French Open recap: Topsy-turvy tennis comebacks, speedy second serves and two wild card wins
Welcome to the French Open briefing, where will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day one at Roland Garros in Paris, another up-and-down match for Diana Shnaider ended in the right result, a home favorite came back from the brink and two U.S. wild cards made good on their potential.
A rising talent comes out on the right side of a topsy-turvy comeback this time
Diana Shnaider's matches are rapidly becoming appointment viewing.
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The Russian world No. 12 has always been an entertaining player to watch, but things have really ramped up over the past couple of weeks. In her previous match, at the Italian Open earlier this month, Shnaider fought back from 4-0 down in the opening set against home favorite Jasmine Paolini to pinch it on a tiebreak. She then led 4-0 herself in the second set, but struggled with a stirring home crowd and lost six games in a row.
Shnaider again led in the third set, but then lost another six games in a row to lose the decider and the match.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to the French Open and Shnaider is at it again. In her first-round match on Sunday against Ukraine's Anastasiia Sobolieva, Shnaider raced to a 5-0 lead but promptly lost the next six games. Then, when up 0-40 to take the set into a tiebreak, she twisted her ankle and required a medical timeout. Sobolieva won the next three points when she returned, but Shnaider managed to take the set to a tiebreak still, which she won.
Once all that was over with, the Russian won the second set a lot more comfortably.
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Who knows what awaits in her next match, a second-round encounter with Dayana Yastremska, also of Ukraine.
A home hope finds inspiration behind a bullet serve
Having recently lost six straight ATP Tour matches, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard looked to be heading to another defeat on Sunday. The French world No. 37 was broken in the very first game of his match against Belgian world No. 50 Zizou Bergs, and lost the opening set 6-4.
But Mpetshi Perricard, the No. 31 seed here who was looking for his first win at his home Grand Slam, dug in and sealed the second set with a 132 mph second-serve ace. Not for nothing is the 6 feet 8 inches 21-year-old considered the most powerful server in the men's game.
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Mpetshi Perricard then looked down and out when trailing 5-0 in the third-set tiebreak, but reeled off seven straight points to pinch it. The noise of the roar on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, with the roof on, was extraordinary.
In a dramatic fourth set, Mpetshi Perricard failed to serve out the match at 5-3 but broke immediately afterwards to seal it, forgetting the missed opportunity. As he put it in his post-match news conference: 'It means it's an amazing memory. Now it's already in the past.'
No wonder Mpetshi Perricard doesn't want to focus on the past — his future is likely to include a third round against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz if he can get past Bosnia's Damir Dzumhur.
Two American wild cards make good on their potential
The tennis federations of France, the U.S. and Australia have their own methods of handing out the wild card that each provides to the other for its respective Grand Slam.
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The U.S. has a nothing-for-free policy, tracking the rankings points for its players during a set period of weeks ahead of each of the Slams. Iva Jovic and Emilio Nava won those races for this major and landed in the main draw of the French Open.
The performances Sunday were an argument for meritocracy. Both won their first round matches. Jovic, who is just 17, beat Renata Zarazua of Mexico in three sets, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. Nava, who is 23 and, like Jovic, hails from Los Angeles, knocked off Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands 6-2, 7-5, 7-5 to make the second round of a Grand Slam for the first time in three years.
For Jovic, that's old hat by now. She advanced to the second round in the U.S. Open in September and in Australia in January.
Frances Tiafoe gets another chance to talk about the end of Rafael Nadal
It was either fitting or ironic that while Rafael Nadal was wrapping up his farewell news conference, Frances Tiafoe, the guy who ended his U.S. Open career, was starting his.
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Tiafoe, who notched a tighter-than-the-score-suggests 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 win over Roman Safiullin of Russia on Court Suzanne-Lenglen said that the Big Four's obsession and love for the sport has always awed him.
'They have an insane amount of drive and determination to just be great,' Tiafoe said. 'The amount of love they have for the sport is impeccable.'
Tiafoe's signature win came against Nadal at the 2022 U.S. Open, a fourth-round upset in Arthur Ashe Stadium that transformed him from a tennis player into a pop culture figure. With a wry smile, he said Nadal hadn't talked to him much since then.
'All of a sudden, like, it was a respect thing of I got to fear this guy a little bit,' he said. 'I don't think he was too stressed out. It was pretty cool to see the competitive side of him.'
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Tiafoe said he was just happy to have gotten a chance to play Nadal Federer, Djokovic and Murray, and especially Nadal and Federer on Ashe.
'To be able to say I played them on the biggest stage in tennis,' he said, 'that means a lot to me and my family. I don't take that for granted.'
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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