My post-match report from the action on Thursday features the second-round women’s match featuring the two-time Wimbledon champion (2011 and 2014) Petra Kvitova and France’s Kristina Mlanedovic.
You can find it on Tennis with an Accent by clicking on the link below,and after you read my analysis, check out all the other latest reports Tennis with an Accent offers on the action from London. Enjoy!
Kvitova Gets Healthy Against Mladenovic – On Tennis with an Accent
In this post, I take a look at two quarterfinal matches that will take place on Tuesday, the women’s match that pits the French player Kristina “Kiki” Mladenovic against the Swiss player Timea Bacsinszky, and the men’s match that opposes the defending champion Novak Djokovic to Dominic Thiem, one of the leading members of the ATP’s “next generation.”
Mladenovic (13) vs Bacsinszky (30)
This is a very intriguing match-up not only tactically but also because of the inspiring runs of both players. Kiki, who feeds off the French crowd better than any other French woman (Gaël Monfils would be the one among the French men), has so far recorded three marathon victories against Jennifer Brady
Shelby Rogers and the defending champion Garbine Muguruza, and a straight-set one against Sara Errani, who is a respectable opponent on clay at any moment in her career. Kiki is enjoying, in 2017, the best campaign of her tennis career, moving up to number 7 in the Porsche Race Singles ranking that determines who qualifies for the year-ending WTA Championships. In short, she is on fire this year, and in this tournament.
Jimmie48Photography
She faces Timea Bacsinszky, one of the most versatile players on the WTA Tour. Kiki has faced her twice in the last 12 months, winning once on grass courts, losing the other one on hard. I do not believe that says much (not that I am a big believer of previous head-to-head matches having a big impact on the current match anyway), considering this will be their first encounter on clay courts. Timea defeated Venus Williams in the last round, taking the last two sets comfortably despite the disappointment of losing the first set from 5-1 up, and leaving no Americans in the women’s draw for the second week (none left in men either). Timea is one of the more mature players on the tour, with a life experience that goes beyond the tennis courts. She does not easily gets distracted by the crowd and I am sure she is expecting nothing less than the same type of arduous support from the French spectators for her opponent that the latter received during the third sets of her Brady, Rogers, and Muguruza wins. Especially against Rogers, down 2-5 in the final set, one could almost sense the positive energy from the crowd flowing in Kiki’s direction. Rogers felt it too (and believe me, Rogers is a cool customer in the body-language and mental discipline departments), losing eleven out twelve points in the three-game stretch that brought Kiki back to 5-5. I do not believe I would be exaggerating if I claimed that Mladenovic would not have made it this far had the tournament taken place elsewhere than at Roland Garros.
The key questions here are, can Kiki bring the match to a point in which the crowd can become a factor, and if she does, will Timea manage to mentally block the crowd out? My answer to the first question: yes, Kiki can. My answer to the second: yes, Timea definitely will!
First of all, the Swiss player is fairly well liked by the Roland Garros crowd, and I believe there will be a small group of Timea supporters who will also make their voices heard. I also do not expect any player, let alone Kiki, to sustain the level of play that she has demonstrated over a two-week period, going through one extended (and exhausting) match after another. They take a lot out of your reserves not only physically, but also mentally. I look for Kiki’s game to become a bit more erratic, even with a vociferous crowd pumping her up, if the match goes beyond 5-5 in the final set. Timea will not lose her cool and execute her game plan regardless of the score or tension.
Jimmie48Photography
In terms of tactics, I expect Timea to use all the shots available in her arsenal, without getting into predictable rally patterns that could allow Kiki to accelerate and take charge. I believe the Swiss will use her slice generously on both sides – yes, she also possesses a formidable forehand slice that she occasionally uses –, yet step into the court whenever she can to push Kiki around the baseline, and often use her drop shots when Kiki finds herself backed up (or backing up, expecting an aggressive hit from her opponent).
Kiki, for her part, will need a lot of forehand winners, which she can produce when needed, but more importantly, will have to set up the point so that she can get those types of opportunities. Couple of ways to do that: get a lot of first serves in and take risks on returns when the opponent serves a second serve. I really believe Kiki’s chances of winning decrease drastically if Timea wins the first set, much more so than Timea’s chances of winning the match if Kiki were to win the first set. Timea’s ability to adjust her game and apply a different make-up to her shots is much more developed than that of Kiki’s. The French’s options diminish if she cannot impose her baseline game on her opponent. I am going with a 2-set Bacsinszky win here, one set being very tight, the other one being less contested.
