PARIS TENNIS UPDATE VIA TOP TENNIS CORRESPONDENT CHERYL JONES @ THE FRENCH OPEN

Cheryl Jones’ Story-Reason, Reality and Reconnoitering

 

Perception can be the bugaboo of human interaction on many levels. It’s not always what’s been said, but what the listener perceives as the intention of the questioner. As far as tennis goes, it’s interesting to hear not only the questions asked during after-match interviews, but the answers that may seem to some to be evasive unless one looks at the reality of an athlete who has just spent hours expending energy and expecting the same result as the last time out but being unhappy with the outcome. Losing a match or even a point can take a while to evaluate and internalize.

 

Today, Maria Sharapova, the 2014 women’s winner went down in a heap, losing to Lucie Safarova, a Czech player ranked in of all places – number 13. It took away Sharapova’s chance for a third win on the clay at Roland Garros this year, 7-6, 6-4.

 

The last time a woman repeated her winning ways at Roland Garros was in 2007 when the mighty-mite from Belgium, Justine Henin, defeated then 19-year old Serbian, Ana Ivanovic in one of the shortest Grand Slam finals ever, 6-1, 6-2 for her third win in a row. (The following year, Ivanovic was the titlist when she defeated Dinara Safina, 6-4, 6-3, after Henin had retired from tennis for the first time, in May of 2008.)

 

Sharapova has always answered questions with forthright seriousness. Some of the queries are silly. It’s obvious from some of the lead-ins to the questions that a particular answer is hoped for. Today, Sharapova faced inquiries about her health having an impact on the outcome of the match. (She’s had a cold the entire time she’s been here.) Dealing with sniffles and all that goes with a cold and the uncertainty of performing physically at the whim of the weather or the length of another match is tenuous at best. In the interview, a journalist queried, “I guess you don’t want to talk too much about this, but has this illness really damaged your week here, even if you don’t like to talk about that?” Sharapova said, “I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t think it really makes a difference. I’m still a competitor no matter what. You know I’m going to do everything in order to go out and give it my best, and I think I did the best I could. Today it wasn’t enough because my opponent had a different gear than I did. But I was still there and I still competed, but it wasn’t enough.”

 

Even though that wasn’t an overtly silly question, if one understands elite athletes at all, it should ultimately be clear that they always play to win, and they always try to be on top of all of that hinges on the outcome. Looking backward or forward isn’t part of a specific preparation. It’s part of an overview, after the competition has ended, either by winning or as in Sharapova’s case today, after losing. Sharapova made her point in the final answer of the interview when she was asked about her preparation for Wimbledon that with schedule changes now includes an extra week. She offered, “I mean, I look at things – I want to prepare myself and train and not think about where I will be in four weeks. I think as an athlete, we want to try to be at the highest level, but to get there, you know what your formula is. Then I’ll get back to the basics. I know that with work I know what I can do and I know how I will feel. That’s the most important thing; just to bet healthy; to give myself a chance to prepare, and whether that means a warm-up tournament or just getting extra days on the grass or getting extra time to train physically. Then that’s what it will be. But by the time Wimbledon comes around. I know that I will be ready.” She will be ready. Today just wasn’t her day.

 

Her opponent, Safarova underscored the reality of playing matches when she said, “I never look ahead, so I just concentrate on really the match that is upcoming. It seems like maybe the top seeds are gone (here), but the competition in women’s tennis is really strong. I think that every opponent you face you just have to really be there 100% and concentrate and just try your best and that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow.”

 

Yesterday’s rain made today’s slate crowded. The Quarterfinals are set. In the bottom half of the draw, seventh ranked Ana Ivanovic will face 19th ranked Elina Svitolina of the Ukraine; Garbine Muguruza of Spain who has been one of the up and comers and is now ranked twenty-one will face Safarova.

 

Serena Williams is ranked number one and is in the top half of the draw. She had a scare today that was dealt by Sloane Stephens who managed to take the first set of their match 6-1. Williams came back to the fray and took the next two sets 7-5, 6-3. Williams will face Italian, Sara Errani who is ranked seventeenth. Even though on paper, it would seem like Williams should lope through in low gear, don’t count the gutsy Errani out.

 

Williams has had a few issues losing first sets this tournament and she was asked about that dip in her performance. A nagging elbow glitch has stuck with her since Rome, but that seemed to be old news. She spoke briefly about it, “I’m maintaining. Definitely a lot better, though. I’m serving where I’m not worried if I can serve or not. So I’m definitely serving a lot better and that helps me out a lot, too.” As with many of her answers, I have no clue what she was actually trying to say, but it seemed to be a round about way of saying that it was still not healed completely, but she is ignoring its effect on her play.

 

Tomorrow night Williams will accept the ITF Champion award for 2014 at a gala that is held each year on the second Tuesday of Roland Garros. That should do a bit to boost her confidence. Facing Eranni will be a challenge, though, She claims that even though the Italian has a very weak serve, she will be on her toes, because she recognizes that Eranni has worked her way into the quarterfinals for the fourth time in a row, and “…clearly she’s doing something right.”

 

Filling in the other members of the Quarterfinal club will be a Belgian, Alison Van Uytvanck who is ranked 93. She defeated Rumanian Andreea Mitu who is ranked 100 and the two of them were the lowest ranked players in a long while to be contesting in a Round of 16 at a major. Van Uytvanck made quick work of the match as she moved on 6-1, 6-3 in an hour and eight minutes. The last time a Belgian player reached the quarterfinals, it was Justine Henin. And we all know what happened then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final match of a very long day was over when Timea Bacsinszky, a Swiss miss ranked twenty-four defeated Petra Kvitova, 6-2, 0-6, 6-3, in one hour thirty-nine minutes. Kvitova who is ranked number four, was tired. She spent over two hours longer in competition at Roland Garros this year than any of the other women, or it could have been the lingering exhaustion that forced her to take six weeks off the tour in February and March of this year. Kvitova will have a well-deserved rest stop before the rigors of Wimbledon map out another demanding schedule in about a month.

 

Each of the eight women will have to do some reasonable planning before they set foot on the terre battue in the next round. Reality will hand half of them what they won’t have planned for. The rest will move on to the Semifinal matches and in time one of them will have her name etched in the record books for all time. That has always been the plan from the first Sunday of Roland Garros.

 

Editors note : the Staff @10sBalls _com knows Alison Van Uytvanck. She is our pick to win the French Open.

Topics: Alison Van Uytvanck, Ana Ivanovic, Cheryl Jones, French Open Tennis, Lucie Safarova, Maria Sharapova, Paris, Petra Kvitova, Roland Garros, Serena Williams, Sloane Stephens, tennis update, Timea Bacsinszky

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