will have to play well, and intelligently, to win. This year his serve has become more of a bailout weapon, and he’ll need to vary it well against Wawrinka. In the semis, Nadal also unveiled an aggressive new down-the-line backhand; can he make that work for him again, or will he add a different wrinkle to get Stan out of his groove?

For Wawrinka, the battle may be mental above all else. He has made himself a Grand Slam champion by playing like someone who believes he can beat anyone, including Djokovic; when he falls behind at majors, as he did against Andy Murray in his semifinal, Wawrinka fights tooth and nail until the end.

Will he do that if he falls behind against Nadal? Will he believe that he should beat the king of clay, on his favorite court? If there’s even the slightest doubt, he won’t.

Winner: Nadal

Jelena Ostapenko took the final into her own hands—and was rewarded

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 17:26:00 +0000

Sometimes it starts with the most innocuous of mistakes, when the match seems all but over and the fans are hardly paying attention anymore.

Roughly an hour into the French Open final, Simona Halep led Jelena Ostapenko 6-4, 3-0, and had break points to make it 4-0. With defense, depth and consistency, Halep had been patiently grinding away, while the Latvian’s low-margin, go-for-broke game appeared, finally, to have broken down.

By 0-3, Ostapenko no longer looked frustrated; instead, her errors inspired shrugs of resignation. “Oh, well, it’s not my day,” she seemed to be saying, and nobody would have blamed the 20-year-old for not winning her first major final. One more miss and the title looked sure to be Halep’s.

Except that it was Halep who missed. Nothing terrible, really; no easy shots memorably or horrifically botched; no blatant chokes forever to be replayed on Twitter. On one break point, Halep flipped a running forehand wide. On another, she was late on a down-the-line backhand and that too landed wide. But in those two shots the final—and French Open history—changed. Ostapenko held for 1-3 with a forehand winner. Now that she was on the board, she could think about working her way back into the match.

From that point on a pattern began emerge: Ostapenko, going for winners on the first chance she had—and sometimes when she had no chance—would miss just often enough to give Halep a lead in a game or a set. But whenever she absolutely had to have a point, Ostapenko found a way to connect. She finished with 54 winners and 54 errors, but the winners came when she needed them. Her shot selection was like The Simpsons’ description of alcohol: The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.

Ostapenko started by saving those break points at 0-3 in the second set. At 2-3, she saved two more, one with a backhand winner that skidded off the sideline, and another with a strong first serve down the T that caught Halep off guard. At 3-3, Ostapenko gave away two break points, then broke through on the third with a swing volley winner. And serving for the set, in a match that featured 14 service breaks, she suddenly held for the set with, you guessed it, three winners.

The key, according to Ostapenko, was to ignore the mistakes and have faith that an attacking mindset was the surest way to make her game come around. And why wouldn’t she have that faith? Over the last two weeks in Paris, the unseeded, 47th-ranked Ostapenko had endured countless ups and downs on her magical ride to the final, but here she was. Four of her six wins had come in three sets; why couldn’t it happen a fifth time?

“I was just trying to stay aggressive,” Ostapenko told NBC afterward. “I knew if I’m going to stay aggressive, in a couple of games I’ll feel my game and start to play better.”

In other words, the only way to get to the winners was to endure the errors.

Ostapenko was right, and the pattern held through the third set. Again, she got down early and appeared to be just a point or two from defeat. This time Halep went up 3-1 and served for 4-1. Again, Ostapenko broke with a return-of-serve winner, and held with a crosscourt backhand winner. In that game, at 30-30, she also came up with a rare ace down the T just when she needed it.

Then, at 3-3, fortune smiled on Ostapenko and gave her title run its final blessing. With Halep serving at 30-40, break point, Ostapenko hit a backhand that was heading wide, until it clipped the tape and somehow bounced back into the singles court for a winner.

With fate smiling on her, and Halep in a daze, Ostapenko ran away with the last two games. She finished the match the only way she could: on her first championship point, on the first shot, she aimed for the corner with a backhand return, and found it.

“Everything is amazing,” was how Ostapenko summed up her last two weeks. Her first career title is a Grand Slam title.

No loss could have stung more for Halep. After succeeding with a patient, grinding style for a set and a half, she couldn’t adjust and swing away when that tactic stopped working. Her misses at 0-3 in the second, those seemingly innocent misses that led to her downfall, reminded me of the way Guillermo Coria missed on his two match points in the 2004 French Open final. He was a little late on two shots he would normally make; it was as if the pressure of the moment had added an extra weight to his legs and his racquet. Halep’s mistakes, and her loss, felt the same. While the 20-year-old Ostapenko played with ease and freedom, the 25-year-old Halep, who was the tentative favorite throughout the tournament, was just a little too weighed down by nerves to hit out and play her best.

Always honest, she admitted as much in her gracious trophy speech.

“Maybe I wasn’t ready to win it,” Halep said.

“Let’s keep working,” she told her somber team in the stands. “Let’s believe.”

Let’s hope she can.

