39 posts categorized "May 2011"
by Pete Bodo
PARIS—Svetlana Kuznetsova called it her "worst dream" and quickly amended it to "worse than the worst dream." There she was, multiple Grand Slam event champion and a recent French Open singles titlist (2009) on these same red-clay courts, a former world No. 2 and a player recently in resurgence, staring at a wide, wide open draw with the defending champion (Francesca Schiavone) waiting in the semifinal—if only Kuznetsova could get by the lowly No. 11 seed, Marion Bartoli.
And you know how almost all of those French players get a little rubbery-legged and mentally paralyzed when the French Open rolls around.
But Bartoli has always been a sort of bête noir among the French, which might have been a good thing when it came to the task of staying in touch with her mojo here at Roland Garros. And Kuznetsova has never exactly been a stock that paid consistent dividends. As a result, Kuznetsova got bushwacked in a premature celebration of Bastille Day masquerading as a tennis match today on Court Suzanne Lenglen. Bartoli cleaned the lines—and Sveta's clock—7-6 (4), 6-4.
Kuznetsova had a bitter taste in her mouth afterwards, and she trotted out a one-two punch rationale that's a distant cousin to the Twinkie Defense; let's call it the Sour Grapes Defense. She said, "I think she had all the luck possible. She hit so many lines. My balls were going three millimeters, four millimeters out."
Oh. And here i thought that you were supposed to hit the lines, and keep the ball in play.
Cue that old pop chestnut, Another One Bites the Dust in this, the year of the wide-open women's French Open, in which many of the most promising contenders have been so spooked by the magnitude of that the opportunity that they've pulled the trigger too early, too late—or sometimes not at all.
Remember the not-so-long longshot, Petra Kvitova? Gone. Remember the nominal favorite, No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki? Long gone. Remember 2010 finalist Sam Stosur? Pffffft. How about No. 2 seed Kim Clijsters? Same story. Throw in No. 3 seed Vera Zvonareva, former champ Ana Ivanovic, and former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic. Adios, leading ladies of the WTA! Earlier today, defending champ Francesca Schiavone was down a set and 4-1 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (she did manage to pull it out, but barely). How's going to win this thing, anyway, RuPaul? Or that other slave to fashion, Maria Sharapova?
Well, one thing we know: None of the above, except possibly Sharapova and Schiavone. And she gets Bartoli next. It will be a head-on collision between two women who have built up a good head of steam—Schiavone, because her comeback win today, is probably psyched out of her gourd and feeling like, when it comes to Roland Garros, she can do no wrong. Bartoli? Because this is a dream come true, and this girl is just wacky enough not to cave to the pressure that has laid so many of her opportunistic rivals so low.
Perhaps being French, and therefore almost always tied up in knots at this tournament, has made it seem like the anxieties induced by the wide-open nature of the event were more manageable. Bartoli was ecstatic when she won the match, and spoke openly about her joy—and her past, problematic relationship with her native tournament—after she wrapped up her berth in the semis:
"The past years I really felt the pressure here. I've been in a bad way. I was really going to the court without any confidence, to be honest. I was feeling. . . I was not feeling well on the court, I was not feeling well outside the court. I was scared about what the press would say when I'm gonna lose the match, or whatever.
"I really thought that this year I should try to take some pleasure, even though it's difficult, because, of course, we are French and we want to do well. I really tell myself, If you use that crowd, if you use that to put some pressure on the other one, maybe you can do well."
Still, it isn't as if Bartoli has rolled through her matches. In the first round, she played a young lady barely ranked in the Top 100 (Anna Tatishvili), and lost the first set, 6-1, in all of 30 minutes. She went on to win that one, and had two other three-set adventures on her way to the quarterfinals. The up side? "I really felt like I was growing in confidence. Really today it showed."
But if Bartoli were going to succumb to a heart attack, it would have happened after she closed out Kuznetsova, to cap a day in which she heard her name cascading down from the steep walls of Lenglen, and watched her countrymen do the wave—which is the ultimate thumbs-up a crowd bestows upon any match here.
"Even if I played the final of Wimbledon (2007), I never felt that excited after a match, to be honest," Bartoli said. "It was just so many feelings the same time. . . the crowd. . .the wave. . . the crowd. They were supporting me and when she (Kuznetsova) missed that forehand (on match point), I was just like, My God, I'm in the semifinal of my home Grand Slam! Finally I can play well here."
But that threat of a heart attack was minimal. She told us, "My heartbeat is extremely low, so for me to have a heart attack it really takes a lot."
Don't push your luck. For French player of either sex to win the title at Roland Garros takes a lot, too.
by Pete Bodo
PARIS—Defending French Open champion Francesca Schiavone showed up at Stade Roland Garros today to play a quarterfinal match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in a pure white top and a skirt with a puffy, almost frilly bottom. But for those conspicuous white compression shorts Schiavone wore under the skirt, you could easily mistake her ensemble for a party dress. Yet for the longest time today, it looked like she was all dressed up with no place to go but down.
The stadium was nearly empty when the women started, and the day was cold and blustery, with intervals of spitting rain. The Chatrier Court, which has been Schiavone's white carriage since the start of last year's tournament, suddenly had turned into a pumpkin. For a set-and-a-half plus, the 30-year old champion looked doomed; her tennis was nothing short of cringe-worthy, and her expressive grunts (on clay, she's so creative that she even grunts differently, depending on the shot) just added to the gathering sense of pathos.
