Decade's Best: 2015 Roland Garros
The win gave Williams three straight slam titles (the last person to do that was... herself in 2002-03), and a month later she'd complete her *second* "Serena Slam" with a Wimbledon championship run (her bid for a 2015 Grand Slam, which would have been the first since Steffi Graf's in 1988, was famously ended by Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semis).
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In 2015, the dynamic duo of "Team Bucie" took Paris by storm.
Well, NEARLY all of it, anyway, as they had a hand in all three women's championship matches at Roland Garros (coming within a Serena of sweeping them all). Lucie Safarova came into RG sporting just a 5-4 clay court record in the spring, but she timed the peaking of her game perfectly with her arrival on the terre battue. A year after reaching her first slam semi at Wimbledon, Safarova thrilled her many fans (around the world and in the stands, as well as the lockerroom) with efficient serving, tremendous defense and the (finally) hard-won confidence to be aggressive offensively when the opportunity arose, sweeping through six matches without dropping a set -- defeating four Top 20 players, including former champs Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic -- to become the first Czech woman to reach the RG final since Hana Mandlikova in 1981.
In the final, she took advantage of Serena Williams' 2nd set slip to force a 3rd and take a break lead there before Serena turned things around. The result made Safarova the seventh Czech woman to reach the singles Top 10, while she also climbed into the doubles Top 5 after she and Bethanie Mattek-Sands (aka "Team Bucie") won their second straight slam title (in just their sixth tournament as a duo), defeating world #1's Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza en route to the final, where they won out over Casey Dellacqua & Yaroslava Shvedova.
Not only that, but BMS cleaned up in the Mixed, as well, taking the title with Mike Bryan to become the first woman to sweep both doubles competitions in Paris since 2001.
Finally, one of the stars of Roland Garros from the *previous* decade was heard from in the latter stages of the 2010's when Ana Ivanovic reached her first major semifinal in eight years.
At the time, Ivanovic's rush to the '08 RG women's title and assuming of the role of the world's #1 ranked player in the wake of Justine Henin's first (sudden) retirement seemed to signal a great, longtime run at the top of the game for the then-20 year old Serb. After all, she'd reached two previous slam finals in the previous year, at the '07 Roland Garros and '08 Australian Open. But it soon became clear that the harsher spotlight and scrutiny between the lines was not conducive to AnaIvo playing up to the level of her talent.
It should have been obvious when Ivanovic's team, who knew her best, decided not to tell her prior to her '08 RG semifinal vs. countrywoman Jelena Jankovic would mean the winner would become the new world #1, no matter what would happen in the subsequent final. With something so big at stake, she was left in the dark. They knew.
After winning the final over Dinara Safina, Ivanovic was never really the same shooting star who backed up her fame with similar big time results. She was #1 for twelve of the following thirteen weeks, but Jankovic ultimately finished the season atop the rankings while AnaIvo was #5 (actually one spot *worse* than she'd finished in '07). Ivanovic remained a big name, and finished her career with fifteen titles. But she never reached another slam final, and went 0-2 in high-level Premier finals, as well, after having gone 3-1 in such events prior to winning RG.
Ivanovic went seventeen slams without producing another major QF result, and twenty-seven before finally reaching the semifinals in Paris in 2015. She lost to Lucie Safarova. The Serb didn't use the result as a springboard to a "second life" as a resurgent slam contender, either. Instead, she never advanced past the 3rd Round in the remaining six majors at which she competed before announcing her retirement at age 29, before the start of the '17 season.
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Timea Bacsinszky, who a year earlier had essentially emerged from semi-retirement to win her first slam MD match in four years, returned to Roland Garros and put on a stunning run to the semifinals after never having previously been past the 3rd Round in a slam (and that had come in '08). The #23-seeded Swiss strung together upset wins over Madison Keys and Petra Kvitova to set up a semifinal match-up with Serena Williams.
Forever to be known as Serena's "flu match," this one featured the "bizarro" side of Williams' all-time career in a nutshell. She'll go down as one of the greatest players of all time, capable of laying waste to the field en route to numerous major titles. But unless they've witnessed certain aspects of "the Williams oeuvre" first hand, future tennis generations will have a hard time truly understanding the part of her career that has made matches like the one vs. Bacinsszky possible on what has seemed like a regular basis.