What should we hope for from Ostapenko going forward? More of the same, right away? While she’s here to stay, and a star in the making, there will be downs to go with her ups in the immediate future. But it’s too soon to worry about them now.

For now, we have the memory of a young player who wasn’t afraid to embrace the moment and take a major final into her own hands. In that final backhand return, which rifled down the line and touched down in the corner, we have the memory of what she did with that moment. It wasn’t perfection that brought Ostapenko there; it was having the faith that only by living with her flaws would she find her strengths. Her faith, and her bravery, were rewarded.

The Tennis Channel team at Roland Garros looks back their pre-tournament picks:

A lot was familiar, and a little was new, in Nadal's win over Thiem

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 19:42:00 +0000

There was a good deal that was familiar, and a little that was new, in Rafael Nadal’s 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 win over Dominic Thiem at Roland Garros on Friday.

Let’s start with the new.

Nadal had played three tough matches against Thiem this spring. He had won the first two, in the Barcelona and Madrid finals, but there was a sense that the Austrian was creeping closer to him, and he proved that sense to be correct when he beat Rafa in straight sets in Rome. In that match, and in his five straight-set wins in Paris, Thiem had pushed his opponents off the baseline and given himself a chance to dominate with his 90-m.p.h. forehand from all over the court. He had even dominated Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals.

What was Rafa’s answer to that seemingly daunting problem? Early on, he added a wrinkle to his own baseline attack: the down-the-line backhand. This isn’t usually part of the Rafa playbook, and it surprised Thiem. It also forced him to hit defensive backhands, and kept him from sitting on his forehand side and waiting to pound that shot. Up 4-2 in the first, Nadal won two points with down-the-line backhands and held at love.

Along with that backhand wrinkle, Nadal added something extra to his serve. Following new coach Carlos Moya’s advice, Rafa has varied his service locations more this year than he ever had in the past. And through this spring, his serve has been a more important part of his winning formula on clay than it has been in the past. That proved to be true again on Friday. Up a break at 3-1 in the first set, but down 15-40, Nadal came up with three service winners to hold. Down two more break points at 0-1 in the second set, Rafa did the same thing: He saved one with a service winner, saved another with a wicked wide swinger into the ad court and held with an ace.

A Rafael Nadal with a bailout serve is a losing proposition for any opponent, and by the end of the second set Thiem knew it. This is where the match began to look like so many best-of-five Nadal matches from the past. Forced to hit for winners from deep in the court and high above his shoulders, Thiem, who had won 15 straight sets coming in, began to misfire. The forehands that had been finding the corners were landing five feet long. The backhands that had been lasered for winners were catching the tape. Thiem’s hangdog resignation told us that, future of the men’s game or not, he had gone as far as he could go against Nadal’s brick wall of resolve on this day. He wasn’t the first.

Thiem tried too hard from the start to hit through Nadal. He cranked every forehand as hard as he could, but didn’t have the patience to move Rafa off the court with angles. In the second and third sets, Thiem also made a tactical error with his serve. When he has a break point in the ad court, Nadal’s forehand tends to tighten up when he faces a slow-moving second serve. Instead of going there, Thiem sent his second serve into Rafa’s backhand both times. Both times Nadal won the point and broke.

After this familiar-looking victory, Rafa is back in a familiar place: the French Open final. This will be his 10th, and he has yet to lose one. At Roland Garros in 2017, he hasn’t lost more than four games in a set and has dropped just 29 games overall. A Rafael Nadal with a bailout serve and a damage-doing down-the-line backhand is a difficult proposition indeed.

French Open Women's Final Preview: Ostapenko, Halep eyeing first major

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 17:10:00 +0000

After defeating Timea Bacsinszky in the semifinals, 20-year-old Jelena Ostapenko stopped by the Tennis Channel set at Roland Garros to discuss her remarkable run in Paris and her upcoming title match against Simona Halep.

Simona Halep [3] vs. Jelena Ostapenko

“She’s young,” was the first thing that Halep said when asked about the prospect of facing Ostapenko for the first time in the French Open final. It’s a deceptively straightforward description. As a 20-year-old in the middle of her breakthrough Grand Slam run, Ostapenko, as Halep knows, will be a dangerously unpredictable opponent. So far in Paris, she has played with the blind confidence of youth; in her last three matches, the free-swinging Latvian has run away with the third set against Sam Stosur, Caroline Wozniacki and Timea Bacsinszky, three veterans who had much more experience late in majors. But as Halep also knows, Slam finals bring their own, special, stomach-churning type of pressure. Will Ostapenko be able to ignore her surroundings one more time?

The question will be slightly different for Halep: Will the Romanian be able to ignore her own tendencies one more time? For an emotionally volatile player who can get negative quickly, she has played a remarkably panic-free two weeks of tennis. On Thursday, she took No. 2 seed Karolina Pliskova’s best punches and kept bobbing and weaving and jabbing until she had won in three sets. In the previous match, Halep had essentially thrown in the towel against Elina Svitolina when she was down a set and 1-5; she was so resigned to her fate that she says she didn’t even realize she had saved a match point in the second-set tiebreaker.

