Since I am always late in writing my pieces, what I want to avoid in my articles is to limit myself to a recap of the outcome of the matches played in the days between one piece and the following one: I know you, readers, expect more from me: i.e. an in-depth analysis which can boost your understanding of tennis and enlighten your vision of the game. Well, your expectations will now be satisfied: today I will introduce you to a strange, yet undeniable, phenomenon which affected the top part of the Roland Garros draw sheet: i.e. the infamous “chain reaction”.
Though, since it’s true that I am smart, but nevertheless, I am not always fully coherent with my proposals, before detailing the functioning of the chain reaction, I want to recap a few results which occurred in the last few days.
Let’s start from where I left in my last article in which I summed-up of what happened in the first two rounds: the results of the third round I want to mention, which in my view were the most noticeable ones, are three: first, the easy win (by 6-3 6-3) of Claire Liu against Olesya Pervushina: this was not a complete surprise because, as I have often remarked in the last few months, it seems that, currently, Olesya is not enjoying a great period of form. The second one, is the outcome of the big match, i.e. Potapova against Paigina: the latter won by 2-6 6-3 6-3. The two players were really close, since Paigina won, overall, only three points more than her opponent. The biggest upset of the third round was, to me, the win of McNally against the 6th seed of the tournament, Amina Anshba: it was another three set match, which ended 6-2 4-6 6-1 in favour of the American. All the other matches went as foreseeable, and there were no other big surprises.
More interesting results materialised in the quarter finals: in particular, Liu defeated (again by 6-3 6-3 – the same outcome of her match against Pervushina) the girl who was, in my view, the hot favourite to win the tournament, i.e. Bianca Andreescu. A further, maybe unexpected, but for sure not entirely surprising result was the defeat of Amanda Anisimova against Elena Rybakina: the match between the two was tight and the Russian won it by 7-6 6-4. As a result of the above, the semi-finals were Liu vs. Paigina and Osuigwe vs. Rybakina. Please note that I did not mention any Osuigwe’s match up to now, because my intention is to write a full piece on her in the next days, whatever it will happen tomorrow. Nor I highlighted other interesting matches, because they were affected by the chain reaction, so I will mention them in a moment.
If you remember, I ended my last article with a stunning consideration: Ylena In-Albon (a.k.a. the Avenger) won her second round match against Tatiana Pieri by 6-0 6-1 in order to revenge the unjust loss that the same day, in a 25k played in Check Republik, Elizabeth Mandlik (a.k.a. N.B.O.) has suffered against Jessica Pieri, Tatiana’s older sister. Though, a few days after I understood that this was just a piece of the story: what I realised, following further and more intensive analysis, is that N.B.O.’s unfair loss has set off a destructive chain reaction which affected, in order: 1) Tatiana Pieri; 2) the player who has beaten Tatiana Pieri; 3) the player who has beaten the player who has beaten Tatiana Pieri; and, finally 4) the player who has beaten the player who has beaten the player who has beaten Tatiana Pieri.
I know the above sounds difficult to follow, but let me explain.
Jessica Pieri beats by 6-1 6-1 N.B.O. and the chain reaction is set off; as a consequence: in the second round of Roland Garros In-Albon defeats Tatiana Pieri by 6-0 6-1 in 35 minutes; in the third round Iga Swiatek, on her turn, defeats In-Albon by 6-0 6-0 in 38 minutes; in the quarter finals it’s the turn of BerghemIga: she is easily dismissed by Paigina with the score of 6-2 6-3, in 73 minutes. If, on the basis of this latter match, you want to try to undermine the validity of the theory of the chain reaction, claiming that Iga didn’t lose fast enough and won too many games, don’t even try to, for two reasons: 1) before this one versus Paigina, Swiatek has, possibly never in her life, lost a match by 6-2 6-3; 2) Iga was actually losing the second set by 5-1 and, if I correctly remember, at that stage Paigina had also a couple of match points: the fact that BerghemIga managed to win a few more games only demonstrates the validity of my other theory, i.e. that she is a future champion and thus she is capable to oppose at least some resilience even to the implacable chain reaction. As a consequence, the fact that Swiatek lost against Paigina by 6-2 6-3, instead of 6-2 6-1, is a further demonstration of the validity of my theories.
But then, what happened to Paigina? Of course, in the semifinals, she was defeated by Claire Liu, with the score of 6-2 6-0. The match between the two lasted 49 minutes: she was not strong enough to resist any longer.
From the firm application of the chain reaction theory, I can foresee that the following will happen: first, in a few hours, Whitney Osuigwe will win the French Open by harshly beating Claire Liu; the match will last less than an hour and the final result will be 6-2 6-1 in favour of Osuigwe; i.e. what should have been the outcome of BerghemIga’s match against Paigina, hadn’t been BerchemIga such a good player. Through this result it will be demonstrated that Osuigwe won the French Open thanks to Elizabeth Mandlik, a.k.a the New Beloved One: every element will eventually find again its own balance and the chain reaction will stop.
The second event I can foresee is that, having had just written that Osuigwe will easily win the French Open, if the remote circumstance she loses eventually materialises, it’s better that I run fast because Desmond Osuigwe, the father and coach of Whitney, will so much come after me. But I am confident this second event will never occur, since I can rely on the chain reaction.
To end this real intelligent piece of mine, are you wondering what happened to Jessica Pieri, the girl who dared to disrespect tennis so much that she harshly beat N.B.O., causing the chain reaction to set-off? Well, of course, in her following match she was defeated 6-2 6-2 by Andrei, a Rumenian girl who ranks about 100 positions behind Jessica. And you want to know what happened to Andrei in her following match, i.e. the quarter final of the 25k…? Try to guess; and while you think to the answer, I go to bet some money on a certain match of the semifinals of that tournament.
