French Open '26: Hot Enough For Ya?

Well, I don't know about you amateurs, but the French Open has turned out exactly the way I expected it to -- the world 114 competing for the women's title while the guy who I guess can win a Slam only when the rest of the field has been decimated. So that's good, I guess! 

Look, I have thoughts, so let's just go:

is the title of this section. 

So some members of the black delegation on the pro tour got together at the beginning of the French Open for a private dinner, hosted by Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend. And of course nonblack folks had something to say, along the lines of this brilliant tweet:

Where to start. I'll start with why I went to a historically black college (Hampton, baby, the real HU!). It's not because diversity is a problem for me. It's that being a black person in a majority white world can be hard. Ask any person of color who has worked in corporate America. When I was coming up, there were all types of narratives about black people -- we go to prison, we don't have baby daddies, we're on crack cocaine, gangsta rap. Believe it or not, it's annoying to have that nonsense following you.

The people who tweet about being left out when they were never even on the invite list suffer from a lack of imagination, I fear. It seems they have never walked into a room and immediately understood there was no one there who looked like them, and that if they were going to stay in that room, they would simply have to deal with it. And they were going to stay. And so of course, they've never understood the relief you feel when finally you see others who look like you, partly because they stayed in the room. Still, though. You're in the room but not always part of it, and sometimes it's nice to hang out with your people, so you can finally just relax before it's back to the grind. 

And yet there seems to be this actual confusion about gatherings like this. It is due, I think, to this privilege on the part of those who have never really been left out, have always been centered. And so of course, why can't they come to the dinner? 

Mostly because no one invited you. Maybe get reservations at the Masters golf tournament. 

Mirra Andreeva Wins the French Open

It goes without saying that Mirra Andreeva is a special player and winning the French is likely just the beginning for her. The thing that struck me during the post-match celebration was the press conference with her coach, Conchita Martinez. I realized that it was the first time in all my time watching tennis, that a woman coach was being celebrated for a Slam win. 

When I was first getting into tennis, Martinez was just getting out, and she didn't look like anything great to my untrained eye. She wasn't flashy like the Williams sisters or the big hitters who began to occupy the top 10. But as I began to understand the game better, I saw her genius, how she moved the ball around, crafted a point. She took her skills and built a great career. One slam, yes, but 43 other titles, five Fed Cups, a regular in the top 10 for almost a decade. I mean.

I'm giving Andreeva (or the people around her) props for not just hiring some dude to coach her. And I hope more women step up to coach. Martina Hingis? Kim Clijsters (apparently coaching Katie Volynets, a name that has to have been manufactured, right?)? Steffi Graf? 

'Nuanced:' You Keep Using that Word. I Do Not Think You Know What it Means

All weekend, I saw Alexander Zverev's French Open run as one that is complex and nuanced. That's because it's divided the tennis community on whether it should be celebrated, but the cause for the divide isn't nuanced at all. 

Here is what I understand to be true. Zverev has been credibly accused of hitting two former girlfriends, to the point of leaving marks. The evidence of one of these rows can be seen on camera because it was during one of these tournaments. A reporter wrote about this and has faced more consequences somehow. The ATP looked at the case and ruled that they couldn't come to any conclusions. The mother of Zverev's child took him to court and before the trial could finish, he opted to settle and pay her.  So far, not complicated. 

Zverev also happened to be a really good tennis player and on Sunday, he won his first Slam. Lots of fans aren't happy about this because lots of signs point to him being an abuser who has never faced consequences, even though he's never been found guilty as the result of any investigation. This is fairly straightforward too. 

There's nothing nuanced here and the only reason it could even look that way is that we play in our own faces all the time now. We've (in the U.S.) got a president who says one thing and does another and winks. Some people see the evidence of the lie, and choose to focus on something else, like the economy. Oops, like immigration. Oops. Affordability. D'oh! The simplest conclusion is that 1+1=2, but some people are like, "What if it's actually three?" as if that makes them an abstract thinker who can think outside the box. Yo, sometimes the box is there for a reason.

