Decade's Best: 2012 Roland Garros
The 2012 edition would be no exception...
Maria Sharapova, 25, finally claimed her first Roland Garros title with a 6-3/6-2 win over Sara Errani in the final, completing a Career Slam and becoming the first player to win a major after having shoulder surgery. The Russian's misdiagnosed injury in '08, after she'd had a dominant run to her most recent slam win at the Australian Open that year, led to the surgery that put her career in jeopardy. Her long comeback had seen her improve her overall game by working on her movement, increasing her variety and altering her serve-first tactical approach, which all combined to make the slower clay a more viable surface for success. While she'd performed adequately in Paris before the injury and subsequent change of course, reaching two QF and a SF, it was always something of an uphill battle she inevitably lost. Ultimately, what played out helped to cement Sharapova's place in the sport's history by transforming her from a self-described "cow on ice" on clay courts to the player who was actually the tour's most dependable player on the surface in the middle years of the 2010's.
NOTE: (from WTA Backspin on June 9, 2012)
It's always nice to have a moment of levity in the post-match ceremonies of a slam, considering the loser has to watch -- often through tears -- as their opponent celebrates a few feet away. We got one on Court Chatrier as the players were being introduced to be awarded the ceremonial hardware, when "runner-up Maria Sharapova" was announced. Everyone laughed, including Sharapova (who shrugged and lifted her hands in a "what can ya do?" sort of way), and a smiling Errani jumped up with her arms in the air and finally had her "championship moment." Hey, she'll always have Paris.
Errani's run made it *three* straight years with an Italian in the RG women's singles final. She'd been just 1-4 in the tournament for her career before 2012, but posted consecutive wins over two former RG winners (Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova), the '11 U.S. Open semifinalist (Angelique Kerber) and '10 RG finalist/'11 U.S. Open champ (Samantha Stosur), both of them Top 10ers, en route to her maiden slam final.
She doubled up on major finals by reaching and winning the women's doubles with countrywoman Roberta Vinci, defeating Maria Kirilenko & Nadia Petrova in the final for what would be the first of three slam crowns won over the course of a year by the pair, as well as the initial entry in an eventual Career Doubles Slam the Italians that was compiled over the course of twenty-five months, concluding with a win at Wimbledon in 2014. The title run gave the duo nineteen straight wins that spring (four straight titles), and twenty-seven in a row on clay.
Perhaps the biggest moment of the tournament came on Day 3 when #5-seeded Serena Williams suffered the first (and still only) 1st Round loss at a major in her spectacular career. After previously having been 46-0 in the opening rounds of slams, Williams was upset by #111-ranked Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano, who was in the MD again a full year after having played at RG in '11 just days after the death of her fiance/coach.
Williams had dominated the spring clay season, winning her first seventeen matches on the surface (winning titles in Charleston and Madrid, then handing a walkover to Li Na in the Rome semis). For her part, Razzano had seen a hip injury limit her to just seven matches in 2012 up to that point.
Williams had seemed on her way to a victory, having won the 1st set and leading 4-0 and 5-1 (and serving two) in the 2nd set TB. It was at that point that Serena stopped play in the middle of a point to ask chair umpire Eva Asderaki to check a mark on the baseline. The questioned Razzano shot was ruled to have been in, and suddenly Williams' seemingly secure advantage quickly unraveled, as the weirdness that has often engulfed her at RG did so again.
Soon after, Asderaki (who'd infamously docked Serena for in-point hindrance vs. Sam Stosur at the '11 U.S. Open) interrupted a point being controlled by Williams, a point from a having MP, and ruled it to be replayed due to a missed line call (replays indicated that she was right to have done so). Razzano then won the replayed point. Razzano's play then began to force Williams errors, and the Pastry won six straight points to take the TB 7-5 to send things to a deciding set. Serena sat in her chair during the changeover and cried.
Razzano reeled off seven points in a row to begin the 3rd set, and soon led 4-0. It was then that Asderaki began to call several hindrance rule violations on the cramping French vet due to the loud gasps she was making after shots. Still, Razzano fired an ace to lead 5-0.
At 5-1, 30/love on Razzano's serve, Asderaki's hindrance call cost the Pastry a point and gave Williams a BP. Razzano's big serves nearly pulled the game out, but Serena broke on BP #3 for 5-2. Serving at 5-3, 30/30 Razzano was again called for hindrance and another point penalty gave Williams a BP once again, this time to get the set back on serve.
The French woman managed to serve out the win, holding in a 25-minute, 12-deuce game in which she survived five BP and won on her eighth MP, winning 4-6/7-6(5)/6-3 in 2:47.