But even in a career full of "flipped switches" signaled by a well-placed roar or a thundering shot, Williams' 4-6/6-3/6-0 win stands alone. Battling a severe flu, coughing and often lumbering around the court in a deliberate fashion for a set and a half, Williams seemed ready to be sent packing. Trailing 6-4, and a break down at 3-2 in the 2nd, Williams hacked up something into a towel during the changeover... and then came off her chair and never lost another game.
As Williams charged toward her fourth win of the tournament after dropping the 1st set, Bacsinszky couldn't help but be chewed up by the gears of "Serenativity" in full production mode. Near the end, Serena chased down a wide ball, sliding across the backcourt and firing a forehand passing shot winner from behind the baseline. While still stretched out on the terre battue, she clenched her fist and stared into the face of the invisible enemy that once again had failed to get the best of her. A classic image to cement a classic win into the memory bank of history.
Starting with Francesca Schiavone's 2010 title run, Italians had seized the spotlight at every Roland Garros during the decade. Slowly but surely, that was changing.
While Sara Errani posted a fourth straight QF-or-better result (F-SF-QF-QF), it would be her last of the decade. Flavia Pennetta matched her career best RG result with a Round of 16 finish, but it would come in her final appearance in Paris, as she'd retire in October in the wake of her U.S. Open title run. Three-times running doubles finalists Errani & Roberta Vinci, after having completed their Career Doubles Slam in '14, had ended their partnership earlier in 2015 (the "official" stated reason: a greater focus on their singles play). Errani didn't play WD at Roland Garros at all, while Vinci teamed with fellow Italian Karin Knapp, losing in the 3rd Round.
Errani & Vinci, who very well could one day enter the Hall of Fame together for their doubles exploits on the WTA tour and in Fed Cup, only played in two more events together in their career, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, as well as one tune-up match in a tour event that same summer. Vinci would retire in 2018.
Meanwhile, Schiavone rebounded from her 1st Round exit in '14 with a 3rd Round finish, leaving another lasting impression in her 2nd Round clash with Svetlana Kuznetsova. As anticipated, Francesca and Sveta teamed up for another memorable slam "instant classic." At the 2011 Australian Open, they'd faced off in a slam record 4:44 marathon (w/ a 16-14 3rd set), while this "short" 3:50 affair was "only" the third-longest women's match in RG history. But that just condensed the drama into a shorter window. Schiavone held a set point in the 1st, but Kuznetsova took the lead on the fourth SP of her own. The Italian won the 2nd after being down an early break. In the 3rd, the Russian led 4-2 and served for the match four times, holding a match point, but Schiavone refused to give in, outlasting the '09 RG champ as the match ended with ten breaks of serve in the final eleven games. Schiavone won 6-7(11)/7-5/10-8.
So many emotions from 2010 champion @Schiavone_Fra after grinding out a 2R victory over #Kuznetsova. #RG15
https://t.co/e7Q9ECzvum
— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2015Vi siete divertiti?
Did you enjoy it?
@rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/mQBfFPBVib
— Francesca Schiavone (@Schiavone_Fra) May 28, 2015This classic French Open moment is brought to you by Francesca Schiavone. pic.twitter.com/a4j6CBuL0w
— Chris Oddo (@TheFanChild) May 28, 2015The win over Kuznetsova would turn out to be the '10 champ's final victory at RG, as she'd lose in the 1st Round each year from 2016 to 2018 and then retire that summer.
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Romanian Andreea Mitu was a surprise achiever in Paris, reaching the Round of 16 in just her second career slam MD appearance (after having fallen in qualifying in four of the previous five majors). The 23-year old had planned to quit the sport in 2014, only to suddenly find success with a Wimbledon Q-run and four ITF singles titles before the end of the summer. Come the '15 RG, Mitu upset world #12 Karolina Pliskova and former champ Schiavone en route to the 4th Round.
It remains the only slam at which Mitu, who became a mom in 2018, has ever won a MD match.
In a 1st Round match, Czech Denisa Allertova defeated Brit Johanna Konta in three sets in the debut RG appearances for both woman. But it was their very first *set* that proved to be historic. After neither player was able to break serve in the stanza, the two advanced to a tie-break that saw them combine for fifteen set points. After saving eight SP, Allertova converted on her own seventh SP to take the 19-17 TB, the longest ever at Roland Garros.
Meanwhile, Alison Van Uytvanck reached the RG quarterfinals, becoming the first Belgian to do so in Paris since four-time champ Justine Henin in 2007.