It's simple to determine whether you think that Zverev is worthy of your support. You can see the evidence of his character. Some people see that evidence and decide that this is just a conversation about tennis, and he really deserved that Slam. He played well! He did. 

And I don't support him. This is super not nuanced.

Quick Hits

I turned on the mens double final over the weekend and was like, "OK, still with Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos? These guys have to be older than even me!" First of all, they're not, and second of all, these 40-year-old dudes just won the French Open again. Wild ...

It's crazy how some women's doubles teams seem to be in flux. Jelena Ostapenko is always playing with someone different. I thought Gabrielle Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe would play together forever, but they split up this year, too. Hsieh Su-wei is out there looking for a regular partner again. But it looks like  Townsend and Katerina Siniakova have figured out that if something works, let it cook, as the kids say. They dropped exactly one set during their run to the French Open title. 

The Official 2017 TWA Yearbook

And here I was, thinking I could wait until after Christmas and still get my last entry of the year in before the start of the 2018 season. But as I write, the first matches of the season have already been contested. So yeah. I'm thinking someone should do something about the lack of an offseason, especially considering we're coming off a season where half of the best men in the world didn't make it through the whole season.
But hey. What do I know. Actually, I know that the pro tennis season was one of the best things about 2017. So let's try and squeeze in a conversation about that before Serena Williams (!) plays her first match since January 2017, when she won the Australian Open while pregnant. Let's go!

Head of the Class: So, this season, the ATP and WTA had to deal with the same quandary -- the sudden loss of their top talent. But the players remaining handled it completely differently, I think. Serena Williams took the rest of the year off to have a baby and the other women spent the rest of the year playing hot potato. "No, you take the top ranking and all the Slams!" "Gah! No, you! Don't touch me!"
But most of these players didn't have anything in terms of experience on Mssrs. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. So when Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray were felled by injury this season, Federer and Nadal knew what to do. But they were nice about it -- they split the four Slams evenly among them. So, for the second year in a row, there will be co-heads of the class. But this time, neither are women. Don't @ me.

Most Inspiring Player: This is a toss-up, because there is one guy who claimed wins against Fed and Nadal this season, but came up short in the Slams and in Davis Cup. He also has beaten Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios. Regardless, David Goffin might look like a bag of bones in oversized tennis shorts, but his game said much more. (His player page says he's 5-foot-11. Nah, right?) Next time you feel like you're outsized, out-powered and out-talented, well, you probably are. But before you take the bagel, consider that this year, Goffin shored up his weaknesses to prevail against some of the biggest names in the game. Except Grigor Dimitrov, of all people.
There is also one woman who has shown up quietly to all the Slams this year and made the final of three of them. Due to recent underwhelming results, no one really expected Venus Williams to be a force this season. But there she was, on one half of the court during some the best matches of the year. She did this being older by her opponents by often a decade at least, and sometimes without her best tennis. She never did it with a coach in her ear at every timeout. She's old-school in every way -- except she's not quite ready for the senior tour. And when Venus is on a roll, it's best to let that roll go. Am I right, Jennifer?

Most Popular: Maria Sharapova, of course. She really was the belle of the ball. Never has anyone returned from a drug ban to such pomp, including a tournament holding a spot for her after it had already started until the end of her suspension. I might have noted once or twice how unimpressed I was with how her suspension went down, but fans didn't care. When tournament organizers thought that she might qualify to get into Wimbledon, they sold tickets to those rounds -- and people bought them! (Remember when Sharapova said she'd play anywhere, even a New York City street? Turned out that enthusiasm didn't extend to, like, qualifiers.) So there you go. The people (who aren't me) have spoken. 

