With the field getting weaker and Maria Sharapova getting better, things are coming together for the seventh-seeded Russian at the French Open. Sharapova played her best match of this year’s tournament on Saturday, dominating Yung-Jan Chan of Taiwan 6-2, 6-3 on Court Philippe Chatrier. “I felt like I was in control most of the match.
Mardy Fish summed up the mindset of American tennis players at the French Open after his loss Saturday left the United States without a man or woman in the clay-court Grand Slam tournament’s fourth round. “It’s never too early,” the 10th-seeded Fish said, “to think about grass for us.” Only once before in the Open era, which began in 1968, had zero men or women from the…
The last U.S. woman in the French Open, 115th-ranked Vania King, lost 6-4, 6-2 to No. 9-seeded Petra Kvitova in the third round Saturday. King was one of nine Americans who entered the women’s tournament. The last time a U.S. woman other than Serena or Venus Williams reached the fourth round at Roland Garros was 2005.
With the way tennis heavyweights Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro traded rounds on Friday, there was the expectation they’d continue to do so on Saturday in the resumption of their third-round match at the French Open. Instead, it was a decisive knockout.
Djokovic used early breaks in both of Saturday’s sets to take the much-anticipated matchup in four sets, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. It was the 41st straight victory for Djokovic to open the season, putting him one behind John McEnroe‘s record. He’ll have a chance to tie the mark on Sunday against Frenchman Richard Gasquet.
Saturday’s match against the former Grand Slam champ del Potro turned in an instant. The Argentine had two break points at 2-2 in the third set and had meaty second serves to return on both of those chances. He would lose four straight points and the game. Djokovic broke del Potro in the next game and then held his serve at love. Del Potro nearly held a break advantage. Almost instantly, it was a 5-2 deficit. There was little doubt as to what the result would be after that.
All the thought that del Potro would have an advantage because of the extra night of rest or that Djokovic would be frustrated by his unfortunate draw and the inept scheduling were for naught. In retrospect, of course neither of those things mattered. Djokovic is playing the best tennis in the world. A few curveballs weren’t going to change that.
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PARIS—“Be ready, be ready, be ready!”
“Find your pace.”
“Hit your shots.”
These urgent words of advice are being directed toward Viktor Troicki from the front rows of the Bullring as he begins his match on Saturday morning. While they may sound a little basic and obvious as far as professional tennis coaching goes—it’s hard to even call it coaching in the specific sense—they also seem appropriate to the moment. That’s because Troicki is playing a guy with a knack for taking his opponents out of their games and making them forget all about their fundamentals, Alexandr Dolgopolov.
When Troicki’s advisers say “Be ready!” they’re really only telling him to be ready for one shot: the drop. “All he does is hit that shot,” one of his coaches says to another. And while that’s technically an exaggeration—Dolgopolov is hitting serves to start the points—it’s only a slight one. The Ukrainian trickster and ponytailed touch artist is hitting drop shots the way Rafael Nadal hits forehands—that is, as often as humanly possible.
He’s been struggling a little with his normal backhand drive of late, so in one sense the drop is a Plan B. But you also get the feeling that this is the way he loves to play, this is what makes tennis not boring for the kid who spent his boyhood on tour with his coach father and has had a love-hate relationship with it ever since. He loves carving under the ball delicately and with varying degrees of underspin and sidespin. Loves trying to make that little “pfft” sound with his strings, the one you hear when you really slice the ball thin, catch it an oblique angle, and make the strings move, the one that usually means the ball is going to crawl over the net and die and drive your opponent up a wall.
And that’s exactly where Troicki is in the middle of the second set. He’s won the first, but been broken early in the second. He’s tried to be ready for every drop shot, every occult spin, every strange and surprising carve of Dolgopolov’s racquet, and he’s mostly succeeded. He has been ready. But in this set it hasn’t been enough. Troicki tracks down Dolgopolov’s drops, but they’re so close to the net that all he can do is flip a feeble reply over the net and right into his opponent’s strike zone. When Dolgopolov brings him up to the net and passes him for what seems to be the 10th straight point, Troicki stops, puts his hands on his hips, and stares across the net at his advisers, as if to say, “I was ready, geniuses, and look what happened.”