Pavlyuchenkova was conspicuously younger, faster, and stronger as she built a 6-1, 4-1 lead.
You didn't need to be a fortune-teller to read Schiavone's mind at that point. As she told us in the press conference afterward: "I am 6-1, 4-1 down, and I say, 'Francie, this is the way (it) go. Today (it is) like this. Keep going.' I was really sad inside, but what can you do? Nobody can change (it); just me."
The depth of Schiavone's misery only made her subsequent reversal of fortune that much more striking. For by the time we passed the two-hour mark in this match, Pavlyuchenkova was still undoubtedly younger (at 19, by whopping 11 years), but she no longer looked stronger and she certainly didn't look fitter. Given that Pavlyuchenkova is a big talent still learning the ropes, we'll just call that extra weight she appears to be carrying "baby fat" and drop the subject.
Experience played a role in the way Pavlyuchenkova ultimately faded while Schiavone blossomed. As Schiavone said, "I think she played really good, but maybe she had less experience than me. Today I think my 30 years old. . .I could use it."
Schiavone ulitimately won it, 1-6, 7-5, 7-5, and if the match seemed an open-and-shut case of a player (Schiavone) dangling her nose—and toes—over the precipice only to do an about-face and take control of her destiny, it was ultimately silly to talk about specific turning points, not when we had three consecutive holds only twice in the entire match, 13 breaks and 29 break points. The saving grace? Both women played bold, attacking tennis despite the difficult, windy conditions. This was anything but one of those error-strewn choking contests masquerading as a tennis match, not once we passed that second set milepost of 4-1.
I'll let Pavyluchenkova tell what happened there, given that it was the size of her check, not mine, that ultimately suffered: "I lost a little bit lost my concentration at 4 1 in the second. So everything was going well. Everything was going my way, I was dictating the game, and then all of the sudden she just took her serve at 4 1, she played good game.
"At 4-2 I lost my concentration and I wasn't aggressive enough, and I just didn't serve well. I don't know. . .That game wasn't very good for me. 4-3, she started to feel better and she found her game and was putting a lot of balls in. They were so high. It was really tough for me to attack them because they were high. I didn't feel like power anymore. I was trying to hit hard, and so she did a great job. After, she had courage, and it was tough to stop her."
That's as good an analysis as we require, and it touches on some key points, albeit obliquely. Although Pavyluchenkova played a few very strong games near the end of the match, for a long interval there she looked a little tired, a bit dull. How could it be that an, ahem, "mature" woman could wind up looking like she has more energy than a punk 29-year old? "
"I think now everybody are really fit and ready for every kind of matches and every kind of surface," Schiavone said. "So the young player are coming, but is not easy like before to win easy. Either you are a big, big talent or now you can find 28 or 30 years olds (tougher), and they use experience, they use body, mind. So for young player is much tougher now than before."
Fitness is just one piece of the success puzzle, though, and as well as Schiavone takes care of her body it also requires tools and determination to come within one match of playing a second consecutive final at Roland Garros. Schiavone has hit upon a terrific if simple game plan as her basic strategy on clay. To use her words: "The key is to play deep and with spin and as soon as I have the chance, go inside (to the net)."
Unfortunately, early in the match Schiavone had trouble keeping the ball in play long enough to set herself up for either a winning placement or an attack on the net. She was just spinning her wheels, experiencing the same troubles so familiar to rec players: "The true is that I couldn't play inside the court, inside the line."
But her patience and experience-based caution bore dividends in her most trying hour."The key is to hit three, four, five, six, seven balls," she explained, "But I couldn't arrive at three, or four. So I say, 'Keep going.' That's the way to win, or to try to do something. Otherwise if I go to the net in one shot, no way to win. . .If I have to lose, I have to lose in a right way."
Short version: Schiavone refused to panic. Players of her class are exempt from that rule saying, Never change a winning game and always change a losing one.
One thing that struck me, sitting very close to the court, is that it's difficult to get a proper appreciation, watching on television, for the amount of spin Schiavone uses and how troublesome it is for an opponent—even for one who's got Pavyluchenkova's nearly remarkable facility for meeting a ball of almost any height with the racket more or less parallel to the ground; she adjusts the plane of her stroke naturally and effectively without using more spin or wrist than she ideally wants. The admission that she felt as if she were losing power was telling. And it's not like Pavlyuchenkova, at 5' 10" is a slip of a thing.
It's obvious now that Schiavone's game somehow took a quantum leap here last year (if you can figure it out, please write), and that despite her age, despite the late coalescence of what is now a lethal clay-court style and strategy, despite the inventive and risk-friendly nature of her game (a combination that has spelled d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r for more than one player of either sex), she's not about to backslide.
On her way off the court, Schiavone bent over briefly to scoop up a handful of the granular top-dressing on Chatrier, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Why did she do that and what was she thinking? someone asked. Schiavone smiled and said: "I couldn't go down (lower). I was pain in my legs, so I say thanks in that way. But it was a kiss."
I guess being 30 isn't always a bed of roses. Could have fooled me today.