Most Likely to Succeed: Garbine Muguruza, like the other women on the WTA Tour, has been unsteady this year, but her run to the Wimbledon title, including her utter domination of the second half of the final match, makes me think she's got a shot at hitting the ground running next year. Whatever her obstacles, they seem to be between the ears. 

Most Likely to Succeed ... at Something Other than Tennis: Martina Hingis, who probably should consider another profession because it would appear she has done just about everything possible in tennis. I'm sure that if she took up MMA boxing, it'd go okay. I guess. She might be slight, but Hingis will cut you.

That Student Who Skates Through the School Year, But Aces the Final Exam: Looking at you, Caroline Wozniacki. She had a solid season, although she came up short in most of the final matches she played. Until September, when she won her first final out of seven tries. And then. She goes to the WTA Finals and beats Venus, who she had never beaten before. 

U.S. Open Time!: The Definitive U.S. Open Wrap

I didn't get to see Rafael Nadal win his 16th Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open live. I missed most of the match due to inconsistent Wi-Fi coverage during Hurricane Irma and then my computer battery died and there was no power for almost two days. So things have been a little crazy since the Open ended, but it doesn't mean I don't have thoughts about what happened during the last major of the year. Let's go!

1. Watching Nadal play in this tournament brought back memories of the French Open, where he was wearing down opponents who looked great in Set 1. Those same opponents looked like they could use an oxygen tank by the end of the match. Nadal could have found complications in the final against Kevin Anderson, the lone survivor of the bottom half of the men's draw. Heavy and hard hitters like Nick Kyrgios and Denis Shapovalov have gotten the best of Nadal this year, but at this tournament, Nadal was able to blunt power and use the entire court to keep his opponents from standing at the baseline hitting comfortably. I mean, poor Anderson looked like a weary lab retriever by the end of that match -- he's not the most elegant mover to begin with.
I've had some things to say about the bottom half of the draw, but making a Slam final is still an accomplishment, even if you didn't have to beat a top 10 player to do it. This could be the thing that propels Anderson's career to another level. Hopefully, when he gets to that level, he won't feel the need to give himself a fist pump just for holding serve in the first game of the match. It's just that, Kevin, well, you're supposed to hold serve.

Besides, it's not really a fist pump unless you're covering some court.                                  

2. So Sloane Stephens won the U.S. Open and I still feel she was pretty lucky to make it out of her semifinal against Venus Williams. Right? I mean, those last two games featured some of the gutsiest ball retrieval skills I've ever seen from a non-Williams. Look at this:



I mean, what.
Now, perhaps I judged Sloane a bit harshly by wondering what in hell she was thinking by playing Wimbledon first tournament back and losing in the first round. Still a valid question, but obviously, winning the next major out after a long injury layoff is no small feat. And just as you probably shouldn't take anything long-term about Madison Keys' performance in the final, I'd caution the same about Stephens. Keys did not handle her nerves well for the final, but that was such a colossal lock-up, it's hard to imagine her letting that hamper her again. As for Sloane, I don't know what her new pecking order is in the grand scheme now. I'd love to see her tested more against the rest of the top 10, especially Garbine Muguruza.

3. Because the women's No. 1 ranking has been like a hot potato that no one wants since Serena Williams went on maternity leave, Muguruza is now the top dog of the WTA. At least she's a current major winner. Maybe we're asking too much of our No. Ones. Serena and Roger Federer and Nadal and Djokovic have been dominant and consistent in their reins. Angelique Kerber? No, not exactly. Karolina Pliskova? Well, no. Maybe now we're heading into the scrapper age, where players are battling weekly against each other, as opposed to acquiescing to the dominance of one. That actually sounds like a lot of fun, too.