Will that back-from-the-dead miracle make Halep feel bulletproof in the final? Her experience against Pliskova might help more. In that match, Halep ran everything down and tried to hit high and heavy and as deep as possible. Those are the tactics she’ll need to employ against Ostapenko as well. It’s a cliché, but making the 20-year-old “hit one more ball” than she has in her previous matches here might be enough to break the spell, and the blind confidence, of youth.

Winner: Halep

No Panic: On Simona Halep's all-business run to the French Open final

Thu, 08 Jun 2017 20:32:00 +0000

Simona Halep turned and watched Karolina Pliskova’s final return of serve float past her. When it landed a few feet beyond the baseline, the Romanian’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win had been clinched. It was official: She was on her way to her second final at Roland Garros, and with a victory on Saturday she would become the No. 1 player in the world for the first time.

How did Halep celebrate this moment, which had to be one of the most satisfying of her career? She glanced at her player box, calmly clenched her fist and turned toward the net for the handshake. There was no explosion of emotion, no leaping fist pump, not even a particularly wide grin. The look on Halep’s face said that she was about to go where she wants to go, but that there’s more work to be done once she’s there.

Halep admits that she’s an emotional player, and we’ve seen her moods and her confidence swing violently from one match, or set, or game, to the next. Three months ago in Miami, her coach, Darren Cahill, was so fed up with her negativity on court that he walked away. That, as the now-famous story goes, is what spurred Halep to fight harder and stay more positive during the clay season this spring. The results—Madrid title, Rome final, Paris final, possible No. 1 ranking—speak for themselves.

Cahill has been there every step of the way, of course. But I actually think that Halep has been helped by the fact that she can’t call him down to the court in Paris, the way she can in WTA events. While Halep won the title in Madrid, she also lost control of her emotions at times—she could have been defaulted in the final after she kicked her racquet across the court and it glanced of a ball boy’s leg. From what I’ve seen of her in Paris, though, she has kept her focus even when she has felt the pressure. Halep knew that Cahill was back in her camp, but she also knew that if she got into a hole at Roland Garros, only she could dig herself out. And she did.

Halep didn’t panic in the first round when Jana Cepelova, who had beaten her at Wimbledon two years ago, started to find her groove and push her around the court. She didn’t panic in the third round, when talented Russian Daria Kasatkina served for the second set; instead, Halep broke and closed out the match in two.

And while Halep probably did panic when she was down a set and 1-5 to Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals, she kept playing one point at a time; she didn’t rush herself off the court, which is something she has done in the past. When she was down match point to Svitolina in the second-set tiebreaker, Halep remained cool enough to play that rally with just the right mix of aggression and intelligence. We may look back on the forehand that landed on the sideline during that point as the biggest shot of her career.

Twenty-four hours after that miraculous comeback, Halep was still playing with the same aggression and intelligence. The key to beating the much more powerful but much-more-erratic Pliskova was (a) to make her, as they say, “hit one more ball,” and (b) to make her do it from deep in the court, and from above her shoulders. Racing from side to side—by the end, Halep’s back was covered with the clay she kicked up—she worked hard to track Pliskova’s flat bullets down and send them deep and out of the six-foot Czech’s very high strike zone. In one of the match’s most critical games, with Pliskova serving at 1-2 in the third set, Halep won two points with high, deep forehands, and then broke with her most spectacular shot of the day, a running crosscourt forehand pass.

In her post-match press conference, Halep, wearing her long hair down under a baseball cap, was still in all-business mode.

“I learned that I have to be focused in the match day,” Halep said. “It comes natural now. I can handle everything.”

We’ve heard similar "I’ve learned my lesson" sentiments from her before, and we’ve seen her go back to riding her emotional roller coaster again. Chances are she’s not going to stay completely calm and focused every day for the rest of her career. But that’s the beauty of being in the French final: Do it one more time and she’ll be a Grand Slam champion.

Halep had one last chance to panic in her semi. When she served for the match at 5-3, Pliskova won the first point with a forehand winner. But Halep kept her wheels in motion, and kept sending her forehand back deep and high. When Pliskova’s last return floated long and Halep looked toward her player box, presumably she caught Darren Cahill’s eye. I’m guessing he was pleased with Halep’s performance, and by the fact that she didn’t see any reason to celebrate—yet.

On Friday, watch live coverage of the men's semifinals on Tennis Channel, home of the 2017 French Open.

Live on Tennis Channel: Can Stan, the forgotten Man, top No. 1 Murray?

Thu, 08 Jun 2017 14:39:00 +0000

After defeating Marin Cilic in straight sets, 2015 French Open champion Stan Wawrinka stopped by the Tennis Channel set at Roland Garros to discuss his next match, against Andy Murray. Their semifinal clash will be broadcast live on Tennis Channel at 6:30 Eastern Time.