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20-year old Elina Svitolina reached her first career slam QF, having early in the tournament survived a three-hour contest against Yulia Putintseva. Putintseva had led 6-1/3-0, and held a 4-1 advantage in the 3rd set, as well. Svitolina ultimately won 1-6/6-5/9-7. After the tournament, she'd break into the Top 20 (#17) for the first time, surpassing Alona Bondarenko as the highest-ranked Ukrainian in WTA history.
Garbine Muguruza, 21, reached her second straight QF in Paris, defeating soon-to-be slam champs Angelique Kerber and Flavia Pennetta. A month later, she'd reach her first slam final at Wimbledon. A year later, she'd win her maiden slam crown at Roland Garros.
Sloane Stephens defeated Venus Williams in the 1st Round, adding her name to a select list, where it still stands today. Heading into the 2019 Roland Garros, Stephens was one of just two woman (w/ Ekaterina Makarova) who have defeated both Williams sisters in slam competiton but never risen to the #1 singles ranking. Over the next two seasons in 2016-17, three others who also held the distinction (Kerber, Muguruza and Ka.Pliskova) reached #1 and were removed from the list.
Stephens' 2015 RG run ended in the Round of 16 for a fourth straight year, falling to Serena Williams in three sets, 1-6/7-5/6-3. Stephens had been three points away from the win in game #10 of the 2nd set.
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Back at RG after a one year injury-related absence, Victoria Azarenka (a semifinalist in her last MD in Paris in '13) suffered her earliest defeat in the event since 2010, falling to Serena Williams in the 3rd Round, 3-6/6-4/6-2.
The match was made memorable/notorious by, first, Azarenka having led it 6-3/4-2, then due to controversy. Serving down 4-5 in the 2nd, on SP/BP for Williams, the Belarusian was angered by an important call that seemed have wrongly gone against her. A late "out" call on an Azarenka shot off the line was replayed after a ruling by chair umpire Kader Nouni. Williams had hit the ball before the linesperson's call, and the mark showed the ball to have been in. Azarenka in no way bought the notion that Serena's shot had been affected by the call.
Azarenka lost the replayed point, dropping the 2nd set. She audibly cursed and was given a code violation. After taking a 2-0 lead in the 3rd, Azarenka was increasingly frustrated by Williams, who raised the level of her game down the stretch. Serena won the final six games of the match, improving to 16-3 in their head-to-head series, and went on to win the title.
Due largely to a pregnancy break in 2016, and then a lengthy custody battle that curtailed her travel, Azarenka didn't win another match in Paris until 2019.
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Paula Badosa Gibert became the first junior slam champion to hail from Spain in sixteen years (Lourdes Dominguez Lino - '99 RG), defeating Russian Anna Kalinskaya in the girls final. As of 2019, she's still yet to make her MD women's singles debut in Paris.
Backing up their girls title in Melbourne earlier in the season, Miriam Kolodziejova & Marketa Vondrousova became the second all-Czech duo ('13 Krejcikova/Siniakova) in three years to win the RG junior doubles crown, defeating the U.S. duo of Caroline Dolehide & Katerina Stewart in the final.
Meanwhile, Vondrousova also reached the junior singles semis at RG for a second straight year. In '14 she'd done it as an unseeded player, while she was the #1 seed this time around. Both times she lost to the eventual champion, Dasha Kasatkina in '14 and Badosa a year later.
Making her junior slam debut was Canadian Bianca Andreescu. The 14-year old made it through qualifying, then lost in the 1st Round to #16-seeded Kalinskaya. During the '15 season, Andreescu began working with former world #3 and Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat. Said the French woman, "(Bianca) can do many things, she has good hands and she's a very powerful girl," adding, "She has big goals and she is doing many things to reach these big goals."
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30-year old Dutch wheelchair player Jiske Griffioen swept the singles and doubles titles. Defeating countrywoman Aniek Van Koot in the singles final, Griffioen won her second straight major in 2015. The two combined to win the WD, ending the bid of Yui Kamiji & Jordanne Whiley to win a sixth straight slam crown. It was the sixth slam crown won by the Dutch duo, all since 2012. Griffioen had won six previous WD majors with Esther Vergeer early in her career from 2006-08.
Following Roland Garros, Griffioen became the WC singles #1 for the first time.
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FASHION REPORT: Aga's diamond sparkle dress only lasted one match (she lost to Annika Beck, her worst slam result in Paris since 2007), but it lives on in mythic tales of tennis fashion...