In a match during which Williams was booed for dropping her racket after missing a shot, Razzano was serenaded by the French fans after what was surely the greatest moment of her career.
Venus Williams would then lose to Aga Radwanska in the 2nd Round. The 1st & 2nd Round losses by the siblings are still their worst ever combined slam result.
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Defending champion Li Na was ousted in the Round of 16 by Yaroslava Shvedova, becoming the first DC in Roland Garros history to lose to a qualifier. Of course, the #142-ranked Shvedova was no mere qualifier. While she was the lowest ranked player to reach the QF in Paris since 1983, she'd also reached the final eight there in 2010.
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Top-seeded Victoria Azarenka (working with retired former #1-ranked Pastry Amelie Mauresmo as a support coach) narrowly avoided an historic 1st Round upset at the hands of Italy's Alberta Brianti, rallying from 7-6/4-0 down (and points for 5-0) to win 6-7/6-4/6-2. Had Azarenka lost it would have been the earliest exit ever at Roland Garros for a #1 seed.
Five years later, another #1 seed *would* suffer such a defeat in Paris.
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Notable slam debuts in Paris: qualifiers Karolina Pliskova (lost 1st Rd. to Marion Bartoli) and Kiki Bertens (lost 1st Rd. to Christina McHale).
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In her fifth slam appearance, future RG finalist Sloane Stephens posted her maiden Round of 16 result at a major, where she lost to Samantha Stosur. Meanwhile, a year after she upset then-#2 Kim Clijsters in Paris, Arantxa Rus ended Serena conqueror Razzano's run in the 2nd Round and advanced to the 4th Round, her first (and still only) such result in a slam.
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The remarkable career of Esther Vergeer added a final slam flourish with the 30-year old Dutch great winning her sixth consecutive RG wheelchair singles crown in her final appearance at the event, and in what turned out to be her final slam singles competition. She lost just three games in three matches, defeating future #1 Yui Kamiji 3 & 0, then double-bageling both Sharon Walraven (SF) and Aniek Van Koot (F) to wrap up her 21st major singles title. It left her undefeated (18-0) for her RG career (she never lost a WS match in her slam career), and extended her overall match-winning streak to 457. It would ultimately reach 470 (she was 559-1 from March '01 forward), ended only by her retirement from the sport in early 2013.
Vergeer also won her 21st (and final) WD major, her fifth RG doubles title (11-1 career), taking the crown with Marjolein Buis with a win over Sabine Ellerbrock & Kamiji (both future multi-slam winners) in the first career slam final for both. She'd make her final slam appearance a month later at Wimbledon, losing in the WD semifinals (though she *did* win a "3rd Place" match to officially close things out). The WC singles competition at the All-England Club didn't begin until 2016, or else she'd likely have many, many *more* slam trophies.
The September Paralympic event in London in '12 meant that the U.S. Open wheelchair competition was not held. Naturally, in what turned out to be her final event, Vergeer won her fourth singles and third doubles Gold medals.
The Dutch great ended with 42 total slam crowns, and her unmatched singles career included 148 titles, including a streak of 120 in a row. She spent thirteen consecutive years at #1, a total of 668 weeks. Her last loss in singles had come in January 2003 to Aussie Daniela Di Toro, and she only faced one MP (vs. Korie Homan in the '08 Paralympic Gold Match) during her 470-match win streak.
Said Vergeer on the occasion of her retirement, "To be honest, I don't really know or remember what it feels like to lose in singles. I know what it's like to lose a Monopoly game and I don't like that."
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Sania Mirza claimed her (so far) only Roland Garros crown in the mixed doubles, taking the title with Mahesh Bhupathi (their second title-winning slam run as a duo). Mirza lost the 2011 WD final and 2016 MX finals in Paris.
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Germany's Annika Beck defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (SVK) to claim the girls singles crown, an early highlight of what would be a short career. Beck won two tour-level titles in 2014-15, but injuries eventually drove her from the game at age 24 when she retired in 2018. AKS had reached the final after defeating top-seeded Taylor Townsend and #5 Katerina Siniakova before losing to #2 Beck.
Hordette Irina Khromacheva successfully defended her girls doubles crown, taking the title with (then) fellow Hordette Dasha Gavrilova with a win over the all-South American duo of Montserrat Gonzalez & Beatriz Haddad Maia (PAR/BRA). Gavrilova had been the year-end girls #1 in 2010, while Khromacheva did the same in 2011.