 Mornin'. It's a dodgy day here, with gusting winds and dark clouds alternating with clear, sunny skies. Strong chance of thunderstorms, which seems improbable one minute, inevitable the next. We gonna see, no?
You've got to hand it to the French, they sure have a sense of style, ranging from the sleek-chic to the mortifyingly funky - strolling across the grounds a few minutes ago, I passed a middle-aged lady whose hair was frosted purple to match her purple elf-boots (you know, the kind with turned up toes; the only thing missing was a bell on each one). Am I tempted to go out and buy one of those long scarves that the French fellas like to wrap around their necks, right above the motorcycle jacket? Not today.
I'm looking forward to checking out Pavlyuchenkova on Chatrier today; Elise Burgin (remember her? Pal and doubles partner of Pam Shriver, earthy lady with a great sense of humor) thinks she's got huge talent and great feel for the ball. That analysis suprised me, I confess. I've never focused on her closely enough to have a strong impression, one way or another.
I'll also cover the other Bartoli vs. Kuznetsova match, and post on both of them. 'Dios for now.
-- Pete
by Pete Bodo
PARIS—The irony of it all will not be lost on most of you. Rafael Nadal, No. 1 in the world, defending champion here at the French Open and a clay-court warrior who's lost exactly one match in what is now his seventh year of competition on the red plains of Roland Garros, is said to be in a crisis.
It's a crisis of "confidence."
This wouldn't be such an absurd idea if it were merely the press trying to whip up its usual mischief based on those two losses opn red clay to Novak Djokovic in recent weeks. But it appears that Nadal buys into the narrative, too. It shows in his pained or merely worried facial expressions on the court. It shows in those games that he now sometimes blows, allowing what once were 6-1 or 6-2 sets to become fat, 6-4 or even 7-5. And it shows in how sincerely he tackles the questions flung at him, questions with enough negative implications to make any proud player prickly or bellicose.
After a straight-sets win over Ivan Ljubicic today, Nadal said it was "a fantastic result to be in the quarterfinals. . . without losing a set" and in the next breath he volunteered: "(But) I think I still playing a little bit with too anxious for moments, so it happened today, no?"
It's a tightrope Nadal is walking, trying to be honest and objective without further undermining his confidence with his admissions (just making the effort deserves an "A," given how the relation of top players with the press generally ranges from suspicion-laden to downright adversarial). You could more easily extract a molar from the mouth of most tennis players than the admission, "I am not worthy."
"Win this tournament again? " Nadal asked, somewhat rhetorically. "No, seriously, I am not confident. I am not playing enough well to win this tournament at the (level) of today. That's the true. The thing is you have to be realist, and today I'm not playing enough well to win this tournament. We will see after tomorrow if I am ready to play at this level. I going to try. . ."
If you've observed Nadal long enough, you probably know that his humility is neither intentionally self-effacing nor self-serving; it's actually his lodestar. He's no saint, but as far as appealing sources of motivation and perhaps even egotism go, it's a good one. Humility has brought him awful far, and if nothing else it's kept him remarkably free of the Big Three afflictions to which great players fall prey when they hit some rough sledding: petulance, paranoia and peevishness.
Still, there are glimmers of rebellion against the nature of the questions now being put to him, and the implications they carry. He offers gentle reminders and affirmations of his abilities and achievements. The end of the answer about his form, quoted above, was: "But I won four times already here, five times already here. I don't have an obligation to win six. I going to try for sure."
Or, consider this surprisingly philosophical meditation on the persistent use of the word "problem" in these deconstructions of Nadal's psychic and physical state: "People talk a lot about the problems I have. That's true. I'm not playing my best tennis, but, you know, people who want to find problems can always find them. The objective is to look beyond that. . .
"People should stop using the word 'problem.' We should try to find solutions and play with happiness, which is what I know. I know how to do this, being aggressive and intensive. I have nearly found this type of game again. I have positive thoughts, and next match is going to be important. If I don't win the match, I'll walk back home. But I'll be happy, because I know I'll have done everything I can so that I can fight until the end."
This may sound suspiciously like the tennis equivalent of the plea for world peace, but it's about the least antagonistic thing he could say, given how doggedly he's peppered with questions about a real or imagined decline of confidence, or game. Almost every question asked of Nadal these days is either overtly or implicitly a criticism of his game, and often couched in a form that demands that he compare himiself to. . . himself.
I'm a little surprised that Rafa, a fisherman himself, would rise to some of this bait. When he was asked to compare his present form with the past—any old time in the past since he began winning this tournament—he appeared to blow off the query. But, surprisingly, he returned to it.
"Going to be long if I have to have all the comparisons. In 2006 I think I didn't play well during all the tournament; in 2007, normal; 2008, I played fantastic, but I played fantastic especially quarterfinals, semifinals, and final. 2009 I think I played terrible all the tournament; 2010, so‑so. Much better semifinals and finals than previous matches. Very so‑so, in my opinion, no? This year, the second match was especially bad. First match wasn't that bad, in my opinion. Second match was bad level. Third match was positive, I think."
My colleague Ubaldo Scanagatta picked up on all this in today's presser and opined that in his forty-plus years of covering tennis, he'd never seen a No. 1 player subjected to so much, well, grief, about how "badly" he's playing while holding his position. Did Nadal find this surprising (read: irritating), Scanagatta wanted to know?
