French Open Take Home Messages

So what did the French Open tell us about the status of players on the women’s and men’s tours?

The women.  In a field depleted by the absence of Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, the upstart and unseeded Jelena Ostapenko powered her way to the title.  She defeated Simona Halep who, though undoubtedly frustrated by the loss, should be encouraged by her performance here.  Down 1-5 in the second set of her quarterfinal with Elina Svitolina, Halep maintained her poise and concentration, and came back to win that match.  That match was probably the best Halep ever played because of the resolve she showed, and could bode well for her as the year progresses.  Will Ostapenko parlay this victory into a consolidated position at the top of the game?  The jury is still out on that one.  Her serve is a bit of a liability, and it’s not clear how consistently she will be able to drive winners on faster surfaces.  She will also face some formidable opponents who, as mentioned above, were not able to play in this tournament.

Other notable events in this tournament were the return of Petra Kvitova, which is great for the tour and a tribute to modern medical technology, and the early round decimation of Eugenie Bouchard by Anastasija Sevastova.  Bouchard continues to struggle with her game but remains in the spotlight by publicly excoriating Maria Sharapova.  More on that in another post.

The men.  Nadal looked like the Nadal of a few years ago as he destroyed the field to win his 10^th title.  After totally dominating Wawrinka in the finals, we club players are all trying to find out what Rafa eats for breakfast.   His movement, shot-making, and ability to win points from 15 feet or more behind the baseline were all truly amazing.  When Roger Federer, the best player in the world this year prior to the clay court season, returns, matches between the two of them will be compelling to watch.

Other notable events include the loss by Novak Djokovic to Dominic Thiemin the quarters.  By itself such a loss is no huge story.  After all, Thiem is a phenomenal clay court player, the only player to beat Nadal in this clay court season.  But the way Novak lost is news.  He dropped the third set 0-6 to Thiem, and afterward said that the match was really decided in the first set.  Is this the same man who defeated Nadal in an Australian Open final after a 5¾ - hour marathon?  Novak’s inability of late to maintain his focus and intensity remains a matter of concern for him.  Murray’s loss in this tournament was not so ominous.  After a very spotty clay court season Andy played a great tournament here.  He lost to a very sharp and powerful Wawrinka, which can happen to anyone.   It’s worth watching Murray closely in the grass court swing to see if his “slump” is over.

A final thought:  The French is still affected by the absence of Hawkeye, with many “check the mark” calls turning out to be errant.  It’s time to put Hawkeye on Lenglen and Chatrier so that the big matches at the end of the tournament are not decided by line calling errors.

The French Open has now started, and here are some notable results:

The women:  Petra Kvitova played!  It’s great to see her back after the dreadful hand injury sustained earlier this year.  She lost in the second round to Mattek-Sands, and her movement around the court was a bit sluggish.  Her hitting looked normal for her, however, which indicates that the hand problem is a thing of the forgettable past.

Early exits by Kerber and Konta have opened up the draw.  Kerber’s play has been inconsistent of late, but Konta’s loss is a big surprise.   Favorites left in the draw are:

1) Svetlana Kuznetsova:  A former champ playing very well.  Look out for her.

2) Elina Svitolina:  She has been playing the best tennis on the tour over the past several weeks.  She could have a major breakthrough here.

3) Simona Halep:  She has also been playing very well.  Lost to Svitolina in the Italian Open final.  A veteran of the big stage.

4) Karolina Pliskova.  Big weapons, very determined.  Clay favors power players who move relatively poorly, as is the case with her. 

They have a chance:  Madison Keys, Agnieska Radwanska and maybe Venus Williams??  Not Venus’ best surface, but she’s playing well and relaxed in the twilight of her career.

The men:  The only real surprise was the early loss by Alexander Zverev, who won his first Masters 1000 event the previous week by beating Djokovic in the final of the Italian Open.  He perhaps had a bit of a letdown after that, but he also had a tough early round opponent in Fernando Verdasco.

The other top men are looking very strong – Nadal, Djokovic, Wawrinka, Nishikori, Thiem.  Hard to know what to expect from Murray and Djokovic, who have been very inconsistent over the past few weeks.  Nadal has a great chance to win number 10 here.  Thiem is the best clay player after Nadal, and must be considered a real threat.

Other players looking good include Dimitrov, Goffin and Nick Kyrgios, who appears, at least for now, to be concentrating on playing well rather than on theatrics and unsportsmanlike conduct.  He should be interesting to watch.

