A brief summary on the first two rounds of Roland Garros, which have been completed notwithstanding today’s bad weather. Of course, as usual, I will simply ignore what happened in the boys’ tournament, but I guess you are used to this by now.
The article is brief primarily because, differently from the Australian Open, during the French Open Eurosport player covers only few courts and I was not able to see a single match of the event (if any was broadcast): this is very annoying. Anyway, attendance was top notch, as predictable: amongst the top seeded players, only Kayla Day (who basically said goodbye to the junior tour; will we see her playing one last time in Wimbledon?) and Masarova (same as above, it seems) were missing.
In the first round there were some noticeable results and, already, one big match: first of all, the 9th seed of the tournament Olga Danilovic, one of the most promising players of the tour, was immediately dismissed by the Chinese Xin Yu Wang (a.k.a. the “Unseeded One”, whilst Xiyu Wang is known as the “Seeded One”). It took me 15 minutes to understand whether the Seeded One or the Unseeded One actually beat Danilovic; in either case, the Serbian was not lucky with the draw, since both of them are strong. Though, it must be said that Danilovic’s defeat was a bad one: she lost by 6-3 6-2. Other interesting results were the win of the young and, as I heard, talented French Giulia Morlet, who dismissed quite easily Portillo Ramirez and the win of Gracheva against Sofia Sewing, in a tight match which ended with the score of 7-6(6) 6-4.
The big match of the first round was indeed Potapova vs. Juvan: the latter, after the early exit in the Italian Open, has lost many positions in her ranking and was lucky enough to pay an immediate toll, by facing the first seed: but even if, currently, Potapova seems superior and her recent results are substantially better than those of the Beloved One, also for Potapova the draw was not good, since she suffers the game the Slovenian plays: both head to head between the two are in favour of the latter – the first win by Juvan occurred one year ago in Milan, the second one in the Orange Bowl final, in last December. Potapova eventually won, but she faced some troubles. I sort of followed the live scores while working, or pretending to do so: the Russian took an early lead by 3-1, but Juvan managed to equalise at 3-3. On 4-4 Potapova held her serve and Juvan, maybe under pressure, dropped the following game at nil, losing thus the first set. At the start of the second set there were 4 breaks in a row: Juvan was leading for most of the set, even if she was never able to consolidate the breaks she gained; though again, having lost her serve on 4-4, the Slovenian wasn’t able to break back her opponent and lost the match. Stats of both player were quite weird: as per the first set, Potapova’s first serves were unusually bad, having hit only 36% of them in, even if she gained 70% of the relevant points. Instead, her second serve was unusually effective, since she won 67% of the points. The Beloved One first serve stats were instead as good as she needs, with 67% of first serves in and 58% of points won. Her second serve, instead, was quite ineffective, since she won only 4 points over 12. The difference between the two girls in the first set was anyway material, since Potapova won 10 points more than her opponent. In the second set, stats were reversed: Potapova hit few more valid first serves, but she gained only 32% of the points with the second serve. Juvan’s first serve stats became instead terrible (they have decreased from the second half of the first set), since she won only 24% of the relevant points; by contrast, with the second serve she won 69% of the points. In the second set, Potapova won only three points more than Juvan.
The bad news for the Beloved One is that she lost in the first round of the tournament on which she focused most of her expectations; further the tendency of winning too few points on her first served showed up again. The good news is that, following a couple of bad losses in easier matches, Juvan again demonstrated that she can hold a fight against a very good player as Potapova (even if, to be honest, in that match one of Potapova’s main weapons, i.e. her first serve, was not that effective: overall, she hit only 45% of valid ones).
All the other top seeded players, such as Kostyuk, Andreescu, Anshba, Anisimova, Swiatek etc. reached the second round without facing too many troubles, with the exception of Pervushina, who dropped a set against Niemeier, a German qualifier.
In the second round another big match was scheduled: Marta Kostyuk (a.k.a. Flagellum Dei) faced Amina Anshba, former number 6 of the junior tour: the latter won by 3-6 7-6(5) 6-3. Stats show that the match between the two was even: overall Kostyuk won two points more than her opponent, obtained few more points than the Russian from the first serve and a few less from the second. Honestly I am relieved that Flagellum has been defeated: she was starting to kind of scaring me. At least now I can reasonably assume that she is human, after all.
Further, after surprisingly having won her first match in two straight sets (even if struggling in the first one), Rybakina became again herself and, in the second round, she dropped the first set against Lara Schmid: a fact which in Milan occurred five times in the six matches she played (to be fair, in the five matches she dropped a set, in one occasion she lost the second and not the first one; but let’s pretend this strange occurrence did not happen): this is why the Italian Open champion is also known as the “Latecomer”.
Pervushina managed to overcome Vismane in three sets; this is good news and, let’s hope, an encouraging result for the Russian: we want her back. Also Andreescu dropped a set against the Seeded One, and so did Osuigwue to overcome Morlet. The Unseeded One, instead, managed to win, in three sets, a difficult match against Gracheva. Swiatek, Potapova, Paigina and Anisimova won their respective matches quite easily.
One final note on Ylena In-Albon: having qualified without facing any troubles, the classy Swiss has lost only two games in the two matches she has played in the main draw: in particular, in the second round she beat the Italian Tatiana Pieri in a bit more than 30 minutes, by 6-0 6-1, conceding only 13 points to her opponent. This is what I call Justice: you have to know that today, Jessica, who is Tatiana’s older sister, beat by 6-1 6-1 the New Beloved One in a 25k held in Check Republic: no one should beat N.B.O., in particular with that kind of score! I am sure that Tatiana’s bad loss is the natural consequence of the outrage her sister perpetrated to tennis (if a Pieri is reading this, I am joking, you know; please don’t get angry…). All the above explains why the tiny and lovely In-Albon is also known as the “Avenger” or as “Chuck Norris”.
The most interesting match in the third round, in my view, will be Potapova vs. Paigina; but I also find fascinating Unseeded One versus Osuigwe and BerghemIga Swiatek versus Chuck Norris. I believe, instead, that Anisimova, Rybakina and Andreescu have easier opponents to face. But one never knows: girls’ tennis is always full of surprises.