"No, for me that's something fantastic. That's true, no? All the day we are talking about I am playing very bad, but I am in quarterfinals. I play six finals in a row this year. I am having a very good year. One player is doing better than me. That's all."
I never did get to pose a question, which would have been something like this: Are you aware of the irony in this situation, where Djovovic is playing Nadal to your Federer? Didn't we recently go through something like this when Nadal emerged to establish himself as a rival to Federer? Weren't you supposed to be in Federer's head, instead of Djokovic being in yours?
The way Djokovic is playing, he brings a whole new order-of-intensity to a familiar struggle. Djokovic is coming on with all the force you expect from someone who was long oppressed. And Djokovic is making both Nadal and Federer reap the whirlwind.
In truth, Federer and Nadal both appear to be bearing up pretty well under this onslaught, and while Djokovic is indeed on an amazing run, it's still a long year, a long career. Nobody really knows what tomorrow will bring, although we know what it will bring for Nadal. Another opporutnity to do what he's always done best, a task in which his frenemy Federer has been what reformed drunks like to call an "enabler."
"I'm a bit tired right now, frankly," Rafa told his native press today. "But also, I feel good. I'm really happy. I have this desire to do things well. I would like to go through difficult moments and to overcome these obstacles. Sometimes things don't unravel the way you want them to develop, but sometimes it's necessary to go through these difficulties.
"I've reached the quarterfinals here at Roland Garros. It's been six finals for me here. For the time being, I would say everything is okay. So your question is, How do I manage all this? My answer is, I try and improve daily. I wake up very happy to practice and I'm really glad. So far things are going well. Of course there are some tiny obstacles I have to overcome, and I'll do it. If I don't do it, as I told you before, then I will try and improve next time I play another tournament. That's the only solution I can think of.
"There aren't that many options out there. You have to write a lot of papers on this, but tennis is a rather simple sport sometimes. Don't try and split hairs, you know. This sport is not too much of a tactical sport sometimes. There aren't that many explanations. If you play well, you have more options. You know what have to do to play well. As I keep on saying, I'll try."
Of that, at least, we have no doubt.
 By Pete Bodo
PARIS—Li Na wasn't thinking only about the big, southpaw serve of Petra Kvitova after she lost the first set to the rapidly improving Czech on Court Phillip Chatrier today. She was also thinking about the kids in China. It may sound sappy, but that's exactly what she told me after she rebounded from a love-3 third-set deficit to earn a place in the quarterfinals, 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.
"I just lost (to Kvitova) two weeks ago in Madrid," she said. "It was an easy loss. And today, after the first set, I say to myself, it's the same thing again. Can I do something different? If you play like this, you lose the match easy. And it's on the center court. And they show the match in China. What about the young players? They saw you play like this and nobody is interested in tennis anymore!"
Li laughed, but she added, "No, it's true. I couldn't think about that too much on the court But I knew, you have to fight."
First Li adjusted her attitude, then she adjusted her receiving stance, moving back a few feet to buy herself a little bit more time to field those atomic serves. Kvitova is a big girl with a big game. But you know the shortcoming of bigness, so poignantly articulated in the simple and familiar pharse, The bigger they are, the harder they fall. On the ramp-up to the French Open, Kvitova quietly became everyone's not-so-long longshot to win the title when, in an unexpected display of consistency and clay-court craft, she won in Madrid. But today she fell, and pretty hard, victim of a canny rival who, at 5' 7", probably cuts as unintimidating a figure as Kvitova is imposing.
The match was a vivid example of the way a player with a Big Game, which usually but not always goes hand-in-hand with big size, can dominate the tone and tempo of an entire match. The term Big Game originally was a synonym for the serve-and-volley style, but it would be archaic these days if we insisted on Webster's definition. Kvitova isn't an old-school attacker a la Martina Navratilova, Margaret Court or any of those less successful but solid WTA pros (think Eva Pfaff, Barbara Potter or Jana Novotna) who took every opportunity to serve-and-volley. These days, the Big Game is better defined as a style built on a combination of power, serving proficiency, and a willingness to attack—and especially to attack the net.
The shortcoming of the Big Game is that even for the paragons of the style, it's usually a feast or famine proposition. You're either in flood, drowning opponents left and right, or ebb, your proficiency inevitably receding to expose rocky, uneven terrain. When you're more inclined to test the limits of your power than limit the risks you're willing to assume, as Kvitova was today, you're always in danger of producing a roller-coaster ride of the kind we witnessed.
Li won the first game, and Kvitova pounded and hammered her way to 3-1 lead. Li won another game, then Kvitova ran off the last three of the set. It was symmetrical if not exactly artful stuff. Li made her receiving adjustment at that point, and it soon produced the desired result. If a match like this can be said to have had a turning point, it was the long fourth game, in which Kvitova was unable to lock down the one hold-point chance she had—despite the repeated, anguished cries of "Allez, Kitva" from a fan who clearly has an ear for poetry if not pronounciation.