4. Martina Hingis is still out here winning doubles titles, this time with Chan Yung-Jan and Jamie Murray. That brings the grand career total to 25. My unofficial theory: She is out to prove that she can win a title with anyone with the same serve she'd had since she was 16. Pretty bold.
Oh, and also, I'm going to need someone to talk to me about how this dinner went:

lovely dinner company tonight! @Venuseswilliams @JRBlake @GbrClassic pic.twitter.com/c3cCtmg3yq

— Martina Hingis (@mhingis) September 17, 2017

This Week with TWA: Top 5 moments from the WTA Finals

Well, the WTA Tour Finals went down exactly the way I expected it.
Said no one. Like, no one.
Dominika Cibulkova won the WTA Tour Finals on Sunday. OK? You got it? No? Me neither! This one's gonna take a while.
This year-end tournament was Threat Level Insanity. It was like the U.S. presidential election 2016 shenani-aster. Except in all good ways. Let us count those ways:

Dominika Freakin' Cibulkova: First of all, there can't be too many other players at this tournament who lose twice, yet still advance to the sudden-death stage only to win the whole thing. Let's just get that hat-tip out of the way. Now, I called Cibulkova a Minion-sized player on Twitter, but she has always been one of my favorite players because she gives tiny tennis players like myself a lot of hope. Except she has to work really hard, which is kind of a bummer. Not only does she have to be fit, she has to have impeccable timing to get the drop on almost anyone else on the court. It is not easy to hit the ball at the top of the bounce every. single. time, or at least every time she successfully executes a shot. A big part of her game is taking time away, and it's just a second or two, but it's part of what had Kerber (and the rest of her opponents this week) scrambling all over the place. It's maddening.

Anddd, the loser, but still champion ...: I know a lot of people like Angelique Kerber. I like her. She's got grit, she works hard and she is the legit World No. 1 right now. But even as she earned that title, I always considered her a stopgap No. 1 at best. This tournament proved that, and the final match really shined a spotlight on this. Cibulkova played great defense and served well, too, but she offered up enough short balls that Kerber should have been able to step in and apply pressure. Instead, she's the one being pulled around the court. In her 20-minute offseason, she needs to develop the kill shot.

Svetlana Kuznetsova goes full Alize Cornet: Kuznetsova has always been my favorite Russian from that first post-Kournikova batch. She's not flashy, no drama, just a meat-and-potatoes tennis player. She's had periods of wild inconsistency, but at her best, she is a threat. She was a real threat to Johanna Konta last week and took her spot in the finals at the last minute. I thought she'd have nothing left to make a real run, but that was, to put it mildly, not accurate. She made a semifinal run to the tour finals, but not without a little sacrifice.

There are a couple of things to love about this. First, the theories bandied about by the female commentator. "She's feeling heavy on the court?" Pardon? Like, what?!!
It turned out that Kuznetsova's explanation about this moment was that her hair kept getting in her face and distracted her. OK. Makes sense. I guess my first inclination would have been to ... I don't know, ... tuck the problematic hair into my ponytail holder? But that's just me. There are about four other ways to solve the problem, and Sveta goes to the most time-consuming and permanent one. Oh-kay!
On the next changeover, Kuznetsova was sobbing like Vera Zvonareva. This is really all the evidence you need that the season is too long. We've got players having mini-episodes and losing critical thinking skills during matches, guys!


The return of Santina: Even though Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza did not defend their championship, they are still a very entertaining team to watch. The reason they ended their partnership in the first place was because they weren't getting the wins they were used to, and I guess losing here is just confirmation. But big-ups to Mirza, who was not really much of a doubles player when she started out, but has developed pretty well, learning a lot from Hingis and is now the best doubles player in the world. And she's getting the cream of the crop for partners so far, too. Barbora Strycova is not the friendiest person on tour, but she doesn't come for friends. She comes to clean up on the court. Hingis? Hingis is drawing Coco Vandeveghe. I would just submit she is not exactly battle-tested.
Anyway, the rest of the doubles tournament was also great to watch. Elena Vesnina is another one of those "clean up on aisle D" types and she and Ekaterina Makarova came away with the title, which again, was a bit of a surprise. Which fits in perfectly with the rest of the tournament.