Depleted French Open

The French Open will depleted of talent this year.  On the women’s side, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams will all be out of action, and the French federation refused to grant a wild card to 2-time winner of the tournament, Maria Sharapova, who is returning from a drug suspension.  The denial of a wild card to Sharapova was justified on the grounds that she now should earn everything she gets.  The WTA responded that she had complied rigorously with the terms of her suspension and that although wild cards are granted totally at the discretion of the tournament, further punishment of Sharapova was unwarranted.

The controversy surrounding Sharapova will not die down.  Eugenie Bouchard has been quite vocal, calling Sharapova a cheater who should be banned for life.  It’s difficult to understand this point of view, given that all of Sharapova’s grand slam wins were achieved while in full compliance with the substance abuse policy, that the drug she wrongly took, Meldonium, had only been on the banned list for a few days before she played the 2016 Australian Open, and that sanctioning bodies ruled her violation to be unintentional.

Another point worth making here is that the science behind the decision to ban this drug is weak.  I searched the medical literature on Meldonium  and found that it improves ischemia reperfusion in a rat heart model and in other similar experimental paradigms.  When I looked there were no human studies on the effect of this drug on exercise tolerance, endurance through trainings, reflex times, muscle strength, or any other parameter of athletic performance.  As noted in a previous post, the entire system by which drugs are evaluated for acceptability should be carefully reviewed, and players should demand justification for any drug banning decision.  Sharapova is a wealthy woman who doesn’t need to play tennis, but lower ranked players or newcomers who get caught in a ban through error etc. could have their careers destroyed by a drug ban.

As for Bouchard’s opinions, I believe they are inspired at least in part by professional jealousy.  Sharapova  was a young phenom like Bouchard, but didn’t fail.  She won Wimbledon at age 17 and went on to reach the world #1 ranking and to win the career grand slam.  Bouchard, on the other hand, has sunk into the 40’s in rank after her initial success and has manifested significant psychological fragility on the court.  Add to this the fact that Sharapova is not the most gregarious of persons and has few real friends on the tour, and you have all the makings of a very bad tasting stew.  Bouchard can stew as much as she wants, but she would be better off solving her own problems than griping about others. 

All in all, the result is that the French Open will be missing several of the world’s best players. 

On the men’s side, Roger Federer has decided to skip the French Open.  This decision is somewhat surprising, given that he has won the tournament before and has made the finals several times.   Clearly Federer is not worried about the calendar slam, the number one ranking etc.  He appears to be selecting the tournaments he most enjoys playing and that exact the least amount of wear and tear on his aging body.  The decision is unfortunate for the fans, as Roger has been the best player in the world when he has played this year.

            The way looks pretty clear for Nadal to win his 10^th French title.  Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka have all shown a dip in their play, and Nadal appears back to the form that has made him virtually unbeatable on clay through most of his career.  Federer has beaten Nadal four times in a row, but none of those victories were on clay, and Federer will not be playing anyway.

Perhaps his biggest hurdle for Nadal will be Dominic Thiem, who has played Nadal tough several times this year and who beat him this week in the Italian Open.  The match in Italy was the best clay court encounter I’ve seen this year, with Thiem beating Nadal at his own game.   The challenges Nadal has made of Thiem have made Dominic into a better player.  It’s hard to believe how well he played in his match with Nadal in Italy.

So overall, injuries, personal life decisions and the French Open governing body have depleted the tournament of a lot of talent this year.  Let’s hope some great matches take place despite the circumstances. 

Tennis news

Great tennis returns to both tours

Some great tennis play returned to both tours this week.  Rafa Nadal totally overwhelmed Dominic Thiem, one of the world’s best clay courters, in the final of Barcelona.  Barring injury or some other unpredictable event, he will be a favorite, perhaps the favorite, to win the French Open.  Whatever Nadal’s problems have been over the last year or so, they appear for now to be over. 

In Stuttgart, Maria Sharapova returned to the women’s tour.  My hopes that she would use her suspension to get rid of her grunt (or perhaps we she call it her shriek) were in vain, as she was as noisy as ever.  She made it to the semis with some excellent play, going down in the penultimate round to Kristina Mladenovic, who has been one of Sharapova’s harshest critics.  The tour needs Sharapova right now, with Serena and Azarenka out of action.  As a former French Open champ, Sharapova should add a lot of interest to that tournament, where she is a wild card entrant.

Nastase is too nasty.  Ilie Nastase revealed his true self during the recent Fed Cup encounter between Great Britain and Romania.  He issued a racist remark about Serena Williams’ pregnancy, calling the future baby “chocolate with milk” in reference to the fact that Serena’s fiancé is white.  He also called Johanna Konta a “fucking bitch” for complaining about crowd noise, and publicly asked for the hotel room number of Anne Koethevong, the GB Fed cup captain.

