French Court Glory – The American Spectator

The way Novak Djokovic won that first set with an unreachable diagonal forehand was not quite representative of the competitive level at that point. It was a tiebreak, meaning the two seeds had stayed close all the way, including some breaks and counter-breaks of serve, the set took an hour and a half, and they were both hot, in both senses of the word.

It was not even that warm, my stringer reported — I was on the Banneker courts by Georgia Avenue — mid-70s, maybe sort of muggy, but it was still one of the sport’s historic matches. Novak Djokovic was going for No. 23 — majors, all-time record — tops in men’s tennis.

They are courteous and show class, good sportsmanship. Djokovic is prone to a bit of temper, yes, and he argued with the ump about the time clock or something, I gather, not unusual for him. But basically he is a model tennis man, whenever he loses a match he expects to win (which is to say every one he loses), heaping correct not clichéd praise on his opponent and giving himself no excuses.

He does not hide his confidence; and why should he? He came here fully intent on his third Musketeers trophy on the renovated courts at Roland-Garros stadium on Paris’s posh northwest side, and he did not mind saying so, insisting he was fit, ready, top of his game, focused. First set tiebreak or not, there was never really any doubt about the outcome, and he knew it.

The one possible derailing had passed. In the semis, he met the one player who was given a chance against him, the 20-year old Spanish phenom Carlos Alcaraz-Garfia. It was competitive, splendidly so, in the first two sets, and then it was not. True, the crushing score, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-1, hinted at what happened: the younger man cramped in the third set and could scarcely move, he who under ordinary circumstances never sees a ball he cannot reach and hit back for a winner. He himself suggested it was likely psychosomatic. But the mental side is part of the game, and Djokovic expected this — not in so crippling a fashion, but in the sense that he would hold on, mind and body — and soul, I suppose — over five tough sets and in the end outplay the 16-years-younger challenger.

Now against another young man, Casper Ruud, 24, it would be the same game plan. As with Alcaraz, Djokovic would come out swinging hard as well as shrewd, rather than, as he often does, let it go a little in the first set, encouraging the other fellow to step on the pedal, only to brusquely raise the bar in the second, maybe even the third, and demonstrate one more time who hits harder, faster, more close-to-the-lines, when the points really matter. At times like that, say 30-40 at 4-5, you know he is going to find the way.

Casper Ruud, finalist at Flushing Meadows last year, as well as here last year against Rafael Nadal, is 24 and at a point where either he will either win serial majors, or will settle in as one of the best of the nearly great. This tournament is his fourth as a finalist; he has everything, notably the serve and the right-handed forehand baseline power, except, perhaps, that ultimate ingredient that lets you “fill the unforgiving minute.” He let himself get drawn into baseline rallies that ended in winners like the one that closed the first set.

In the women’s draws, the winner did just that, found that last minute and what to fill it with. The dashing post-teen Warsaw girl, Iga Świątek, never cracked over the last two matches despite getting serious fights from Beatriz Haddad Maia in the semis and Karolína Muchová in the final. Miss Świątek, two-time champion already (plus U.S. Open last year) was, or rather is, laying claim to being the next Serena Williams, in the sense of being the one to beat for many years to come.

As a teen, her game was adroit, varied, shrewd, and gritty — she was always up to seeing what tactics worked against whom. This year she has emerged as, additionally, a power player, and it was as such that she steamrolled everybody until the semis. And then continued, except that she found herself against superb opponents who met her where she was, either by returning power for power or by finding ways to disrupt her plan.

She opted to stick with it, even if in the second and third sets of the final, Miss Muchová, who has a beautiful mix of graceful form and athletic talent, appeared to take control. After winning the second set, 7-5, with some back-and-forth service breaks, she dominated the beginning of the third until Miss Świątek held at 4-4 and then let Miss Muchová double-fault on match point.

Meanwhile, in doubles — this is for the racquet sports country-club Republicans who are still the core TAS readers — the top-seeded Americans, Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff, fumbled against the tenth-seed Anglospheres Leyla Fernandez (Canada) and Taylor Townsend (U.S.), who then got into a weird match against the no-seed Red China Free China team of Xinyu Wang and Su-Wei Hsieh (who is a former no 1 in doubles) and ended with a 6-1, 6-7, 1-6 score. But at least there is hope that maybe this portends well for peace in Asia and the Reds will be content to send their young star Miss Wang (we referred to her, rudely I must admit, as a “tall Chinese girl” in an earlier dispatch) to play on Taiwan with Miss Hsieh, who as it happens lives in Paris. Anyway, on the men’s side the veteran Croatian great Ivan Dodid teamed up with American Austin Krajicek to win and in the mixed Miyu Kato, disqualified in the ladies doubles in a controversial ruling involving a mis-shot that touched a ball-kid, was vindicated with some help from Tim Putz in the final against the Anglosphere (Canada-New Zealand) team of veteran Michael Venus and Bianca Andreescu.

Well, the news is everyone was happy. Tom Brady sat in the Novak box. Djokovic said afterward to Tennis Channel’s Jon Wertheim that they have been corresponding for years but never met. They talk sometimes about, he said, making better version of themselves as they get older. I must say that was a nice touch, and under the jock look and the pride — which he wears with casual elegance — Djokovic is one of the more interesting and articulate among today’s champion sportsmen.

There was some PC nonsense that verged on forcing the Russian players, who since the war in the east began have been required to enter tournaments under no-flags, where all the others get to proudly compete under their nations’ colors, to publicly denounce Putin’s aggression, but it went down well, reportedly. The tickets sold out, even if they were not always used as one would expect them to be — many, benefiting from corporate freebies, which is one of the ways the French tennis federation makes money, took a look and then moved over to the fancy restaurants on the grounds and stayed there — and the place was flush with pomp. The mousquetaires were not there, in fact French players were absent in the second week, but, what, they put on a class show, so, vive Suzanne Lenglen! Vive la France!