Andy Murray [1] vs. Stan Wawrinka [3]

Murray is 10-7 lifetime against Wawrinka, and he beat him in this same round at Roland Garros a year ago. But until the last three sets of Murray’s win over Kei Nishikori on Wednesday, I would have had Stan as the solid favorite to turn the tables against the world No. 1 this year. Wawrinka hasn’t dropped a set through five rounds in Paris, and he’s competing with that hard, proactive edge that we’ve come to expect from him at the majors.

But since Murray’s ragged, up-and-down second-round win over Martin Klizan, he has made definite progress. He got better as each of his matches with Juan Martin del Potro and Nishikori went on. Still, Wawrinka was the 2015 champ here, and Murray had to play one of the best matches of his career to dethrone him in 2016. Anything short of that kind of mastery from Muzz again, and Stan should win.

Winner: Wawrinka

On Friday, watch live coverage of the men's semifinals on Tennis Channel, home of the 2017 French Open.

Thiem's next test: Defeat Nadal, in best of five, in 'his living room'

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 20:06:00 +0000

After defeating Novak Djokovic in straight sets, 23-year-old Dominic Thiem stopped by the Tennis Channel set at Roland Garros to discuss his next match, a semifinal clash with Rafael Nadal. An encore presentation of the match will air on Tennis Channel at 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

Rafael Nadal [4] vs. Dominic Thiem [6]

This match is appropriate: in Nadal and Thiem we have the two best players of this year’s clay-court season facing off for a chance to play for the French Open title. Nadal is 4-2 lifetime against Thiem—all of their matches have been played on clay—and 2-1 this spring. He won a hard-fought final in Barcelona and an even harder-fought final in Madrid—neither of the straight-set score lines indicated how tough those matches were. In Rome, Thiem finally got the better of Rafa, also in straight sets.

If anything, both men have raised their levels even higher in Paris, where neither has dropped a set in 10 collective matches. Thiem is reaching new heights while Rafa is turning back the clock. That means, as far as their current form goes, this one is a toss-up. Both men have the shots and the legs to take control of the match. After beating Nadal in Rome and Djokovic in Paris, Thiem knows he can stay with anyone. But Rafa remains the favorite because...he’s Rafa, and this is Roland Garros.

Winner: Nadal

On Friday, watch live coverage of the men's semifinals on Tennis Channel, home of the 2017 French Open.

Women's Semifinal Preview: Pliskova-Halep and a pair of birthday girls

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 17:05:00 +0000

Timea Bacsinszky [30] vs. Jelena Ostapenko

The Swiss and the Latvian have never played, but there’s no better time to begin than in the French Open semis, on both of their birthdays. Ostapenko will turn 20 on Thursday, while Bacsinszky will turn 28; those two ages might be a good barometer of how this match will go. The streaky, sweet-hitting Ostapenko will try to keep lightning in a bottle for one more round, while the more versatile and experienced Bacsinszky will try to find different ways to throw her younger opponent’s timing off. Ostapenko could hit her off the court, or she could do the same to herself. It seems slightly more likely that the steadier Bacsinszky, who was a few games from the French final two years ago, will find a way through.

Winner: Bacsinszky

Karolina Pliskova [2] vs. Simona Halep [3]

Which women’s semi is more surprising—the one with the two players who weren’t expected to be there, or the one with the two players who were? Halep and Pliskova are highly ranked and a threat to go deep at every major they enter, but neither has taken the easy road here. Pliskova was pushed to a third set twice and has talked about unhappy she is with her game. Halep had to save a match point and come back from 1-5 down in the second set against Elina Svitolina in the quarters. Pliskova is ranked No. 3, two spots ahead of Halep, while Halep leads their head to head 4-2. They’ve never played on clay, but Halep, a finalist in Paris in 2014, should have the advantage. The key question may be how Halep's Wednesday match makes her feel on Thursday. Will her back-from-the-dead win over Svitolina leave her with nothing left, or will it make her feel bulletproof the rest of the way?

Winner: Halep

Holding Serve with Roger Federer will air on Thursday, June 8th at 2 p.m. ET, only on Tennis Channel.

For complete coverage of the 2017 French Open, including 200 live matches from up to five courts, subscribe today at BuyTCPlus.com

In his shutdown of Djokovic, Thiem gave us a glimpse of the future

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 14:39:00 +0000

Dominic Thiem was facing two set points on his serve at 4-5 in the first set against Novak Djokovic. This wasn’t an unfamiliar position for the 23-year-old Austrian. In his five previous matches with the Serb, he had won just one set. Last month in Rome, he had won just one game.

This time, though, Thiem knew exactly what to do. He knew what had worked for him this spring when his back was to the wall and he absolutely had to have a point. He had done it when he saved five match points to beat Grigor Dimitrov in Madrid. He had done it when he saved three more to beat Sam Querrey in Rome. Now it was his turn to do it against Djokovic.

