Mugurusa-Williams’ classic
The 22-year-old Central American born Spaniard Garbine Mugurusa is the new French-Open Queen. In the recent past, more than once she challenged the phenomenal Tennis of Serena Williams, only to walk away defeated and the last such encounter against Williams before this French-Open was the finals of Wimbledon 2015.
This year’s French-Open ‘tortured’ players with bad weather and questioned whether it was the bastion where the best clay court Tennis could be seen. The answer came when Mugurusa reached a height more than anyone expected. In the true fashion of dedicated artists, Mugurusa and Williams performed to exhibit Tennis at its best and made the match go into sports history. The ‘power-house’ match will be getting a lot of attention and will remain unforgettable.
It is not easy to select a match for the exhibition of good Tennis in French-Open. Players are at their best even in the most challenging conditions, which was the case this year. Two achievements will go into the Tennis history from this year’s French-Open.
One would be the achievement of Serbian world’s number one Novak Djokovic for his fourth Grand-Slam titles in a row from the last Wimbledon to this French-Open. This is now been termed as a ‘Golden-Slam’. His Tennis and performance will have to be described as resilient, gutty, entertaining and certainly awesome. He responds to every challenge effectively. That makes him a master tactician and flawless stroke maker. In the Open-era he becomes the 8th person to achieve the rare distinction of winning all four Grand-Slam titles in a career.
The other memorable achievement of the French-Open 2016 will certainly be the women’s final. Garbine Mugurusa came to the French-Open with a new bold, strong clay court game and physically I have never seen her more athletic than this. In playing ability, Mugurusa only had a thin edge to beat Williams and it prevailed to the end of the match. Serena saved many match points then a lob from Mugurusa went over Williams and landed on the baseline to Mugurusa’s unbelievable surprise.
The biggest challenge any player has and will have against Serena Williams will be to keep up with the ‘pace’ she sets from the very first shot of the game to the last even if the match went to three long sets. That level of reaction speed will burn the best of players in ten games. This has been the forte of the two Williams sisters. In the finals Mugurusa not only matched it but hit outright winners with speed and accuracy to match Serena’s specialties. If she could sustain this form, the world is hers from now on.
Murray’s marathon
Murray beat Djokovic just two weeks ago in the Rome finals. I thought Murray would repeat it in the French-Open finals and at the end of the first set it did look that way. It is then that fatigue began to show in him. In the run up to the finals of the French-Open, Djokovic only lost one set playing a total of 19 sets in all. Murray on the other hand had to play two five set matches and some four set matches. That was a good few more than Djokovic. Perhaps what drained Murray was the extra five hours or so he had to spend in bad weather conditions than Djokovic on his way to the finals. Five hours is a lot of extra time indeed.
Murray is worlds number two and the game he and Djokovic play is somewhat similar in many ways. They can be termed as ‘counter punching attackers’. This type of players will have to hang in tough with long rallies without ‘unforced errors’. It has been the clay court formula to win for a long time. What comes up easily when a player is tired, are the unforced errors. Murray was so badly drained that his first serve did not even mark the 50 percent level in any game and in the match. His returns did not have the ‘sting’ he is known for. He made too many unforced errors and could not hang in tough to win. On that day Djokovic was the better player and won comfortably.
New names of 2016
The tough playing conditions took away some of the big names from the draw. In the press room defeated players expressed their displeasure with the event management decisions. I believe the results of the Women’s quarter-finals between Romania’s Simona Halep against Australia’s Samantha Stosur and the men’s semi-finals between Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka against Andy Murray could have been different if the courts were dry.
A few newcomers came out strong in these unfavourable conditions. Among the women, USA’s Shelby Rogers and Belgium’s Kiki Bertens got themselves recognized as players of the future. On the men’s side, Austria’s 22-year-old Dominic Thiem stepped into the top ten for the first time and showed as to what he will be doing the rest of the year………
Grass court Tennis is next on the European season agenda and will peak in the 3rd Grand-Slam of 2016 – Wimbledon.
George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of Germany; National, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup coach–. georgepaldano@yahoo.com