Djokovic (2) vs Thiem (6)
In 2016, when these two players met in the semifinal here in Paris, Thiem was having the best year of his career that saw him enter the top 10 for the first time, and Novak Djokovic was in the process of joining the ranks of the elite in the history of our sport by dominating the tour. He would eventually go on to take the title at Roland Garros, thus winning all four Majors consecutively and accomplishing the “Novak Slam”. In their particular match that afternoon, Novak routed Dominic in three sets.
One year later, Thiem is once again having a career year. Novak, however, is not last year’s version of himself by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t expect this match to be one-sided, in fact, I would guess that it will go to the distance (and hopefully) go down as one of the best matches of the tournament. It has the ingredients to be one.
Julian Finney – Getty Images
Djokovic finally gave signs (just signs) of his old self in the post-1st-set portion of his match against Albert Ramos-Vinolas and sporadically in his earlier matches. However, none of those players are Thiem’s level, and furthermore, none of them had the amount of belief that they could win like the Austrian will, when he steps on the court tomorrow. He has now spent a full year at the top-10 level and has recorded some terrific wins, notably the one against Rafael Nadal in Rome, the only clay-court loss for the Spaniard this year.
I know people will point to Thiem’s 0-5 record vs Djokovic this year, including the lop-sided loss in the finals of the Rome tournament. I am just not sure how much that will matter to Dominic when he steps on the court tomorrow to play a five-set match in the quarterfinals of a Major. First of all, that is no longer undiscovered territory for him. Second, he is taking on a player who may still harbor many doubts in his mind about his game. This also an opportunity of a lifetime for the Austrian. He would have to defeat Djokovic and Nadal, and win one more match, to claim his first Major title. It would be nothing short of a miracle, but if it were to happen, it would once and for all enter him into the elite of today’s game in a matter of five days.
Novak, even at “less-than-his-top” level is still one of the world’s few greatest players. He will still not give away gifts and remain solid from the baseline. Thiem will have to create chances from the backcourt and he is capable of doing that. The problem for him, is that balls will come back a few more times in each rally against Djokovic than they may have done so against lesser players. One key for this match-up: patience. Will Thiem be patient enough to build points up and win them instead of trying to nail spectacular shots for at least three sets? Will Novak be patient enough to endure a possible assault from Thiem for a set or so, knowing that he will prevail if he remains resolved and continues his machine-like consistency?
Clive Brunskill – Getty Images
Another key: serve and return performances. Considering that these two players lead the stats in the return categories at the French Open so far, which one will take bigger cuts on second-serve returns? Can someone like Thiem, who is prone to double faulting at times, be shaken by Nole’s aggressive returns? These are some of the tactical challenges waiting for Thiem and Djokovic.
Then, there is the physical side. Djokovic has the edge here if the match transforms into a long, grueling five-set affair. By Djokovic “having the edge here,” I mean he is “less likely” to suffer fatigue or cramps in an extended match than his opponent. Eventually, that could be the difference in this match. I am picking Nole to record a five-set victory. I think Thiem will have to wait one more year (and probably no longer) to join the ranks of the elite players, barring injuries.
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I drive into the grounds around 10:30 AM. The first match is not scheduled to start until 1:50 PM. Nonetheless, I come early, because I have a few things to do on my computer, and more importantly, I love watching the players practice. There is hardly anyone around, and they are busy tweaking bits and pieces of their game, or working on a strategy for their upcoming match later in the day. Parking is problematic to say the least at the Citi Open. First, there are not enough spaces. Second, if you arrive later in the day or in the evening, from first-person experiences of a few people that I have talked to, it can take up to 45 minutes to an hour to park and get in the grounds. They are directed to another site to park from where they have to take the shuttle, etc. To make matters worse, not all parking attendants are apparently on the same page, and they get conflicting information on how to do what.
For my part, I run into a lady who made the person before me park very close to the car next to hers. I see that and I have no intention of doing the same, so I park about a foot further than she indicates. She gets mad and tells me that I need to “follow instructions.” I tell her I want to be able to get out, and she keeps ranting. I get out of my car anyway and see the lady who parked before me giving me thumbs up and shaking her head to the attendant. She is barely able to squeeze out of her car. I make a note to myself that if I run into the same problem, that parking attendant will hear a few words back from me such as “I follow instructions if they appeal to my common sense, sorry that you have none!” By the way, did I mention that parking costs $15 per day? If you are there every day, that is over a $100 dollars that you plan to spend. For some weekly ticket holders, it’s included in the cost.