As he has for the last two months, Thiem went on the attack, played to his strength, took the rally into his own hands, and trusted that his mix of power and spin would see him through safely. At 15-40, Thiem ripped the first forehand he saw to within a foot of the baseline, raced in behind it and knocked off a winning volley. Thiem always hits big from the baseline, but he rarely follows his ground strokes into the net right away. But as he has learned recently, the best thing for him to do when he’s nervous or desperate is to double down on his own offensive skills. The sooner he pulls the trigger, the better for him. It’s not a tactic for everyone; you have to be supremely confident in your natural shot-making ability. But it’s a tactic that has worked for years for another pretty fair clay-courter: Rafael Nadal.

Thiem held serve for 5-5, went on to win the tiebreaker 7-5 and never looked back. His 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-0 win was the breakthrough we had been waiting for from him. It was his first win over Djokovic, his first win over one of the Big Four at a major, and it put him in his second Roland Garros semifinal in a row.

“I was 0-5 against him,” Thiem said of Djokovic. “To beat him in the quarterfinals of the French Open is a dream.”

Afterward, Djokovic said the key moment came when he lost an early service break at 4-2 in the first. He also singled out the heavy spin Thiem can put on the ball as a major factor in the result. That heavy spin was never more apparent than it was in that 4-2 game. Thiem reached break point with a series of heavy forehands that Djokovic ultimately couldn’t control, and he broke with a heavy backhand that the Serb also couldn’t handle. Thiem has two equally lethal strokes from the back of the court.

From there, Thiem shook off any nerves or inhibitions that had been holding him back and completely took over the match. Swinging out on virtually every shot, hitting with enough pace that he didn’t need to aim especially close to the lines, he rarely allowed Djokovic a chance to take the initiative in a rally. Even when Djokovic did get Thiem on the run, the younger player had the answer. Serving at 0-1 in the second set, down break point, Djokovic hit what looked to be a winning drop shot. Instead, Thiem tracked it down and knifed a backhand crosscourt. Djokovic stumbled and fell in a vain attempt to reach it. If the match could be summed up in one point, it was that one.

Djokovic’s last chance came with Thiem serving at 4-2 in the second set. Djokovic reached break point, but Thiem had the answer again. It was the same shot he would use a dozen times—the kick serve wide into the ad court—but Djokovic was powerless to stop it. This may have been the first time his return has been powerless to stop anything.

After that game, some of the life went out of Djokovic. With his title defense on the line, he offered stunningly little resistance in the third set.

“It was not there for me today, especially in the second part of the match,” Djokovic said. “I was just unable to, you know, hit the ball well and many unforced errors.”

“Nothing was going my way, and everything his way. But it was decided in the first set.”

Djokovic admitted that he’s still struggling to find the form that took him to the title here last year. With this loss, he’ll drop out of the Top 2 for the first time since 2011. Last year he left Roland Garros holding all four Grand Slam titles; 12 months later, he leaves holding none of them.

People will focus on the third-set bagel, but every tennis player loses 6-0 now and then. Djokovic’s lack of intensity down the stretch was surprising from a defending champion, but so was his lack of intensity earlier on, when the match still in the balance. In the crucial first-set tiebreaker, Djokovic was already rushing and pulling the trigger too early in rallies. Against Thiem in Rome, he had been as fired up as he has been all season. In Paris, that fire looked extinguished.

Still, it took Thiem’s excellent play to put it out. This spring, he has grown into the player, and future champion, most people suspected was there. At times against Djokovic he seemed to be playing at a new level, his vicious yet safe mix of pace and spin an evolutionary step forward. He’ll have to stay at that level in his next match, when he faces Nadal in the semifinals. The Spaniard and the Austrian have played three times already during the clay season, with Nadal leading 2-1. This meeting could pit one era’s perennial Roland Garros champion against the next era’s.

Is the guard ready to change in Paris? Thiem knows that his game can work for him when he desperately needs a point. After beating Djokovic at Roland Garros, he knows that can work against anyone, anywhere.

Holding Serve with Roger Federer will air on Thursday, June 8th at 2 p.m. ET, only on Tennis Channel.

For complete coverage of the 2017 French Open, including 200 live matches from up to five courts, subscribe today at BuyTCPlus.com

Jelena Ostapenko’s two-month clay run has her two wins from the title

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 21:01:00 +0000

When Tuesday began, anyone looking down the list of players left in the French Open women’s draw might have believed that destiny was finally smiling on Caroline Wozniacki. After two years of hearing herself described as a “Slam-less No.1,” and many more years of answering questions about when she was going to win a major title, the 26-year-old suddenly had an opening. This time there was no Serena. There was no Vika. There was no Maria. There wasn’t even an Angelique. There was no one who, theoretically, she couldn’t beat.

Destiny kept smiling through the first set of Wozniacki’s quarterfinal with 19-year-old Jelena Ostapenko. The Latvian is a born ball-striker with terrific timing who can hit winners from any position. But that timing can be fragile, and the wind that whipped through Roland Garros in the early afternoon was playing havoc with it. Wozniacki, steady as she always goes, won the first five games and held on for the set, 6-4.