Mladenovic's classic all-black ensemble will never go out of style...
Quite simply, Serena Williams is the most interesting champion in the world. She doesn't ALWAYS win majors, but when she does, she prefers to make them memorable.
As Williams has been mercilessly hunting down Steffi Graf's all-time slam title mark the last few seasons, it's worth noting that most of the German's 22 career slam title runs weren't particularly memorable for their "Grafic" drama. While Graf played seventeen three-set slam finals, winning thirteen of them, most of the dramatic slam moments and images that come to the mind's eye where she's concerned involve her opponents. The look of Martina Navratilova when she realized that she could hold back the overwhelming tide of the young upstart no longer. A crestfallen Jana Novotna crying on the shoulder of the Duchess of Kent. An overmatched Natalia Zvereva getting double-bageled in Paris. Martina Hingis crossing over to the other side of the net and eventually having to be corralled by her mother (and that was during the German's final slam win in '99, after a three-year drought, knee surgery and the general knowledge that she was close to calling it a career -- making that win probably *her* most dramatic moment of all).
Oh, Graf played some great, tight finals (a 10-8 3rd set in a RG win vs. Arantxa Sanchez in '96, for example) but, though we know it wasn't the case, since she visibly betrayed few of her emotions on court during play, it was often easier to see her as something of a Fraulein Forehand machine rather than a massive collection of nerve endings and firing brain synapses sometimes struggling to find a way to work together to discover a way to achieve a lasting success on the final point of the match.
The far more emotionally demonstrative Williams hides nothing. In fact, she's a virtual kaleidoscope of expression. If she's feeling great, you know it (and hear it). If she's not, you know that, too. Sometimes even when you'd think she'd be feeling great, she's yelling (or more) at herself to get it together and play at an even HIGHER level. One that befits her abilities. Only Serena, as she did during the last two weeks in Paris, would think to say that she considered a come-from-behind victory at this Roland Garros to be "unprofessional." Early on, before things REALLY got hairy later in the tournament, Williams said, "I never set the bar low for myself. That means I accept defeat -- and I never accept defeat." She added, "I think you have to be mentally ready and prepared for anything. And I'm not ever going to put myself in a position where I say I'm not good enough, because I know I am."
Even with the sight of a TRUE "Serenativity" moment on court being similar to driving past a car accident -- you almost don't want to look at the carnage left behind from a fallen Williams opponent on one of her very good days, but you just can't help but do it -- Williams' slam runs usually come with at least one edge-of-your-seat moment that would have altered the course of the tournament if things had only gone slightly differently. Three of Serena's slam wins have come after she's saved match point during the event. Four more times opponents have served for the match against her, only to fail. At her last RG title run in '13 she was down a break in the 3rd, while during the past two weeks she came back from a set down four times, including trailing Timea Bacsinszky in the semifinals 6-4/3-2, a break down while she was suffering from a debilitating flu that caused her to appear ready to keel over at any moment during the match.
Maybe more than any of her previous nineteen slam title runs, the one that Williams finished off in Paris today may be her greatest, simply for what it took for her to reach the finish line. But that's just how she does it.
Serena has managed to carve out a niche in tennis history for herself where she is BOTH the dominating force AND the troubled champion fighting against outside and inner forces to overcome her circumstances and climb to the top of the tennis mountain. Again. And again. And again. Maybe only Andre Agassi (ironically, Graf's husband) was ever able to even come close to being able to manipulate the moments of a career in quite so many opposing ways. Not by treachery or cynical machinations (which marked Agassi's early career), no matter the whispers that still frustratingly linger in her wake after all these years, but by the act of Serena simply being Serena. For all her drama and athletic dramatics. For all her excellence, as well as the old frustrations that once led Chris Evert to publicly call for her take a chance on living up to the fantastic possibility of her talent before it was too late, for the good of herself and the sport. To all of Williams' positive attributes, of which there are so many, as well as to her faults, many of which most have a hard time agreeing upon, and some of which have been rounded off over the years for better public consumption. Serena is the total package. So much so, as with most stars that project a larger than life persona, that people will always have to agree to disagree about her on some level. Where Williams is concerned, three people could look at the same body of career evidence, with all the questions and athletic earthquakes combined therein, and you'd likely get three totally different opinions, both personally and professionally, and no one of the three would likely choose to truly alter their opinion no matter any conflicting evidence to the contrary that might be presented.