Among the players, one word is enough to describe Dolgopolov: unpredictable. You never know what’s coming next, and that’s certainly true for Troicki today. Think of the things he must be prepared for from one shot to the next: Aside from the ever-present threat of the drop, there’s the Dolgopolov backhand that comes in with so much sidespin that it bounces straight up, like a top; the backhand with an extra helping of extreme backspin; the backhand hit like a flat, ground-hugging rocket; the slice forehand that floats; the slice forehand that stays slow and buzzes the net cord; the return that Dolgopolov brushes with reverse sidespin, like a pitcher’s screwball. It’s this last shot that really shows the kind of magical feel that he has for the ball. Dolgopolov tries it out of necessity, when he’s jammed. Yet even when he’s jumping out of the way of the serve, he still makes contact softy, delicately, and manages to do something a little unusual with the ball.
But it’s an unfortunate fact of tennis that more options does not make the game easier. It just forces you to make choices, to leave things out, to think—the worst thing any player can do as he’s preparing to take his racquet back. For Dolgopolov, a brainy computer lover who has been blessed and cursed with a free spirit, it may mean having to forego some of the elements of the sport that it fun for him, that keep it from being the drag that it got to be in his early days on tour. His struggle is the struggle of the tennis artist to reconcile his idiosyncrasies and outlandlish flights of shot-making fancy with the duller needs of winning. Watching Dolgopolov, you see the limits of tennis’s version of individualism, of its opportunities for self-expression. An artist is paid to go his own way and do his own free-spirited thing. A tennis player isn’t.
Dolgopolov and John McEnroe have little in common as personalities—Dolgo is a mellow and, at least on the surface, distinctly un-tortured artist. McEnroe, well, was not exactly like that as a person, but he was an equally idiosyncratic and artistic player, with a bizarre service motion and hands of magic. As Mary Carillo said of McEnroe after he won the famous fourth-set tiebreaker over Bjorn Borg at Wimbledon in 1980, that was the moment when he couldn’t just be the artist anymore, because he knew he could be the champion.
McEnroe found success because he felt a striver’s obligation to make the most of that talent. He thought he should win every match and went berserk when he didn’t live up to his own expectations. While Dolgopolov has found his love for the sport again, there’s little evidence to suggest that he possesses an extreme drive to succeed or a belief that he should win every match he plays. But there are positive signs for the future. Today, when he abandoned the drop shot, he won points by playing solid, first-strike, big-forehand tennis—he can do it that way, too. And when he got down at the end of the fourth set, he fought brilliantly and doggedly, saving six set points. Dolgopolov also seems to have found a similarly free spirit in his coach, Jack Reader, a shaggy, gregarious, chain-smoking Australian. Will he need a disciplinarian at some point to take him farther? It’s hard to imagine Dolgopolov, like the similarly talented and stubbornly laconic Andy Murray, responding well to that.
To me, Dolgopolov is worth rooting for, not just to see him make the ball spin like a top and drop a centimeter in front of the net, but because I’d like to see someone who can expand the game in so many directions make those directions useful; to see a guy who can do so many things with a racquet also win with one. Watching someone win is enjoyable, too, no matter how a player goes about it. Today, after all of Dolgopolov’s spectacular shots had been used up and ultimately gone for naught, I walked out of the Bullring with a new respect for his opponent, Troicki. He’s taller and stronger than he looks on TV, and a more powerful athlete. He had to do a ton of running, and watch for every kind of shot possible coming off of his opponent’s racquet. And he had to hold serve in the end after squandering six match points in the previous game. Troicki had, as his advisers said, to ignore the crazy genius across from him. He had to hit his shots and find his pace. He was ready.
***
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PARIS—Today, Andy Murray looked on his way to a routine victory over German journeyman Michael Berrer when he twisted his right ankle sliding to retrieve a drop shot. As he hobbled to the sideline, it looked like Murray’s Roland Garros could be over. But I’d seen before, with my own eyes, that Murray was made of durable stuff, and he did indeed scrap his way through this third-round tie to a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 win.