But the fact that, despite her greater experience and superior consistency, Wozniacki barely escaped a set she led 5-0, which should have let us know that maybe this wasn’t going to be her moment after all. A closer look at her head-to-head record with her opponent revealed that, if there was one woman Wozniacki didn’t want to face in Paris, it was Ostapenko. The Latvian was 3-0 in their three previous matches, and two of those meetings had come on clay this spring.

A closer look at Ostapenko’s record in general would also have revealed that it wasn’t just Wozniacki she’s been beating on clay this spring. Ostapenko has been building up to this run for two months. In Charleston, she won five matches to reach the final, and in Stuttgart, Prague and Rome, she won three matches apiece—some of of them were in qualifying, but when it comes to your confidence, any win is an important win. Ostapenko’s work with new coach Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain was paying off on the surface.

By the time she had reached the third round at the French Open, Ostapenko was locked in. She was so convincing in her 6-1, 6-4 win over Lesia Tsurenko that Tsurenko predicted that she might win the tournament. Maybe those words made Ostapenko think, and believe, because in the next round she pulled off a surprising comeback from a set down against Sam Stosur, and she would go on to do the same against Wozniacki.

“In the first set conditions were really tough,” Ostapenko told Tennis Channel on Tuesday. “It was really windy and Caroline was playing really good and she didn’t miss anything.”

Ostapenko said this sentence in about a second and a half. If you’ve missed Ana Ivanovic’s no-breaths-needed speaking style this season, don’t worry, the Latvian, who turns 20 on Thursday, has you covered.

But if Ostapenko was channeling Ivanovic in her remarks, by the end of her quarterfinal she was channeling a teenage Monica Seles. Like Monica when she reached French Open semifinals as a 15-year-old in 1989, Ostapenko looked like she had entered a ball-striking trance—See Ball, Hit Winner appeared to be her strategy. Those winners came crosscourt and down the line, and when she didn’t put the ball past Wozniacki, she put it a few inches inside the baseline. Ostapenko, swinging freely but never overhitting, finished with 38 winners to Wozniacki’s six.

“Aggressive is my style of game,” Ostapenko said after her 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win, “and I was just trying to be aggressive. At the end of the match I felt quite confident.”

“I was playing really well,” she added with laugh of disbelief at how she closed out the match.

Even on her worst days, when the opponent is better and destiny is no longer smiling on her, Wozniacki always makes her opponents earn it. She may lose the match to you, but she won’t give it to you. You might think that attitude would take her farther on clay, but it remains her worst surface; this was just her second quarterfinal appearance at Roland Garros in 10 tries. She’s the perfect illustration of the paradox of clay: You need to be able to defend, but you also need to be able to hit the ball with enough pace and weight so that it isn’t slowed to a crawl by the slow surface. Wozniacki can’t do that.

Ostapenko can. At 5-2 in the third set, she was one game from a dream semifinal berth, but her coach, Medina Garrigues, still hadn’t cracked a smile; she knew that Ostapenko couldn’t just run out of the clock on Wozniacki. Apparently, Ostapenko knew it, too. So she hit a forehand winner, a service winner, a backhand winner and, on match point, one more powerful forehand that Wozniacki couldn’t handle.

“In the end, I think I found my game,” she said.

If that indeed is Ostapenko’s game, she could roll all the way to the title. But her next opponent, Timea Bacsinszky, could also throw off her timing. The Swiss uses a wider variety of spins and angles than Wozniacki, and she’ll be playing in her second French semi.

Either way, it was fun to watch tennis lightning strike again on Tuesday, and see another new talent announce herself. Do we dare hope that Ostapenko can make it strike two more times?

Tennis Channel recaps Day 10 at Roland Garros:

30-Love: Thirty years ago, Steffi and Martina's unsung rivalry crested

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 22:59:00 +0000

We continue our 30-Love series by reliving one of the greatest and most significant matches ever played at Roland Garros: the 1987 final between 17-year-old Steffi Graf and 30-year-old Martina Navratilova.

You know about Martina and Chris, the rivalry to end to all tennis rivalries. They played 80 times over 16 years, and ended up better friends than when they started.

You know about Steffi and Monica, the rivalry that should have been. They were ready to grab the torch from Chris and Martina, until their future together was cut tragically short.

But do you remember much about Martina and Steffi, the rivalry in between? It hasn’t been as celebrated as other match-ups on tennis’ Mt. Olympus. Maybe that’s because it featured two players from different generations, who were at different stages of their careers. For the brief time it flared, though, Graf-Navratilova may have been the fiercest and finest of them all.

When they first met, in the semifinals of the 1985 U.S. Open, the German was 16 and the Czech a month shy of 28. Despite that age difference, they managed to face each other 18 times over the next nine years, four more than the storied match-up between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. It was fitting that Graf and Navratilova, two champions who dominated their eras like few others, wound up splitting those 18 meetings down the middle, 9-9.