Li ran out the set, but it she was buffeted this way and that, and would be for the entire 1:42 duration of the match. Lashed to the mast of Kvitova's game, she yawed left and listed right, but she always managed to right herself and plough on toward safe harbor. Although this was a match in which the players won games in bunches (there wasn't a single three-game sequence that went on serve), it didn't really feature those familiar, conspicuous momentum shifts.
No game was entirely secure, for either player, because Kvitova can wreck Li's careful, satisfyingly clean game with a couple of explosive returns and booming winners—but just as easily make a hash of her own. That's how it is for a pro who's streaky by nature, and also comfortable rolling the die. And one advantage of being a player like Li is that you learn to learn to flex and bob on the waves and somehow just keep sailing along. Every time it looked like she was swamped for good, she floated to the top like a cork and kept going.
"She takes big chances but she make some mistakes," Li said of Kvitova. "I said you must keep working, keep hugging (sic) the court, if it's working, the way you play, fine. If not, we know why you lost this match so change while you can."
Still, things looked pretty grim for Li when she wasted a 30-love lead and was broken in the first game she served in the third set. In fact, it was so discouraging that Li's husband Jiang Shang fled the premises—something he's now free to do, having been absolved form his coaching duties, now that Li has added Danish coach Micahel Mortensen to her team. Kvitova held the next game, and Li could only think, "Okay, she just broke one game. If I break back, we are at same level. My serve is not so bad, I still have a chance for my serve game."
The philosophical approach must have given her comfort, because she held easily and never lost another game. Li reeled off the last five, thereby adding the most impressive win of her year since she lost in the final of the Australian Open. She said about her resurgence, "After Melbourne. . .I never have an experience before where I come to final. All the media coming, all the sponsor coming. Maybe for the one second I forgot I am tennis player. Sponsor coming, many things to do.
"Before, I focus maybe 95 per cent on tennis, but after Melbourne, maybe only 60, 70 per cent. I didn't have many energy to do everything. So, two or three month later, I couldn't win a match. I think about team, I think about sponsor. They give you everything, you come back with zero. I have a good communication, I say I have to give something back for sponsor—for the team."
Li gave back by taking away; she relieved Jiang of his coaching duties, a decision he accepted like a dutiful husband—and a danged good sport. "For three years," Li said, explaining that she didn't exactly throw him under the bus. "We were together, as husband and coach, 24 hours every day. For three years. Okay, I need a break."
Mortensen may get the most credit for Li's recent resurgence (she said that the most valuable thing he brings to the table is a nebulous, "positive" attitude, manner and outlook), but you can credit Jiang with the assist. After all, in tennis as in regular life, the husband's number one job is to always have the answer ready: "Yes, dear."
Mornin', everyone. I'm sure you all saw or by now read about that remarkable the Fabio Fognini vs. Albert Montanes match yesterday. One of the more interesting consequences of the improbably way that one ended, with Fognini limping to a win on a bad leg, is how all of this may impact Novak Djokovic's drive to establish a new record for consecutive wins in a calendar year starting on January 1. As you know, he's now won 41 straight, leaving him one behind the record established by John McEnroe.
But let's say that Fognini's left-quad injury is so severe that he has to withdraw from the tournament. That means that Djokovic, his quarterfinal opponent, advances but gets no official credit for a match win because the match was never started. And that in turn mandates that in order to break Mac's record, Djokovic will have to not only win the French Open, but beat (potentially and probably) Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in back-to-back matches. That's a significantly taller order than getting to the semifinals.
However, Djokovic gets the win if Fognini plays a point and then retires. So how much might it be worth for Djokovic to "convince" Fognini that no matter how he feels, it might be both fun and profitable for him to show up, get dressed, and take at least one swing at the ball before he retires?.
Just a thought. . .
But the scuttlebutt here is that Fognini will be fine to play tomorrow. Some people who know about such things here are telling me that Fognini was, indeed, cramping, and only claimed a more severe injury in order to enable the physio to come on the court at that critical, late stage of the match. But there are two camps on this - Tom Perrotta, my colleague, just Tweeted that Fognini will hold a press conference this morning to announce that he is withdrawing from the tournament. Stay tuned.
- Pete
Update at 11:25: Italian journalist Ubaldo Scanagatta confirms Tom's report about Fognini press conference. Ublado spoke with Fognini's father (who is in a hospital in Milan, following surgery on both hips) late last night. And a moment ago, Fognini press conference has just been announced here in press room.
by Pete Bodo
PARIS—Stan "Manislaus" Wawrinka is a check of a tennis player. Hold it. That's a typo. He's actually of Czech descent, and a heck of a tennis player. He's got a big, one-handed backhand, and comes closer than anyone but Novak Djokovic to flat-out dictating from that side. His forehand is less reliable, but it can be wicked, a slapshot clocked with terrific racket-head speed.
Alright, so you too have noticed that the Manislaus appears to have hit the buffet table in the players' lounge extra hard and often in recent days. So what? He came back from two sets down against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his third-round match at Roland Garros, didn't he? One of that rare breed, the bearded tennis player, Wawrinka is more than a gifted ball striker; the minor league tours and leagues are choc-a-bloc with those. Wawrinka is also No. 14 in the world.
It's generally considered a pleasure to match wits and strokes with someone who has such a clean game and such nice strokes, and Wawrinka's countryman Roger Federer has said as much. You can almost hear him thinking out loud: "Stan is a great little tennis player, everyone ought to own one!
Alas, that's about what it's come to over time. Stan has had the misfortune to be Federer's buddy, practice partner, Davis Cup teamamate, and, ultimately, whipping boy. Punch Wawrinka's name into the ATP website's search engine and the very first article it coughs up is from the May issue of the ATP's own Deuce magazine, and it begins like this: If you have to be an understudy on Broadway, it's best if it be to the lead actor in Phantom of the Opera. In tennis, if you have to be in the shadow of your countryman, then it may as well be Roger Federer. Chances are, you'll eventually get your moment to shine.
You've got to wonder if Wawrinka gets sick of reading that kind of stuff. He certainly could be forgiven for wondering just when that "moment to shine" might arrive. Over time, Wawrinka has taken his beatings like the Manislaus he is. The Swiss fellas have played 10 matches, and Wawrinka won just once (Monte Carlo, 2009). Apart from that shining moment, Wawrinka has won exactly one set in nine matches (the first set of their 2010 match in Stockholm), and none in their meetings at majors.
Wawrinka has become Federer's set-up man, and he played that role beautifully again on this spring day at Roland Garros. But don't attempt to fly that theory by Federer, who was in a sunny mood after he routined Wawrinka, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, to land in the quarterfinals of the French Open. The way Federer tells it, his rivalry with Wawrinka has been more nip-and-tuck than slice and dice.
"I thought since the tough match we had in Stockholm, actually where he was I think up a set and a break and was really beating me quite easily, maybe I found a way to play him. And since then I've played well against him. So I'm very happy with the way it went. I knew the danger coming into this match on clay. I think still it is his best surface, even though maybe in the overall scheme of things it's been somewhat of a disappointing clay court season for him. He didn't play Monaco and maybe he went through the same thing I went through last year, just not having enough matches for a bit of a period.
But, look, I thought I played well today. I think the first two sets were great."
You can look at Fedrerer's comments a number of ways: Mayve he's just trying to make his set-up man look better, when doing so doesn't exactly diminish Federer's status. Maybe Roger really does think he figured out Wawrinka; in which case he surely was the last to know. The remarks may be an attempt to turn horse dung into ice cream, which is pretty typical of the breed. There are no easy matches, the diligent pro will tell you, which is a pro's way of getting motivated for. . . easy matches. Or we can take Federer's remarks as a sign that he's got the eye of the tiger now; he's not here to be objective or to wax nostalgic. He's among us to make the case that he's still upward arcing, figuring things out, mastering tasks.
The latter strategy, unconscious though it may be, is a particularly good way to convince us, and perhaps himself, that he's as dangerous at this French Open as his impressive scores suggest. Through four matches, Federer hasn't lost a set. He's played just one tiebreaker (in the first round, against Feliciano Lopez) and was pushed to 7-5 only once, by Wawrinka today. Playing the way Federer has been doing here makes a fella feel good, even if the opponents have been stiffs.
Although this is my first day here, I was struck by how Federer looked just as impressive in the interview room as he did on the court. This is not the Roger Federer we've sometimes seen hugging himself with his own arms, hat brim pulled low to those predatory eyebrows, his voice saved from being merely monotone by the touch of peevishness percolating beneath its surface. If this Roger Federer is feeling like the world is passing him by, you'd never know it. Or perhaps he's just keeping his own counsel, and actually deriving some secret delight from the way the joke's on Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal now.
Federer informally and briefly joked around with some of his acquaintances in the Swiss media before his interview. And in the official part he joked about his backhand, a stroke about which very few of his rivals found anything even remotely funny. This occured during a discussion of the relative merits of the different backhands.
"The variety is obviously nicer to have, I think, with a one-hander. But you've got to be strong. I think it's hard early on when you're young to switch to a one-hander, just because it takes a lot of strength, which you don't have early on, so it's frustrating. I went through that, and honestly I can't believe how good my backhand has become over the years, because it was never my strength. But everybody played into it, and today it's actually pretty good. I think that happened to many players out there on tour. You know, you thought this guy has a weak forehand, everybody plays into it, and all of a sudden today it's a great forehand. We help each other out really, I think."
I don't know how much we can legitimately read into these general behaviors and attitudes,this pleasant jocularity; at the end of the day, you still have to go out and hit the ball where the other guy ain't, and withstand the terrific if ephemeral and distinctly non-life-altering mental pressures of match play. As much stock as Federer may have put in that Stockholm comeback, it was clear from the get-go today that Wawrinka has a unique talent for teeing the ball up for Federer. It's such an unintentional, coincidental product of the precise and delicate way in which their games, their strokes, their histories and perhaps even their personalities match up that there's real beauty to it, like it's really a well-orchestrated dance rather than a competition.
Of course, the really serious competition for Federer is yet to come, but why not let him enjoy these moments while he can? And who knows what they might add up to, on a warm and sunny week in Paris.
By TennisWorld Contributing Editor Andrew Burton
 Tennis fans know the drill during Grand Slams: alternating day of rest, then day of frazzle. I've managed to take this to a new level during the first week of Roland Garros, since I bought Philippe Chatrier (the main court) tickets for the first four days of my trip, and Suzanne Lenglen tickets for Saturday and Sunday. The scheduling gods have then seen fit to put my favorite player, Roger Federer, on Lenglen on Wednesday and Friday, and this afternoon he'll take on fellow countryman Stan Wawrinka on Chatrier.
I've successfully swapped tickets twice so far: this one feels like a bigger ask, but it will have been a tremendously enjoyable first Grand Slam visit whatever the outcome. Here are some of my impressions of the first five days.
People, people everywhere: don't come to Roland Garros if you don't like close contact with your fellow human beings. The site has a lot of tennis courts, three good sized stadiums, pretty good concession and souvenir booths, and very narrow walkways. Even the main boulevard between Chatrier and Lenglen gets jammed in the middle of the afternoon, which has been a bummer for me when I've been trying to get to a working wifi hotspot at the Place Des Mousquatieres.
Go high tech: my lovely wife Sylvia purchased an IPad for me for our wedding anniversary this year, and it's been a complete godsend on the trip. Easiest thing in the world to check on scores, schedules, eMail, compose Racquet Reactions (I use the notes app then drop it into TypePad when finished), and Twitter. Like many people I pooh-poohed Twitter when I first heard about it, but I'd hate it if it went away now. It's become a mini web in its own right - links, conversations, private messages. Plus moral support from Tribe members when I've railed at the scheduling gods....
(By the way, this trip wouldn't have happened without Sylvia's prompting me to use up British Airways frequent flier miles, and making nearly all the arrangements. There are understanding spouses, and then there are those who go above and beyond. Thank you.)
French style: making comparisons between countries and events is something we all do, often on a very small sample. Everyone knows someone who's an instant expert on a country after they spent a week there 20 years ago. I've been coming to France for over 40 years now, on and off. I've been crestfallen and ashamed by how poor my spoken French has become (that 1975 O Level really needs a tune up), and (despite everything else you might read) impressed at how just about everyone speaks really good conversational English. In the past, I've found many fewer people ready to speak English: now, perhaps with the ubiquity of the Internet and fifty or so TV channels showing multilingual shows and movies, most folks are well armed with English.
Also on the style side, literally all the ushers are aged about 20 and they're all tall and good looking - young women and men both. The men wear a cream sweater and clay court brick red trousers, the women a cream blazer and skirt. They're perfectly elegant. At Indian Wells, all the ushers are senior citizens in Fila sports kit. I guess you go with the resources you have.
What was the best tennis: on my first day, I was on Chatrier for Isner - Nadal. I was surprised to see Isner take a set, doubly so when he took a second: I honestly didn't expect him to win one of the next three, and so it proved. I also saw Rus - Clijsters, an object lesson to anyone who's ever played the sport themselves. Clijsters had match point at 6-3, 5-2 on her opponent's serve, but the 115-ranked player kept scrapping and turned the match around to upset the number 2 seed. Most of the commentary focused on Clijsters' level of play, and she did look a bit ring rusty - but she had built that big lead. I just loved the way Rus kept her game face on, treating the biggest win of her career as if it was just another match.
I was also on Lenglen yesterday for Murray - Berrer, which brought back memories of the first time I saw Murray play, at Indian Wells in a quarter final against Tommy Haas. Murray badly twisted his ankle in that match a set down to Haas, and looked certain to be forced to retire. It seemed like he'd only be able to manage a few points before conceding: instead, he baffled and bamboozled his German opponent, took the second set and went on to win a tie break decider.
Poor Michael Berrer was Murray's foil yesterday. Murray turned his ankle sliding for a drop shot, but the denouement was the same: the Scot played through obvious pain, shortening points with hard groundstrokes aimed much closer to the lines than he usually hits. Makes you wonder what he could do in a big match if he could somehow find that mindset.
The top WTA seed playing today is the 3 seed, Vera Zvonereva, the highest seed left in the tournament. For the ATP, Federer and Djokovic go up against Wawrinka and Gasquet respectively. All these matches are on Chatrier: the marquee match on Lenglen is Monfils vs Ferrer. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can find a Gael Monfils KAD at the Place Des Mousquatieres. A bientot. (Oh, almost forgot - Enjoy today's tennis!)
 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
 by Pete Bodo
She'll be 31 years old soon, and it's not like she's been on fire on the tour in the past few months. She's emotional, "instinctive" (her word), and something of a connoisseur—a tennis aesthete—in a milieu dominated increasingly by the rational and tight-lipped, by players who eschew creativity and impulsiveness in favor of the rote and regimented.
She plays the backhand with just one fist on the racket, and hits with communicable relish, while her rivals diligently, implacably drill with two-handers employed like tunnel-borers. She's the defending champion at Roland Garros, but even when she's been cited as a contender again, it's often been with something like reluctance. A sense of obligation. A matter of due diligence: How can you leave the defending champion out of your calculations and previews?
Then there's defending champion Francesca Schiavone. . .If the 30-year old Italian who surprised everyone last year can withstand the pressure. . .yadda, yadda, yadda. Full disclosure: I'm as guilty on that count as any other ink-stained wretch.
But we've come to that point in the 2011 French Open when we have to ask ourselves: Can Schiavone really win this thing?
You bet.
Schiavone advanced to the fourth round today, bumping off China's Peng Shuai, 6-3, 1-2 (retired), and gave her opponent a big hug of commiseration. The biggest obstacle in her way to the semifinals appears to be a very soft No. 3 seed, Vera Zvonareva. She's never really loved the clay, and hasn't been to the quarterfinals in Paris since 2003. On current form, I'd pick Schiavone of that match were played today.
It isn't just that Schiavone has won, it's how she's won. She crushed Melanie Oudin in her opener, 6-2, 6-0, then allowed Vesna Dolonts just one additional game in round two. She was denied the chance to post another straight-sets rub-out today, but it was only because Shuai had to quit. So far at Roland Garros, Schiavone has made slightly more errors than her opponents (50-43), which isn't unusual for a player who plays with considerable risk, but she's clubbed over twice as many winners (57-25).
And Schiavone is not only playing well, she's feeling well. And that's a tremendous boon, given that no less a personage than Pete Sampras has said that the only thing tougher than winning a Grand Slam title is defending it successfully.
It probably helps Schiavone that, given her status, she's flying under the radar. She was requested by the English-speaking press just once so far, and that was for her obligatory, how-does-it-feel-to-be-defending-champ interview after she beat Oudin—it's the kind of interview that's often a fishing expedition for drama and/or self-doubt. In that presser, Schiavone described her level of comfort with these words:
"I'm still shaking a little bit. My rush for everything. A lot of adrenaline. I felt really happy to be there. That court (the Philipp Chatrier stadium) is fantastic, because is compact. The court is perfect. Everything is going around you and is like. . . you know when you go home and your mom do everything for you and you feel comfortable? Yeah, I felt like this, but really with a lot of adrenaline."
Was she nervous, someone asked?
"Yes, but with good feeling," she replied. "So mix between nervous and really the chance to be good and to play tennis that I love."
This, and some of her other thoughts, ought to go into the WTA and ATP training manuals as an outstanding example of how to handle the pressure of a Grand Slam (or any other kind of) title defense. Schiavone has embraced this moment, rather than fleeing from it. That same Pete Sampras I paraphrased above was also famous—and much criticized—for admitting, after Jim Courier took his 1990 U.S. Open title away, that he felt like an enormous burden had been lifted off his shoulders. But then Sampras was barely 20 years old at the time, and it's in that regard that Schiavone's age, along with her high degree of general awareness, are advantages rather than liabilities.
 "I think I am more cautioned (did she mean "conscious"?) over who I am and what I want," she told reporters in Paris. "I think a lot of experience can became true in everything that I am doing. Not just tennis, but life. Everything that I do, it's in one way, and now I know. . . Before it was a little bit yeah, but no, but yes. A lot of that. Now much better."
I take all that to mean that that Schiavone believes she knows who she is and what she wants, I have to believe she also understands that not getting it isn't the end of the world. So she can relax, play her game, see where the day takes her and, above all, enjoy the process. Since Andre Agassi retired, nobody seems to have enjoyed the process to the same degree as Schiavone. That's something else that I hope she can leave to those who will walk in her footsteps.
We don't know if Schiavone will win the tournament again, but we do know that she won't leave Paris in June of 2011 leaving a trail of whispered doubts or criticisms. Nobody is going to shrug and say, Well, that sure was a fluke that Schiavone won last year—did you see how badly she played today? Or, Poor girl, she just couldn't handle the pressure.
The biggest challenge for Schiavone, a week ago, was handling her situation. That she's already done.
So what chance does she have to repeat as champ?
Historically, the answer is, not much. I would never label Schiavone a "One-Slam Wonder." That term describes the true flukes, who are few and far between. Schiavone has been too reliable to be lumped together with the Eva Majolis and Gaston Gaudios of this world. But even among good players who managed to win one major relatively late in their careers (Andres Gomez comes to mind), the incidence of a successful defense is almost non-existent. Juan Carlos Ferrero, Andy Roddick, Goran Ivanisevic, Thomas Muster, Yannick Noah, Richard Krajicek, Pat Cash and Carlos Moya all have one thing in common: They each won one major, and failed to defend it. In fact, the only players I can think of who successfully defended the only Grand Slam titles they won were Sergi Burguera (he won at Roland Garros in 1993 and '94) and Pat Rafter (U.S. Open in 1997 and '98). I'm not sure that any woman ever won a brace of Grand Slam titles in consecutive years—and no other majors.
Rafter was a relatively old 24 for a first-time Grand Slam champ when he won his first U.S. Open title, and that's considerably different from 30. But then Schiavone doesn't have the WTA equivalents of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi bocking her path. This is a particularly good year for someone with Schiavone's maturity and sophistication, given the extent to which her main rivals are either inexperienced at the ultimate level or of questionable competitive character. Schiavone's age might turn out to be a weapon rather than a liability.
The other day Schiavone was asked to comment on the way she's reversed the chronology of the typical "flash in the pan" tale. Did she wish she knew then what she knows now, or regret that she hit her stride so late in her career? After all, she's made the fourth round in six of her last seven majors, after barely equaling that number in the entire first decade of her career. Is all this coming too late?
"No," she replied. "I'm a little bit late, but late, I mean late for you, not for me."
I don't know what further impediments Schiavone will face in her attempt to mount a successful defense in Paris, but I'm pretty sure age isn't one of them.
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