I walk around the courts. Andy Murray is hitting with Richard Gasquet who gets a ton of instructions from his coach (and former two-time French Open champion) Sergi Bruguera during the breaks. It is already hot and Gasquet is wearing a black t-shirt (unlike Murray who has a white one) that says “Paris” on it.
They are both concentrated on the task in hand; this is not what one would call a “fun” practice.
A shirtless John Isner is on the next court. The tall guy is fairly slim and in good shape, not too muscular. He is hitting with a youngster and Justin Gimelstob is on the side of the youngster, yelling across the net to Isner for instructions.
The first match begins promptly at 1:50 PM on Center Court between two Americans, Coco Vandeweghe and Christina McHale. I am more interested in the one that starts in 20 minutes on Grandstand between Kristina Mladenovic and Samantha Stosur. Therefore, I only stay for a few points on Center Court, but I am rather astonished by the fact that the stands are virtually empty. As I walk away I see Wayne Bryan (Mike and Bob’s father) running a tennis clinic for adults, and I wonder if the head count is higher in that clinic than in the Center Court!
The Mldenovic vs Stosur match disappoints largely because nothing seems to work for Kiki. She makes routine errors, and as the match progresses, her body language gets more and more negative. Her mother Dzenita, former professional volleyball player and an ex-member of the national team of the former Yugoslavia, walks out to the court as Kiki’s coach once in each set to turn the tide (pictured below is the first one). Alas, the slide never ends and Stosur walks out with a comfortable 6-2 6-2 score to record her 500th career win.
Little did Dzenita know that her “real” coaching/mothering would come after the match. Kiki sits by the wall outside the players’ area, cries, sobs, and rants to herself for at least 30 minutes. Dzenita stands by her side through all of it, attempting to lift her daughter’s spirits up. I feel bad for Mladenovic because any of us who played high-level competitive tennis (and if it sounds patronizing, sorry, but only people who experienced individual competition under great pressure would understand the gravity of these moments) have gone through these types of agonizing emotions following certain losses, and I can only imagine how painful it must be for her at that moment. Although it is the first round of a WTA Event and it is obviously not her first career loss, there could be many reasons behind it, or a culmination of things. In any case, tennis players know and understand that this happens (or will happen) to every one of them, probably more than once. Each may have a different way of manifesting it. I remember going to my dad’s car and staring at the side mirror for 15 minutes, wondering why I am playing tennis if I can’t win a match like this, following an excruciating loss in the semifinals of a national tournament that played a role in the selection of the country’s national team back then. There are highs and lows, this happens to be one of the “lowly lows.” I am hoping she will get through it.
Next, I see Sam Groth who is getting last-minute instructions from his coach. He is totally relaxed, cracking jokes, and laughing. Not all players have the need to get that tunnel-vision “boxing” face prior to a match. He plays a tricky opponent in Thomaz Bellucci. Groth wins the first set in a tiebreaker, and breaks in the second to go up 4-2. Then, a rare occurrence: Groth loses his serve twice in a row, allowing Bellucci to carry the match to a third set. Sam imposes his game again in the third, and this time, does not squander the lead. While his serve never ceases to amaze, I am more struck by how quick he gets from the baseline to the service line after the serve.
His second step is almost midway between the two lines. You may say that in today’s tennis, in order to be a successful serve-and-volley player, you must do nothing less than that, but we are talking about a pretty big, muscular guy here (6’4 and 216), and his forward explosion after the serve is remarkable.
I quickly go to the next court to watch the third set tiebreaker between Jarmila Gajdosova and the qualifier Naomi Broady. Gajdosova can’t capitalize on a match-point opportunity at 6-5 in the tiebreaker. She is fuming. Broady wins the next two points and closes it 8-6. Someone in the stands (British accent) cheers Broady on along with other spectators clapping. On her way to the net to shake hands, Gajodosova yells and scolds that fan. Broady is not happy and says a few words to Gajdosova who looks shocked for a few seconds and stares at her after the handshake. Then, another exchange between the two players ensues before Jarmila packs up her bags and leaves the court.
As that same fan walks out, he passes by Heather Watson who was there to support Broady. He gives her a few words of encouragement. Watson, always friendly, says “no it was terrible yesterday” and laughs (she lost 6-3 6-0 to Louisa Chirico).