On this day 30 years ago, the Steffi and Martina show reached a turning point, and took center stage in a way that it hadn’t before. On June 6, 1987, they played their first Grand Slam final, at Roland Garros. Graf’s 6-4, 4-6, 8-6 win, over two and a half hours on a blustery afternoon, marked a changing of the guard at the top of the women’s game.

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This was the first of Graf’s 22 Grand Slam singles titles, and it led to her taking over the No. 1 ranking from Navratilova for the first time two months later. Martina had held that spot for 90 straight weeks; Graf would go on to hold it for a record 186 straight weeks, until 1991. In 1986, Navratilova had gone 89-3, and finished the season with 58 straight wins. In ’87, Graf would go 75-2, and her win over Navratilova in Paris was her 39th in a row. One era of utter dominance had given way to another.

The two women had been working toward this moment for two seasons. The previous year, Graf and Navratilova had played one of the most intensely competitive and nerve-wracking matches of the Open era, in the U.S. Open semifinals. Graf held three match points; on one of them, she appeared to have hit a backhand pass winner, but the ball caught the tape and fell back. After winning 10-8 in a third-set tiebreaker, Navratilova tried to console Graf at the net, but the bitterly disappointed teenager marched off the court without a second glance. Six months later, Graf was back for revenge at the Lipton in Key Biscayne, where she beat Navratilova in the semifinals, 6-3, 6-2. Was the loss a sign of things to come? Not yet, according to Martina.

“Today she was the best player in the world,” Navratilova said of Graf. “And she will be until I play her again.”

A new rivalry, icier and more zero-sum than the one between Evert and Navratilova, was born.

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Graf and Navratilova made sense as foils and combatants. The Czech wore her emotions on her sleeve; the German, storming from one point to the next, played with a starchy single-mindedness. Navratilova was a left-handed net-rusher who won by pressuring her opponents and moving them out of position; Graf was a right-handed baseliner who won by pummeling her forehand past her opponents from the back of the court. Navratilova’s best shot, her lefty serve, was the perfect weapon for exploiting Graf’s weakest, her one-handed slice backhand.

Who was the favorite in the French Open final? By the day of the match, it was hard to say. Graf had won six titles already that year, and she had come back from 3-5 down in the third set to beat her friend and fellow teen, Gabriela Sabatini, in the semifinals. But while Navratilova had yet to win a tournament in ’87, she had turned her game around in Paris after making a call to a former coach, Renée Richards, and trying out a new racquet. Against Evert she was back at full strength, vanquishing her old rival and the woman who had beaten her in the Roland Garros finals the previous two years, 6-2, 6-2.

As expected, the crucial battle in the final was between the Navratilova serve and approach, and the Graf backhand.

“As the match progressed,” Frank Deford wrote in Sports Illustrated, “a disproportionate part of the action moved to one sliver of the court as Navratilova, forcing the issue, hit more and more to Graf’s weaker stroke.”

“The outcome turned with increasing certainty on one question,” Roger Williams wrote in the New York Times. “Could Graf pass Navratilova often enough to win.”

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When Navratilova broke Graf and served for the match at 5-3 in the third, the question seemed to have been answered: Martina’s punch was too much for Graf’s counter-punch. And maybe that would been the case if Navratilova’s best shot hadn’t suddenly gone awry at the crucial moment.

At 5-3, 15-30, Navratilova double-faulted to give Graf two break points; the German broke and then evened the score at 5-5. A few minutes later, down match point at 6-7, Navratilova double faulted again. It was an unfortunately anti-climactic end to a climactic moment of tennis history. (Thirty years later, though, it may not appear that way: Seen in replay clips, it looks as if Graf ends the match with a forehand return winner.)

Afterward, Graf was pleased to have broken through at a major. But she was also apologetic, and she didn’t sound like someone who had just knocked the queen off her pedestal.

“I’m happy and sorry I won the match,” Graf said. “I’m sorry for those double faults. If she wouldn’t have double-faulted, I don’t think I would have won.”

As for Navratilova, she credited her new rival for clutch play, but warned the media not to jump to any conclusions based on one result.

“Don’t try to dethrone me,” she said.

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Navratilova knew that Wimbledon, where she would be going for a record sixth straight title, and eighth overall, was coming up soon. Her warning proved prescient. Graf’s win in Paris signaled a changing of the guard in the rankings, and a new WTA era. But it didn’t signal an immediate shift in their rivalry. Navratilova turned the tables back around on Graf in the final on Centre Court, 7-5, 6-3.

“How many more Wimbledons do you want?” Graf asked Navratilova as they waited to receive their trophies afterward.

“Nine is my lucky number,” Navratilova said. Three years later, she would win her ninth.

After ’87, the future largely belonged to Graf. She would win the Golden Slam in 1988, and she would beat Navratilova in the Wimbledon final in ’88 and ’89, as well as the U.S. Open final in ’89. But all of those matches went three sets. Even at her most dominant, Graf could never completely free herself of Navratilova’s difficult left-handed spins and angles. A 34-year-old Navratilova beat Graf in the 1991 U.S. Open semifinals, and again in Tokyo in 1993.