Nastase later apologized for his remarks about Serena, calling them “spontaneous”.  This statement hardly qualifies as an apology, since spontaneity would rather suggest that his remarks reflected his true feelings.   This blog has stated before, and reasserts now, that there should be 0 tolerance for racism anywhere, tennis tours included.  Nastase has been suspended by the ITF, but given his history of bad behavior and this disgusting display of bigotry and sexism, it is my opinion he deserves a lifetime suspension.  At some point someone needs to stand up and say that there is no such thing as an acceptable level of prejudice.  I think Nastase should be suspended indefinitely and not allowed to return unless he can prove he as effectively addressed his mental maladies. 

We now have a president of the United States who was elected despite making remarks that were called “textbook racism” by a member of his own party, Paul Ryan.  The peril exists that the acceptance of racism in people with authority in our society will lead to a more general tolerance of the intolerable. 

The ITF, like the rest of us, should push back against this trend!

The Monte Carlo Masters – What we learned

The Masters 1000 event in Monte Carlo is now over, and here’s what we learned:

1) Murray and Djokovic are still showing vulnerability.  Andy Murray, the world #1, lost to Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the round of 16.  Ramos-Vinolas is a good clay court player, but last year Murray showed real dominance on clay, and one would never have expected him to lose this match.  Combine that with his early round loss at the Aussie Open (lost to Mischa Zverev), and the conclusion is inescapable that Murray is vulnerable and could lose his ranking before the year is over.

The enigma of Novak Djokovic continues, with a loss in this tournament to David Goffin in the quarters.  Novak had never lost to Goffin.  I’m a great admirer of Goffin, who compensates for is small size with great quickness, tremendous hand-eye abilities, and innovative tactics.  However, this is not a match Djokovic, the reigning French Open champ, should lose. 

So, question marks remain regarding the play of the two highest ranked players in the world.

2) Clay court line calls are error-prone.  When David Goffin played Rafa Nadal in the semis here, everyone assumed that Goliath would beat David easily.  That prediction was weakened substantially when David (Goffin), went up a break in the first set against Nadal.  Goffin was serving with the advantage for consolidation of that break at 3-2, and in the ensuing rally, Nadal hit a ball that landed at least 8 inches over the base line.  The linesman correctly called the shot out, but then the chair umpire, Cedric Mourier, overruled the call and ruled that the point should be replayed.  Goffin requested that the mark be checked, and Mourier then got down from his chair and checked the wrong mark.  Everyone in the stadium except Mourier knew that Nadal’s shot was out, but the point was replayed.  Goffin lost the point, lost his break advantage, lost the set, and eventually lost the match.  This errant line call by the umpire may have been the most critical mistake I’ve ever seen in a match.

In an earlier blog post, I suggested that the electronic line calling system, which, though not perfect, is far better than the “eyeball” approach used in clay matches, be implemented in clay court tournaments.  As I stated before, the French Open could install Hawkeye on courts Lenglen and Chatrier for less than 1% of the amount handed out as prize money.  A mistake of the magnitude that occurred in this Monte Carlo match would be a disaster in a major.

A couple of further points about this incident:  First, Mourier, who has been criticized by players in the past for poor umpiring, should be temporarily removed from umpiring until he shows that he is paying attention during matches.  Second, as Mary Carillo pointed out in commentary on this match, the incident was not Rafa Nadal’s finest hour.  Nadal knew very well that his shot was out, yet he said nothing and allowed this errant call, which had a huge impact on the match, to stand.  I agree with Carillo that Nadal should have come forward and awarded the point to Goffin. 

3) Nadal looks like the Nadal of old.  Rafa won his 10^th Monte Carlo masters, an amazing achievement.  But more telling than the achievement itself is the way Rafa did it.  He is looking again like the man who was virtually unbeatable on clay just a few years ago.  Many pundits are picking him to win his 10^th French Open, and he certainly has a chance, with both Murray and Djokovic playing less than legendary tennis.  I think the interesting match at the French would be Federer-Nadal.  Although Nadal has dominated Federer on clay in the past, Roger remains one of the best clay court players in the world, and he appears to have solved the problem of the Nadal forehand high to his backhand.  Federer’s play this year has also been nothing short of spectacular.  We will know that Nadal is really back if/when he takes out 2 of the other “big four” in dominant fashion to win the French.