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FASHION REPORT: After winning the Australian Open while donning white shorts, Victoria Azarenka disappointingly (for many) played in Paris in a dress.
Meanwhile, Svetlana Kuznetsova debuted a new tattoo that read, "Pain doesn't kill me, I kill the pain."
Maria Sharapova has traveled a long road to get back to "super." But, as is often said, it's the journey that makes the destination.
The now 25-year old Sharapova first burst onto big-time scene eight years ago, not in London when she won her first career slam title, but in Paris, when as a 17-year old she reached her first major quarterfinal at Roland Garros a month earlier. Back then, the slower red clay never seemed to fit the Russian who was always looking to go somewhere and get there as fast as she could. With a game based around a big serve and powerful groundstrokes, the six-foot-two, usually gracefully-attired Sharapova wasn't as graceful a mover on the terre battue. She even likened her ungainly attempts to a resembling "cow on ice."
Having injured her shoulder earlier in the (2008) season, only to have the injury misdiagnosed and made worse with continued play, Sharapova was forced to have rotator cuff surgery. She missed the Olympics, two slams, and nine months of action as she saw her ranking fall outside the Top 100 and her entire tennis career flash before her eyes. When she returned, she wasn't quite the same. The serve that she'd relied on, and upon which her entire game seemed to gain strength (and weakness) in the past, was no longer a "given" weapon. Upwards of nearly twenty double-faults in a match weren't uncommon, as she tinkered with her service mechanics and saw her confidence dip in and out for nearly two years.
But that started to change last spring and summer. Sharapova's service woes began to even out, and she worked hard to improve her fitness and court movement. After having the most successful clay season of her career, her confidence was high. After winning Rome, she said, "This is just the start of everything."
Jumping around and twirling in air like a big 25-year old kid immediately after her victory, Sharapova in some ways almost inadvertently recalled the image of Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen, for whom the second show court at Roland Garros and women's championship trophy is named. A six-time RG champion in the 1920's, Lenglen was known for her showy, flashy on-court moves and fashion sense... and lives on in a series of in-match photos and video clips that make her seem like a ballerina posing for the camera, trying to look as graceful in the air as humanly possible. At the very least, a case can be made that Sharapova might be the most glamorous woman to hoist the RG woman's trophy since the current coupe's namesake did it back in 1926.
Prior to the post-match trophy ceremony, there was Sharapova climbing into the stands, kissing babies and even lifting one to the skies like a scene from "The Lion King," adding a few more tags -- politician? Queen of the Serengeti? -- to a career job resume that includes stints as a businesswoman, model, spokesperson, (currently) fiancee, (soon-to-be) candymaker and one of the all-around best competitors in the sport. Unlike many of her fellow champions, though, who found the world to be their oyster after finding grand slam success, Sharapova has never lost track, first and foremost, what it was that got her there -- her tennis -- or lost her desire to be the best that she could be at it.
It says something about her that it was Sharapova who has become the first player to win a slam following shoulder surgery, for it speaks well to the drive that has always lurked beneath her glossy, fashionable exterior. In effect, it's always been her secret weapon. Finally, after a long, painful and, ultimately, affirming four years, it is once again. Many players who'd climbed as high as she once did would have given up and accepted the "dying out" nature of the supernova-like brilliance she once experienced. But not Sharapova. She dug in and worked harder than ever, and today she receives the spoils of her efforts. Nearly a half-hour after the conclusion of match, Sharapova was still levitating around the court on her own personal Cloud Nine. Calling her victory the "most special" of her career, she saying she'd, "never felt this happy."
* - "I remember when I met her when she was 13, she always told me she wanted to be #1. First, she said, 'I want to be a star,' and I said, 'Whoa, what does that mean? Does that mean you want to make lots of money?' 'No,no,no,' she said. 'I want to be #1. That's what a star is.' She was emphatic about being #1." - Billie Jean King, on Maria Sharapova
* - "You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good. You play good, they pay good." - Sloane Stephens tweet
* - "I've had so many outs and I could've said I don't need this. I could've said, 'I've got the money, I've got the game, I've got the career victories and grand slams.' But when your love for the game is bigger than those things, that's when you continue to get up." - Maria Sharapova
* - "I'm excited because now I'm going to have more Twitter followers." - Sloane Stephens, after reaching her first slam Round of 16
* - "I thought when I won Wimbledon at 17, that would be the most treasured moment in my career. But when I fell down on my knees today I realized this is extremely special, even more so." - Maria Sharapova
posted by Todd.Spiker @ 9:04 AM
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