The meeting of Serena and Venus Williams at Court Lenglen on Saturday
provided a historic moment. Previously the sisters had faced each other seven
times in pro competition, Venus winning five times. Younger sister Serena had
been the first to capture a Slam, having won U.S. Open in 1999. Since then,
Venus had won Wimbledon and U.S. Open each twice. This was their first
meeting in a Slam final.
Serena's recent credentials seemed the stronger. The younger sister had been
runner-up this spring at Berlin and champion at Rome, where her power serving
and ground-stroking prevailed over the slow conditions at these classic
clay-court sites. Three weeks ago, believing that Serena must persist in her
high-confidence tactics of relentless attack, I wrote that only Serena could
defeat Serena at Garros.
Indeed, against Venus on Saturday Serena's courage never wavered. The younger
sister ceaselessly drove the ball with heavy authority, regularly stepping up
to and sometimes inside the baseline to punish it toward the opposite
corners. Inevitably Serena's errors rose, considerably outnumbering her
outright winners, as Venus again showed her phenomenal ability to reply to an
opponent's heavy firepower. But the steady power of Serena gradually told,
often yielding slightly weakened replies which allowed Serena to pounce
forward.
Venus and Serena are the two strongest servers in women's tennis. Yet on this
date it was the serve that proved the most vulnerable feature of both. Both
women regularly punished the other's second serves, and both replied by
trying to step up the energy of their second-serve deliveries. Double-faults
thereupon ensued, sometimes at key moments. Serena won a creditable 47% of
her second-serve points, Venus only 33%. Serena produced the only aces, the
fewer double-faults, the deliveries that best penetrated the slow-clay bounce.
Serena won the first two games of the match but Venus quickly recovered,
taking the lead at scores 4-2 and 5-3. But Venus played poorly in game nine,
and as if to staunch her errors it was Venus who then backed away from her
heaviest weaponry. As Venus clearly softened her shot-making in game ten,
Serena seized dominance early in most points. Serena began a run that reached
seven consecutive games, allowing her to close out set one and take a 3-0
lead in set two. Watching tv, I wrote in my notebook that Serena was
attacking almost every ball from close backcourt, even as she remained
cautious about advancing to far forecourt. Venus fought back gamely and
indeed equalized play in the late stages of the match. But the verdict of
those middle seven games proved insurmountable.
The match statistics showed the raggedness of the match. A difficult wind and
an extremely tough Sun when serving from the north certainly spoiled the
perfection of the play. But the competitiveness of both warriors lived up to
the importance of the moment. The day deserves to be remembered both for the
grace and will of both players but especially for the heart of the champion.
THE MEN'S FINAL
The two men seemed utterly different archetypes. Shorter and broad-chested,
Albert Costa looked the workingman, his black shoes adding an effect that
made his court movement seem awkward. His opponent, slender and wiry at 6-0
in height, Juan Carlos Ferrero in fashionably trimmed tennis clothes and a
stylized haircut seemed to move with the elegance of nobility. The contrasts
carried into their stroking styles--Ferrero was the more polished, his smooth
free deliveries carrying more pace and overspin than his effort seemed to
provide. Meanwhile Costa attacked the ball with compactness, more with fury
than elegance. Yet at the end, it would be Costa who would produce the
greater variety and style in his play, including superior performance in the
occasional net situations--factors that enabled him to claim a victory that
for a time seemed to be slipping away.
After an early rain break, Costa rapidly swept though the next eleven games
to capture the first two sets in less than one hour. The damp, cool
conditions seemed to fit perfectly Costa's skills, meanwhile dulling
Ferrero's powerful overspin shots enough to allow Costa to set up well for
his forcing deliveries. Ferrero replied with frequent errors, his discomfort
compounded by a difficult wind. It also seemed that Ferrero was pulling back
from making the last short step needed for ideal preparation in his
shot-making. Was there a groin or leg problem?
But abruptly with the start of set three, it was now Ferrero who was
attacking, whose rockets were now peppering the corners and baseline area,
keeping Costa back and provoking weak replies and occasional errors. The
games remained close, but it was clear that momentum had shifted. Ferrero was
now playing with the confidence and fire that had lifted him over the great
Agassi and Safin earlier in the week. The younger player closed out set
three, 6-4.
Ferrero held serve in a hard-fought first game to open set four. I wrote in
my notebook that Costa was now looking the slower player, that he was now
being overpowered and outplayed in most of the baseline exchanges, that he
needed to introduce more variety into the points. As if by signal, Costa
began to find a way. Game two was a difficult one, featuring at least one
break point favoring Ferrero. But on at least three occasions during the long
game, Costa broke the pattern by delivering superb, winning dropshots. With
Ferrero's momentum finally broken in the next game by an unlucky net-cord
point and with Costa continuing the occasional dosage of droppers, the older
player went on to close out his victory.
NOTES
Clay-court tennis at the top pro levels is ever more attractive for the
watcher. There seems a new emphasis on finding the short angles with powerful
and low, topspin deliveries that seek the opposite sideline near the service
box. The effect is to force opponent well off court, opening up things for a
next power delivery to the opposite deep corner. The skills of the top
players, male and female, in producing these attacking shots--whether
cross-court or inside out--are remarkable.
Doubles remained largely unseen by the tv watcher, even as pro doubles on
clay provide the longer exchanges so lacking in fast-court doubles. Winning
on the men's side was a new partnership of veterans, Paul Haarhuis and
Yevgeny Kafelnikov. Haarhuis has been purely a doubles artist in recent
years, having been world champion with Jacob Eltingh in 1998. Haarhuis and
Kafelnikov will be partners again at Wimbledon. Their victims in the Garros
final, Knowles-Nestor, remain ahead in the year's standings.
Winners in the women's doubles were Spain's Ruano Pascual and Argentina's
Suarez. The losing finalists, the fine American-Aussie pair Raymond-Stubbs,
remain atop the year's points race. Champions of the mixed doubles were
brother-and-sister Wayne and Cara Black.
The winning nations in my unofficial count of match victories at Garros, by
comfortable margins, were Spain on the men's side, U.S. among the women, and
U.S. in the combined tally. These results repeated those of 2001 except that
last year Spain led in the combined. Argentina was second this year among the
men, France among the women, and Spain in the combined.
My use of numerical correlations for weighting various preceding tournaments
as predictors of the men's singles worked out fairly well, as the data led me
to pick correctly six of the actual eight quarter-finalists. (Only two
players officially seeded in the top eight actually reached that level.)
However the calculations misleadingly pointed to defending champion Kuerten
as the most probable winner. They placed the actual champion, Costa, in the
Second Eight.
I hope that everyone has a nice rest this week and next, recharging for
Wimbledon.
--Ray Bowers