I begin to watch the match between Ivan Dodig, a “Lucky Loser” who only found out that he is in the tournament earlier in the day due to Marcos Baghdatis’ retirement, and the qualifier Guido Pella. I am determined to stick through this match, because I admire the tenacity and the desire that these types of players, ones to whom a first-round win in an ATP 500 level event means as much as that first balloon that your parents get you when you are a kid. Pella ranked 100, Dodig at 104, both players were in the qualifying draw and a second round appearance in the main draw would tremendously boost their confidence. They don’t disappoint. They fight for every point, run down every ball within their reach.
Pella wins the first set 6-3, and can’t close the match out in the tiebreaker of the second set, despite earning a match point. Dodig takes a quick bathroom break before the third set, and I see Pella sitting in his chair, shirtless and dejected. I am wondering if he is replaying the match point wasted in his head.
When he loses his serve routinely in the first game of the third set, I begin to think that Dodig may run away with this match. However, out of nowhere, Dodig tries two ill-advised drop shots that he misses in the net, gags an easy put away, and lets Pella back in the match. At 2-1, the rain arrives, which results in a fairly lengthy delay. When the match resumes around 9:30 PM, both players begin to comfortable hold serves until 6-5 where Dodig once again plays a bad game in which he makes two unforced forehand errors to quickly go down 0-40. Pella capitalizes on his second match point and you can see the “relief” (as he called it after the match when I talked to him) on his face. His celebration is subdued, but his face tells it all.
When the clock strikes midnight, there are still 4 matches on the courts, one that is about to begin, and another still waiting for the prior match to end. I watch the Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova vs Magdalena Rybarikova match on Grandstand 2.
It cannot be an easy task to play a match that starts after midnight, and both players spray balls all over the place. Pavlyuchenkova proves to be the one to make fewer mistakes and hit more winners in tiebreakers, so she wins 7-6 7-6. At one point during the second set, 4th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova casually enters the court around 1:30 AM and joins the other 20 spectators left in the stands.
Before I leave little before 2 AM, I watch a couple of games and the first set tiebreaker between Marin Cilic and Hyeon Chung. There are between 50 and 100 people in the stands to watch the defending US Open champion.
I am not that surprised. It has been a long day and the rain delay in the evening did not help. I leave after the first set and see that the car that parked after me is extremely close to my car and I remember the parking attendant from the morning…
It seems so long ago…
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It has been a weird, incomprehensible tournament so far to say the least. First rounds brought one upset after another with shocking score lines. Stanislas Wawrinka and Li Na both faded away in the final sets of their matches, Wawrinka getting ‘bageled’ by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the fourth set and Na winning only one game in the final set of her encounter with Kristina Mladenovic. It’s the first time in history that both Australian Open title holders have gone out in the first round of the French Open.
The strange exits of Grigor Dimitrov and Kei Nishikori have equally raised eyebrows. Dimitrov has arrived to Paris in good form on clay, with a title in Bucharest and a strong semi-final showing in Rome. Yet, he lost to Ivo Karlovic who has not had a win at Roland Garros since 2007. Nishikori also lost in straight sets – in fact, he got crushed in the last two sets 6-1 and 6-2 – to Martin Klizan who is quietly having the best season of his career. In Nishikori’s defense, he did not get much practice prior to Roland Garros due to the injury that he suffered in the finals of Madrid three weeks ago.
Then, there have been tears… Plenty of them! Prior to today, Shuai Zhang and Stefanie Voegele shed tears of pain for different reasons during their press conferences. Zhang cried when reminded of her inability to win a first-round match in a Slam (her ninth first-round loss in a row in Slams), and Voegele could not hold back her tears due to personal reasons whose details the media members respectfully opted not to ask. It makes one admire Voegele (pictured below) that much more, considering that she stayed extremely calm and stable during her comeback win from 7-6 5-3 down against Anna-Lena Friedsam.
There are also tears of joy. Mladenovic cried after her win against Na, and again when she was being interviewed by Fabrice Santoro on the court. The second time, it seemed everyone in her player’s box joined her in shedding tears. One could see in the stadium several French spectators who were themselves visibly overcome with emotions.
Finally, there are also bitters-sweet tears. Michael Llodra cried during an emotional tribute prepared for him by the organizers due to his final year on the tour and his last appearance at Roland Garros. It was after his first round loss on the historic ‘bull ring’ court (Court #1). His little boy came down to the court to be with him, while Fabrice Santoro, the French Tennis Federation President Jean Gachassin, and the Davis Cup Captain Arnaud Clément honored him with classy speeches. When given the microphone to say a few words, he often had to stop speaking to gather himself as his tears flowed in abundance.
Tennis is a beautiful game!