Post by Admin on Jun 6, 2015 12:21:02 GMT -4
PARIS – After mounting comeback after comeback this French Open fortnight, Serena Williams was finally asked to thwart one on Saturday in the women's final.
She did just that.
The world No. 1 let a 6-3, 4-1 lead slip against No. 13 seed Lucie Safarova, a first-time Grand Slam finalist, the American surging back to win her 20th Grand Slam title, a 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-2 winner.
"I choked, simple as that you know," she said in an NBC interview, of letting the lead slip away. "I hit a lot of double faults. My first serve just went off. I didn't get any first serves in. I got really nervous it was a big moment to win 20.
"From that point she saw that I was nervous and she starting playing the tennis that she can play."
Williams lost eight of nine games midway through the match, falling behind 2-0 in the third set against a game Safarova, the Czech left-hander. She'd win the final six games of the match, however, sealing victory on a Safarova backhand into the net.
With the victory, Williams is just two shy of Steffi Graf's Open Era record of 22. Williams becomes the first woman to win both the Australian and French Opens back to back since Jennifer Capriati did so in 2001, and looks to equal Graf's calendar-year Slam (1988) later this year at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Williams won five three-set matches in total this French Open, marking the first time she has had to do so in her career. She trailed by a set in each of the second, third, fourth and quarterfinal rounds, rallying in each of those matches for victory.
It was a bizarre fortnight in Paris for the 33-year-old Williams, who developed flu-like symptoms midway through the tournament.
After appearing out of sorts and moving gingerly in her semifinal win Thursday against Timea Bacsinszky, Williams skipped her post-match press conference that evening, citing illness. Friday she didn't practice, either, giving pre-final statements via a piece of paper handed around the press center, and deciding not to come onto the grounds of Roland Garros altogether.
The win marks her third in Paris, following victories in 2002 and 2013. This is the tournament that has been the most difficult for Williams in her career, suffering early-round exits in 2012 (first round) and 2014 (second round).
It had been a storybook tournament for "lefty Lucie," a perennial top-25 player who has found her form in the last year, reaching a first career semifinal at a Grand Slam last year at Wimbledon. Here she registered wins over Maria Sharapova, the defending champion, and Ana Ivanovic, winner here in 2008.
But she was winless in eight previous tries against Williams, who moves to an astonishing 20-4 in Grand Slam finals. Their two meetings on (green) clay prior to Saturday saw her win just six games in four sets.
The comeback kid here in Paris the last two weeks, Williams is perhaps the most powerful frontrunner in women's tennis. The world No. 1 moved to 240-7 in Grand Slam matches when winning the first set.
There are few things the American hasn't done on the tennis court, but winning a calendar year Grand Slam is one of them. She won the "Serena Slam" between 2002 and 2003, champion at the French Open, Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open, but she's never done all four in one year.
This is a city and tournament that has felt more and more like home to Williams the last three years, following that first round exit to Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano in 2012. She brought on French coach Patrick Mouratoglou, has a Pied-à-terre in a swank part of the city and did all of her post-match interviews this year in respectable, conversational French.
She'll go back to speaking English at Wimbledon in three weeks, given an extra week in the tennis calendar, new in 2015. Whether or not she'll play the same, championship-caliber tennis is yet to be seen. She's 14 matches down, 14 matches to go to that calendar Slam.
C .......You Go Serena