What the Halep?: I have this feeling that the Simona Halep/Darren Cahill breakup is coming soon. Sure, I could be wrong, but perhaps the person most poised to pose a real challenge in this post-Serena season was the one behind her in the rankings most of the season -- Halep. And yet? Lackluster Slam appearances, barely registers a blip in Singapore. I'm far from an insider, but Cahill is a high-quality coach. People under his tutelage tend to get consistently better, or poof! Done! Has Halep maxxed out her potential? Maybe it's just that the long season took its toll. But she clearly needs to assess how badly she wants to challenge for No. 1, because right now? Yeah, this is the time.

Singapore: You know, since I've gotten the Tennis Channel back, I've been watching a lot more tennis. Duh. I know, but one other thing I've noticed is that I might be the only one watching the tennis. The stands at these late-season tournaments have been almost completely empty. That's questionable to me. Everyone's sitting around debating what we should do about the long season. Should we shorten matches? Replace tiebreakers with riveting rounds of rock-paper-scissors? Maybe we just have fewer tournaments. I have to think some of these events are operating at a loss. The money they pay in electricity just to get the party started must be exorbitant compared to the spectators. They might just consider having people bring candles to the matches if they're going to keep having tournaments that 10 people attend in person.
OK, with that off my chest, man, that crowd in Singapore loves themselves some tennis! Every match had enthusiastic fans. They didn't appear to be sellout numbers, but there was some life in the place. You want to fix tennis, Steve Simon? Maybe just give tennis to the people who want it?

In defense of variety

I just happened to catch the Agz Radwanda/Caroline Wozniacki match in Tokyo last week and for some reason, I had a delayed reaction to something I've known for a while. It's the lack of variety in the pro tennis game.  It's hard to play the way Radwanska does, which is probably why you don't see too much variety in the game right now. It's especially hard on the body -- every time I see Radwanska play, she's got tape somewhere else on her body. (Once again, this

doesn't really help.)
This isn't rocket science, but it is kind of sad. Think about the young guns, both men and women, who can legitimately say they rely on more than power. Coming up empty, aren't you?
But, for one shining moment, there was Justine Henin. She could match Serena Williams in power, and was a great shotmaker and point plotter. She also didn't last long. There was (is) Martina Hingis, whose guile was enough to drive her opponents crazy -- until they figured out all they had to do was hit through it.
I'm not minimizing their success -- but the actual reign of that success, and the career longevity -- is certainly shorter than power players. It could be that Radwanska is now finding that as well. Even though she was able to win the first set against Wozniacki, she started getting pushed around by Woz, who is something of a tactician on the court as well, but can also flatten out her strokes and seems to be working on her serve.
Seeing the lack of variety is a bad thing for tennis, for the record. It's not because I don't like watching power players, because, like, who doesn't? But it sure does make for boring tennis, watching players do the same thing against each other over and over again.
At least there is still a small place for variety in tennis -- doubles, where Hingis continues to dominate.

TWA's Cincy wrap

I know this isn't a popular opinion, but is anyone as surprised as I am that Angelique Kerber had a shot at being the No. 1 player in the world this weekend? 

Kerber is a fine player, no doubt. But her lack of one fallback weapon was her downfall in Cincinnati on Sunday. *Time out: Yes, I also recognize that she just won the silver medal in Brazil and might be a tad tired, and I recognize that she played that match under the weight of knowing that all she had to do was win it and she would be the best player in the world. What I am about to note is still true regardless of all of that. Time in.* It's clear that Karolina Pliskova, at least this week, had some huge groundstrokes that Kerber was literally fighting off on her knees. A valiant effort, but when Kerber faces off against power players who are hitting their targets, it totally takes away her game, which is the ball-machine approach -- get everything back. She's very good at that. It's why she beat Serena Williams in Australia. Serena wasn't ready to work that hard, but when your opponent plays the way Plishkova did, and you don't have a backup plan, well, you get handled pretty efficiently. 