Serena is tennis' version of a flesh-and-blood Rorschach test.
But Williams still needed to win her third Roland Garros, or else all her extraordinary work in Paris will have gone for naught. Lost TO history, rather than another chapter in her drive to MAKE it. All that was required was one final push in the final against Lucie Safarova. A win would give her a third Career Grand Slam (only Graf has managed the feat), make her the first woman since 2001 to open a season with back-to-back slam titles, and become the first to win three consecutive majors since the "Serena Slam" run that saw her win four in row from 2002-03.
After forty-eight hours to recuperate from her illness, Williams came out like a house a-fire in the final.
Williams held for 5-2, winning her fifth consecutive game.
"Come onnnnnn!!!!"
There was no stopping her now. Serena took a 30/love lead on Safarova's serve, then when the Czech fired a shot long it was triple match point.
"Come onnnnnn!!!!"
Serena hooked a forehand return into the short court, and Safarova failed to get it back. It was over, and Williams had won. Again. 6-3/6-7(3)/6-2, pulling yet another rabbit out of a hat full of them... and surprising no one by it.
As Williams officially became just the second woman in the Open era to claim a 20th career singles slam, she let loose her racket and raised her arms to the sky. Her expression spoke volumes. Depending on which Serena one saw, there were various captions that could have been placed with it.
"Are you not entertained?" Or maybe, "I can't believe I just did this again... oh, wait, YES I can." Some might have even seen something along the lines of, "F*** this s***... now let me go to sleep for a week." Although, honestly, maybe you would have had to have been within earshot of the many moments in which she cursed herself out to have immediately gone with that last one. Hmmm, or maybe not. Either way, it was assuredly the most "drop the mic and walk off" moment as can be remembered in tennis in ages. At least since the end of the Connors/McEnroe era, I'd say.
Now, but not quite yet, Serena is more and more history's subject to examine. This win makes her 20-4 in slam finals. She's won seven straight, losing only one major final ('11 U.S. Open vs. Stosur) since 2008, and only once to a player not also named Williams since Sharapova shocked her in the Wimbledon final in 2004 (and then was made to never, ever forget it).
As things stand, Williams has now won seven slam titles since she turned 30. Graf won her last in the final days of her 29th year. And Serena doesn't look to be close to slowing down just yet, either. And why should she? What does she have to be afraid of? She's so far stared down illness, injury, life, death, controversy and all sorts of other things said or left unspoken. She's a living, breathing icon of sport, not just in the U.S., or in "women's sports." But in SPORT, period, all over the world.
There's no excuse not to appreciate that fact, for we'll never see the likes of her this way again. We've been lucky to have witnessed what we have so far, let alone what's left to see.
* - "I wanted to play on a smaller court. But that’s the way it is." - Caroline Garcia, after her 1st Round loss on Chatrier Court
* - "I can't make it here, it doesn't depend on the opponent, it depends on myself and I can't play here at the French Open and I hope it can change in the future." - Caroline Garcia
* - "For me, it's too much to play on this (Chatrier) court and next year I will ask to play on Court Number 9. A sort of hidden court where there's nobody there." - Caroline Garcia
* - "I never tried to be brilliant, I always tried to be efficient." - Timea Bacsinszky, on her successful game plan to defeat Petra Kvitova in the QF
* - "That call was bull****, everyone knows it" - Victoria Azarenka's reaction to a controversial call in her 3rd Round match vs. Serena Williams
* - "Not only is Serena one of the best women players of all time, she's also one of the best actresses." - British player Tara Moore, reacting on Twitter to Serena Williams' visible reactions to suffering from the flu in her SF match vs. Timea Bacsinszky
* - "Not sure why death threats are being sent. Opinions are nothing but that, I just value good sportsmanship and really feel for timea..." - Tara Moore, after receiving online threats due to her comments about Williams
* - "I think she's always known she's had the potential. She's just maturing. We all do. As she matures and starts to grow, she realizes what she hasn't done and what she has done and she kind of puts it together in a nice package now where she's able to accept and take control." - coach Rob Steckley, on Lucie Safarova
* - "I never set the bar low for myself. That means I accept defeat -- and I never accept defeat." - Serena Williams
* - "I think you have to be mentally ready and prepared for anything. And I'm not ever going to put myself in a position where I say I'm not good enough, because I know I am." - Serena Williams
posted by Todd.Spiker @ 12:54 AM
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