Graf won their final meeting, in Tokyo in ’94, to set their appropriately symmetrical 9-9 record in stone. It was both of their lucky numbers, apparently, and we were lucky to see these two legends cross paths on tennis’ Mt. Olympus for as long as they did.

Our month-long look at the number 30 has also featured Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

Three to See, Day 11: Djokovic vs. Thiem; can Carreno Busta slow Rafa?

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 21:28:00 +0000

Each day of the tournament, we'll preview and predict three must-see matches at the French Open.

Novak Djokovic [2] vs. Dominic Thiem [6]

Thiem has said that he doesn’t like playing Djokovic, and it’s easy to see why from their results. In their five meetings, Djokovic has dropped one set. Two weeks ago, the Serb beat the Austrian 6-1, 6-0 on clay in Rome, and last year in Paris he beat him 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in the semifinals. Why the disparity? It’s a matchup issue: With his compact strokes, Djokovic robs Thiem of the time he needs to unfurl his elaborate swings. While Djokovic gets into a groove, Thiem is rushed. That won’t always be the case; Thiem is too good not to find a way to make inroads on Djokovic at some point. That point may even come on Tuesday. So far at Roland Garros, Djokovic’s sluggish ways have continued, while Thiem has yet to drop a set. But it’s still too much of a stretch to believe he can go from winning one game in Rome to winning three sets in Paris.

Winner: Djokovic

Rafael Nadal [4] vs. Pablo Carreno Busta [20]

In the fourth round, I thought Nadal’s countryman, Roberto Bautista Agut, might slow the Rafa train down a little. I was wrong. It’s possible, in another time and place, that Carreño Busta, who is having a fine season, could be the Spaniard to stand up to Nadal. But not here, not now. Rafa is 3-0 in their head to head; for Carreño Busta, winning a set on Tuesday would qualify as an accomplishment.

Winner: Nadal

Simona Halep [3] vs. Elina Svitolina [5]

Judging by the recent form of these two women, this would make for a worthy French Open final, and the winner will likely be the favorite to go all the way. With her title in Madrid and runner-up finish in Rome, the fifth-ranked Halep has been the best on clay this spring. With her titles in Taipei City, Dubai, Istanbul and Rome this season, the 13th-ranked Svitolina may be the most-improved player of 2017. Most relevant for this match, Svitolina's list of victories this season includes one over Halep, at the Foro Italico last month. But I still think Halep has the higher ceiling on any given day, and as far as the wannabe Slam winners who are left in Paris go, she has the best résumé.

Winner: Halep

Holding Serve with Roger Federer will air on Thursday, June 8th at 2 p.m. ET, only on Tennis Channel.

For complete coverage of the 2017 French Open, including 200 live matches from up to five courts, subscribe today at BuyTCPlus.com

Three to See, Day 9: After six years, Wawrinka and Monfils meet again

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Each day of the tournament, we'll preview and predict three must-see matches at the French Open.

Simona Halep [3] vs. Carla Suarez Navarro [21]

The Romanian and the Spaniard have one of the better under-the-radar rivalries in tennis. They’ve played 11 times, with Halep holding a narrow 6-5 lead, and seven of those 11 matches have gone three sets. It’s easy to see why neither of these women dominate their head to head. Neither is tall or powerful enough to blow the other off the court, but each is a natural shot-maker who is as adept at defense as she is at offense. Suarez Navarro won their only meeting at the French Open, in three sets, in the first round in 2013. But there’s more at stake in this early-day, round-of-16 encounter on Chatrier; whoever wins has a legitimate shot at her first major title.

Winner: Halep

Stan Wawrinka [3] vs. Gael Monfils [15]

Somehow Wawrinka and Monfils haven’t faced each other since 2011. In the five matches they have played, Wawrinka has won three and Monfils two. But they’ve never squared off on clay, and they’ve never squared off in Chatrier with a place in the French Open quarterfinals on the line. So far in Paris, the Swiss and the Frenchman have moved through the draw with quiet, and somewhat surprising, efficiency; neither has dropped a set in the first three rounds. Monfils, who is competing well at the moment, will have the crowd and the highlight-reel shots, and he should get at least a set. But Stan is competing the way he does when he wins major titles.

Winner: Wawrinka

Caroline Garcia [28] vs. Alize Cornet

The two Frenchwomen will play their first WTA-level match on Chatrier on Monday. But while they’ve never done battle on court, they have off of it. The countrywomen and sometime Fed Cup teammates aren’t on speaking terms at the moment—Garcia seems to be persona non grata among the French women since ending her doubles partnership with Kiki Mladenovic. Garcia is ranked 24th to Cornet’s 41st, but this kind of hothouse atmosphere may favor the drama-loving Cornet.

Winner: Cornet

For complete coverage of the 2017 French Open, including 200 live matches from up to five courts, subscribe today at BuyTCPlus.com