Having said all of that, big-ups to Kerber for showing up after the Olympics and advancing to the final. Same to Andy Murray. There are times in pro tennis when the dominant player of the time stumbles, even briefly, and leaves a small window of opportunity. Many times, there isn't anyone able to step in and take advantage. With Novak Djokovic on the sidelines right now, the opportunist is Murray. He has made himself the player to beat right now, and although he also lost in the Cincinnati final Sunday, to Marin Cilic, he should feel very good about his chances at the U.S. Open (in less than a week!). 

Another major development in Cincinnati was the first tournament for Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza -- with new partners. Hingis had Coco Vandeweghe and Mirza's new partner is Barbora Strycova. (Now, sizing up these new partners is a push. Both Coco and Strycova have huge chips on their backs, but due to sheer age, I'll say Strycova's is bigger.) Naturally, they both ended up in the final, and if you were lucky enough to be in Cincinnati, you saw what seemed to be a tight match with Mirza/Strycova taking the title. If you weren't, you had to follow some live-score website to find out who won. 

Which is going to bring me head-on into my rant-o-the-week. Again. Most tennis fans who play play doubles. Why is it so hard to get doubles on TV? I'd watch it. The folks on Twitter on Sunday moaning about not being able to see this match anywhere would watch it. What's it going to take to get doubles the love it deserves. Rafael Nadal just won Olympic gold, if your answer is "big names." Martina Hingis is one of the best doubles players around, if your answer is "dubs is boring." If you're reading this, I am about to embark on a crusade to get doubles on TV more often. All I need is a good hashtag, because everyone knows that nothing gets done anymore without a good hashtag. So let's brainstorm bombard the networks with some pressure, all right?! Seriously, though, I'm gonna need some help because all I got right now is #makedoublesgreatagain, which is obviously a nonstarter.

The women's journey to gold

OK, so the women's draw actually has people I've heard of in it. I know that a lot of people think that women are the drama queens in tennis, but this might be a good time to point out that they're not the ones dodging the Olympics because of mosquitoes. They pack their deet and move on. Just sayin'.
So (rubbing hands together enthusiastically), let's see our draw possibilities!

That arrow toward the bottom of the draw is the 'Are You Kidding Me?' match of the first round. I mean, how are you supposed to pick a winner between Genie Bouchard and Sloane Stephens? It's like a battle between dashed hopes and low expectations.
But anyway. Obviously, Serena looks to be the favorite in almost every tournament she plays. But. Her second-round match is probably against the reigning drama queen of tennis (unless Jelena Jankovic is around) Alize Cornet. Cornet has had some big-time success against Serena, so this is not a gimme. And she is likely to pitch a fit about something, so definitely should be entertaining.
Other possible matchups of note: Caroline Wozniacki v. Petra Kvitova. I would normally expect a straightforward win by Kvitova, but she's been shaky lately. Wozniacki hasn't been playing either, so who knows? I picked Kvitova, but who knows. Then there's Venus Williams v. Lucie Safarova. This will be a good match and although Venus has been dropping philosophical science and kicking butt, I think this could be tricky for her because Safarova is capable of stringing wins together. She hasn't done it much lately, but as much as Venus has been playing, this could be a situation.
The bottom draw has a ton of possibilities for the finals, but Johanna Konta and Agz Radwanska are my picks for navigating it. Radwanska is likely to advance on guile and in watching Konta against Venus a couple weeks back, she has got a lot of game -- big serve, big groundstrokes, good brain. So we'll see.
The doubles should be good, too. Martina Hingis has Timea Bacsinszky as her partner and they've got a good shot at the semis against Caroline Garcia and Kristine Mdladenovic, two really strong dubs players. Top half: the Williams sisters (as the top seed some sixteen years after they first played in the Olympics, by the way. Crazy) look to have a good chance to advance to see Russians Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarava.