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In Paris, It’s the Wide Open World of Women’s Tennis

Bhupender SainiJun 10, 2021Sports
In Paris, It’s the Wide Open World of Women’s Tennis

PARIS — The 2021 French Open will be remembered for its endless surprises. Stars withdrew. Top players lost early.

The trend continued Thursday as two long shots surged into the women’s championship match. Elite women’s tennis has been without clear and consistent winners for a while now, but a final between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic was a scenario no one would have predicted.

Pavlyuchenkova, seeded 31st, defeated the unseeded Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia, 7-5, 6-3, in the semifinals. Krejcikova, also unseeded, upset the No. 17 seed, Maria Sakkari of Greece, 7-5, 4-6, 9-7, in a match with wild momentum swings and match points on both sides of the net, even one that involved an overturned line call.

Pavlyuchenkova, 29, is a veteran, having turned professional in 2005. Krejcikova, 25, is more of a late bloomer, having arrived in 2014. But neither had reached a Grand Slam semifinal before, and it showed as they triumphed despite multiple lost service games in nearly every set and more errors than most players could survive. Yet the effort was enough for each of them, if only barely.

“I always wanted to play a match like this,” Krejcikova said through tears when her 3-hour, 18-minute match was finished. “Even if I lost today, I would be very proud of myself, just fighting. In here and also in life, fighting is the most important thing.”

There have been just two multiple Grand Slam women’s singles winners in the past four years, the opposite of what has happened in an absurdly top-heavy men’s game, which has been dominated for so long by three of the all-time greats.

Women’s tennis more closely resembles golf. At the beginning of a Grand Slam event, dozens of women seemingly have a shot to play deep into the tournament.

“There is so much depth,” Tom Hill, Sakkari’s coach, said ahead of the semifinal. “Now it’s first round, second round, you’re playing against top players that can play.”

Of the two finalists, Krejcikova is the bigger surprise. Her game is filled with off-speed forehands and sliced backhands. Her service returns tend to be looping backhands. She usually displays limited power and an approach that seems completely out of step with the smash-mouth style that so many women bring to the court today.