The Opportunity of a Lifetime (No Pressure!)
As two dozen men fight in a sudden French Open free-for-all, nerves can be expected.
PARIS, France — It was another day of thrillers at the French Open, with the men who remained in contention brawling for hours to advance onward in what could be the opportunity of a lifetime.
In what had been Jannik Sinner’s quarter, all four matches went to a fifth set, and three of them went all the way to a fifth-set tiebreak. Matteo Berrettini went all the way to 15-13 in that fifth-set tiebreak to beat Francisco Comesaña. Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who had taken out the ailing Sinner, finished just two minutes shy of six hours in his win over Martin Landaluce.
Fans were generally enraptured by the nailbiters. But at least one WTA player—who had to wait for the preceding men’s match to take more than five hours to conclude—was less impressed.
“I think we’ve seen in the men’s scores today that they’re all really worried about who is going to be in the finals, and not on the match today,” Madison Keys said dryly. “So we’ve seen lots of men’s tennis today.”
Keys can relate: many women’s draws in the past decade have been de-seeded abruptly, and led to unexpected champions and surprise semifinalists of various staying power. (Tamara Zidansek or Martina Trevisan, anyone?)
“You can think back to some women’s draws that kind of—I don’t want to say ‘fell apart,’ because if you are winning these matches you deserve to be in that position—but the unexpected is happening,” Keys said. “There’s definitely been instances where I’ve gotten way too concerned about: this person lost, so now my quarter is open…
“All jokes aside, I do think we’re kind of seeing the men deal with it for the first time in a really long time where it feels completely wide open. Like I said, they should really get their heads around it. I think it will be interesting. It will really just be who can handle the moment, who can figure out how to play their best tennis with way more mounting pressure.”
Some of the men have admitted this pressure head-on. Particularly blunt and disarmingly honest, as ever, was Frances Tiafoe, who came back from two sets down for just the second time in his career to beat qualifier Jaime Faria 4-6, 6-7(2), 7-6(4), 6-1, 6-2.
“Definitely probably the biggest time I’ll ever do it, considering, right?” he said of the comeback win. “Obvious why I say that. Yeah, couldn’t be happier, man.”
I loved Tiafoe’s honesty in our exchange that followed in the mixed zone, so I thought I’d share it in whole:
Ben Rothenberg, Bounces: All four of the matches in your quarter today went five.
Frances Tiafoe: As they should.
Ben Rothenberg, Bounces: And the other three all went into fifth set tiebreaks, too. So how much do you feel what you’re talking about: this atmosphere, people are feeling it, and the battles are just that much more intense right now?
Frances Tiafoe: 100 percent, 100 percent. I came out tight as hell today. God. And this is the reality, man. It’s fun to be a part of, man. I was telling some of my homies: it’s fun to be part of, man. You’re part of history, however you want to look at it. Whether you get it done or not, you’re part of history, and it’s just fun to be a part of.
But yeah, man, it’s pretty cool to see guys really put it on the line—everybody. Absolutely just give it all you got. And I think that’s the best thing about sports, right? You see two guys go absolutely at it, and see what happens.
Ben Rothenberg, Bounces: And you don’t always see that in the same way.
Frances Tiafoe: You don’t always see that. You see guys not really believing and guys kind of go away. And you saw a little bit of that tonight from the other guy [Faria]. But yeah, man, it’s pretty cool.
A day earlier, the opposite end of the emotional spectrum could be heard from Alex de Minaur, who was morose after losing to Jakub Mensik after winning the first set 6-0. He admitted, after many answers of self-castigation, that he may have let the exits of Sinner and Novak Djokovic rattle him.
“Look, I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have affected me, but maybe it did,” de Minaur said. “Look, I really don’t know right now. Obviously where I’m sitting right now, I feel like it’s a wasted opportunity. As I said, there’s not many times you get these types of opportunities. Or even in my career, I feel like I haven’t really been handed too many of these opportunities.
“Normally [when] I’m at the tail end of tournaments, I’m playing these top players, and it kind of feels like the door has been kind of shut in front of me. Once in a blue moon you get an opportunity like this, and you have to be able to take it, and I did exactly the opposite today.”
Saturday was an oft-chaotic day of women’s results, too; Keys also blamed the men for that, understandably.
“I feel like their anxiety is slowly seeping into everyone’s lives,” Keys said. “So hopefully they can kind of make it through that, and feel a little bit better. Stop worrying about the final Sunday, and [instead] worry about, you know, today, tomorrow.”
Keys was, in her own way, enjoying it all.
“But I do think that it’s always kind of exciting when crazy things happen,” she said. “As a tennis fan, it’s been fun to watch.”
It wasn’t fun to watch, at least for American tennis fans, how the top two remaining U.S. women crashed out.
With a forehand shank lashed well wide of the court—closer to the side wall than the doubles alley—Coco Gauff’s French Open title defense ended in a third-round loss Saturday at Roland Garros, falling 4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4 to 30th-ranked Anastasia Potapova.
But that ending was better than what sixth-seeded Amanda Anisimova had delivered in the preceding match on Chatrier. Anisimova, battling an illness that has caused her to miss practices, got herself into a third set tiebreak, but then fell apart spectacularly from 3-3 in that deciding tiebreak, dropping seven points in a row to the delight of the French crowd, who cheered hometown favorite Diane Parry on to an unexpected victory.
To read the rest of this post, with looks ahead to the best matches to watch on Sunday and a dive into the much-debated Rafael Jodar ballgirl incident, please subscribe to Bounces! 15 percent sale remains in effect for just one more week! -Ben