The first time I saw Murray play in person was at Indian Wells, in 2007, in a quarterfinal against Tommy Haas. A set down, Murray twisted his ankle severely and looked certain to retire. But he played on, stunning Haas on his way to victory in a third-set tiebreaker.
Over four years later, in a similar scenario, play restarted in the second set at 2-1, ad Murray. The ailing Scot converted the break, but his movement and service speed was clearly impaired in the next game, and Berrer broke immediately to get back on serve. Had Berrer been able to turn the screw and win the set, it’s possible Murray might have chosen not to prolong the contest three weeks before Wimbledon. But Berrer’s game isn’t built on finesse and placement, while Murray has the ability to finish almost any point with one swing of his racquet. As Murray quickened the tempo, Berrer simply had no answer.
Murray’s quarter isn’t murderer’s row, with his next opponent, Viktor Troicki, the strongest remaining challenger. Nadal looms as a semifinal opponent, and Murray will need miraculous powers of recuperation if he’s to mount a challenge to the King of Clay—if he gets that far.
Murray’s temperament and style of play has come under a lot of criticism over the years. Maybe he’d be a better player if he went on the attack more, but there’s more than one kind of bravery. No one can question his ability to fight through pain and come out of that battle on top.
—Andrew Burton
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Between playing his first fifth set at Roland Garros in the first round and nearly losing a set 6-1 in the second, it’s been a strange start to the French Open for Rafael Nadal. But today’s match with Antonio Veic was a good plate of home cookin’, something he’s savored many times before. The world No. 1 had few problems in reaching the fourth round, defeating the qualifier in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.
In just 11 minutes, Nadal had taken a 3-0, double-break, first-set lead. Veic, who beat Nikolay Davydenko in five sets to reach the third round, didn’t display any shots that could trouble the five-time champ, even if they were enough to oust the former third-ranked Russian. A Juan Monaco-lite—big swings on his groundstrokes, similar appearance—Veic improved in the second set, breaking Nadal twice, yet he still managed to lose the set 6-3. The Croatian had trouble holding serve all day, particularly in the third set, when he failed do so even once. The chasm between the two widened as the match waned, confirmed by the final-set shutout.
Even with this dominant performance, do we know where Nadal is at, form-wise? It was hard to gauge in his scare with John Isner, and his play against Pablo Andujar left pundits divided. Today was a complete mismatch. We should know more after his fourth-rounder, against either Fernando Verdasco or Ivan Ljubicic, two veterans who have each played well so far in Paris.
—Ed McGrogan
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Most American singles hopes have dissipated in Roland Garros, but an American brand is trying to gain traction in the crowded racquet landscape by issuing a guarantee for the duration of the tournament.
Donnay is taking an unprecedented step of offering a 30-day, money-back guarantee on its new Dual Core racquets—the X-P Dual and X-Dual Lines—during the French Open. Racquets covered by the guarantee include the X-Dual Silver 99, X-Dual Silver 99 Lite, X-Dual Gold (in 94 and 99 square inch head sizes), X-Dual Platinum (in 94 and 99 square inch head sizes), X-P Dual and X-P Lite (which comes in two colors—black with white trim and white with pink trim). Each racquet retails for $198.
Donnay says selling its racquets online through its web site, Donnayusa.com, gives the brand the ability to offer the limited-time, money-back guarantee.
“We’re the only racquet company selling directly to the consumer, so we have the ability to do things other racquet companies can’t do and this is one of them,” says Donnay CEO Bobby Choe, whose brother Jerry Choe heads design and manufacturing of the brand’s racquets. “We strongly believe in our racquets and this is a way to put our money where our mouth is and show consumers we stand behind the quality of our racquets.”
The guarantee, which is in effect from now until the French Open ends on June 5, applies only to racquets purchased on Donnayusa.com and not to phone orders or racquets purchased in retail shops. Returned racquets must not be “abused or destroyed” and must include all original parts in order to qualify for the refund. The consumer is responsible for shipping the racquet back to Donnay’s New York City headquarters as well as paying all shipping costs. Any returned racquet must be postmarked or shipped within 30 days from the day the racquet was received by the customer in order to qualify for the refund. Donnay will issue a refund of the full purchase price (it will not refund shipping, handling or stringing costs) within 14 days of receiving the returned racquet.
It is believed to be the first time an American-based brand is offering a money-back racquet guarantee.
“I’m not aware of any other racquet company offering that kind of guarantee,” says Woody Schneider, who owns Grand Central Racquet and New York City Racquet Sports in Manhattan. “It is unique, though I think it opens up a can of worms if brands start selling directly online; obviously it impacts racquet sales for retail stores already competing with the big online warehouses.”
Emile Donnay founded the brand in 1910 in Belgium. The company made wood tool handles before beginning to manufacture wood racquets in 1934. Rod Laver briefly played with Donnay. The brand enjoyed its halcyon days when Bjorn Borg won Wimbledon playing with Donnay (Borg played with Donnay in European tournaments). Andre Agassi wielded a Donnay when he defeated Goran Ivanisevic in a five-set thriller to capture his first career Grand Slam championship at the 1992 Wimbledon. In 1996, Sports Direct International acquired global rights to Donnay but devalued the brand’s reputation by producing a $99 entry-level frame that distanced Donnay from its loyal following. The Choe brothers bought the U.S. licensing rights and relaunched Donnay USA last summer, debuting its ultra-thin beam player frames.
Will the reward of potential sales justify the risk of the guarantee—which could cost the company if consumers take advantage of the return policy? Choe says five months of play-testing with a wide range of consumers gives Donnay confidence their sticks will have staying power.
“That’s obviously the biggest risk: that we could have a lot of returns,” Choe says. “But from what we’ve seen across the board from different segments of the market, play-testing with hundreds of different players of different genders, different ages and different skill levels we’ve received a very uniform, positive response to our new racquets. We started play-testing Dual Core in December so we’ve done a lot of research and the response has been so favorable we decided to take this step.”
*Racquet Review: Donnay X-Dual Gold 99
*Racquet Review: Donnay X-Red 99
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Well, it looks like Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 seed at the Fench Open and the dude surfing on a 41-match winning streak, will have to play a best-of-three clay-court match with Juan Martin del Potro to determine which man advances to the fourth round—and to determine whether Djokovic will continue to have a shot at shattering John McEnroe’s record winning streak of 42 matches to start a year.
It’s kind of crazy, how in tennis the consensus match-of-the-day (and in this case, the expression hardly does the pairing justice) can end up not happening—or, as in this case, half-happening, simply because the game isn’t played under a clock. IMO, the promoters ought to have been aware of this possibility, and scheduled the match earlier in the the day.
Fans who were lusting to see the much-hyped Djokovic vs. del Potro had to sit through a long, long prelude and didn’t even get what they came for. And it isn’t like this was one of those one-off days when everything more or less breaks the wrong way to screw up the schedule (that’s usually a combination of multiple, unexpectedly long matches and weather).
Did it never occcur to the tournament director that Stan Wawrinka and and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga could go four hours? Hail, the odds that it would go that long were better than the odds on it being over in 120 minutes.
This was not just a big faux pas, it also benefits del Potro, who’s still trying to find his competitive form and stamina after missing most of last year. I wrote yesterday that the odds favored Djokovic if he could turn the match into a debilitating war, and the longer the match went on the more it would help the Serbian star. That potential advantage is now in ruins, and the odds of del Potro halting Djokovic’s streak this morning are much better than they were yesterday morning.
The next most interesting match to me on the ATP side is the clash between Mardy Fish and Gilles Simon. The most compelling WTA pairing is the Andrea Petkovic vs. Jarmila Gajdosova clash.
The matches I can just soon miss? Maria Kirilenko vs. Arantxa Rus and Lukasz Kubot vs. Alejandro Falla.
– Pete
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Rafael Nadal breezed into the fourth round at the French Open on Saturday, regaining his dominant form by dispatching Croatian qualifier Antonio Veic 6-1, 6-3, 6-0. The five-time champion at Roland Garros needed five sets to win his opening match, and was then pushed to tiebreaker in the deciding third set of his next match.
