Latest news with #MarionBartoli
CNA
5 days ago
- Sport
- CNA
Boisson should expect glare of media spotlight, says Gauff
PARIS :Having experienced intense media scrutiny early in her career, Coco Gauff knows all too well the attention her French Open semi-final opponent, local favourite Lois Boisson, faces. Boisson, ranked 361st in the world, burst into the limelight at Roland Garros with an impressive run to the last four and while it ended in a 6-1 6-2 defeat on Thursday, the 22-year-old will shoot up the WTA rankings. "I think her position is especially harder because I think in the French (Open) there's not a lot of (local) players who have made this result in recent years. So I think the whole country is going to be looking at everything," Gauff told a press conference. No French female player had reached the French Open semi-final since Marion Bartoli in 2011. "I guess my biggest advice is just to stay true to yourself and keep your people around you, what they expect from you, not what media expects from you or other outside analysts expect for you," Gauff added. Boisson, however, appeared to have her feet firmly on the ground throughout her Paris stay. "I don't know her too well, but the fact that she's had such a great run and even with all the media attention that happened so fast, obviously I think she has her head on her right shoulders," the American world number two said. "It's going to be probably a weird few months for her, but I think the more it happens, the more you get used to it." Boisson is not planning to change much beyond her tournament schedule as with a new ranking of 65th she will surely get direct entry into the Grand Slam and top-event main draws. "Necessarily when we win more matches and we get into the top 100, then people take more of an interest in you. It's logical," she said. "But I don't have any particular pressure. I have a great team with me, and I'm going to keep my feet well on the ground and all will be well. "For the time being, I'm not going to make any particular changes because I think that if I'm here today it's because it works well, and I don't see why I would change much."
RNZ News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Lois Boisson bottles up Mirra Andreeva to spark French Open fairytale
France's Lois Boisson reacts to the crowd during the 2025 French Open. Photo: DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP Lois Boisson sent the Roland Garros faithful into a state of euphoria on Wednesday, conjuring the unimaginable as she toppled Russian wunderkind Mirra Andreeva 7-6(6) 6-3 to reach the French Open semi-finals. In her maiden Grand Slam main draw appearance, granted via a wild card, the world No. 361 became the first Frenchwoman to reach the Roland Garros last four since Marion Bartoli in 2011, and she did it in style. In a bleak year for French women's tennis, with just one player inside the top 100, the 22-year-old Boisson, sidelined from last year's tournament by a serious knee injury, stunned world number three Jessica Pegula in the fourth round before ousting the baby-faced but battle-hardened 18-year-old Andreeva, the world number six. Next up? A clash with world number two Coco Gauff for a place in Saturday's final. "It's incredible. Thank you for supporting me like this, I have no words," Boisson told a delirious home crowd that chanted her name, roared at every point, and turned against Andreeva when the Russian's frustrations boiled over. "I ran a bit too much because I was so tense early on," she admitted. "But I fought hard in that first set, which was so intense. At the start of the second, I felt a little empty, but I hung in there and finished the job." Andreeva, a semi-finalist in Paris last year, entered as the heavy favourite. She looked to be cruising when she raced to a 3-1 lead under the closed roof on Court Philippe Chatrier. But Boisson refused to blink, point-by-point clawing her way back. It was Andreeva who had to dig deep to stay alive, surviving a 14-minute game at 5-6 and saving three set points before forcing a tiebreak. Even then, Boisson hung tough, recovering from 0-2, saving a set point, and snatching the set when an increasingly rattled Andreeva sent a forehand just wide. After an exhausting 68-minute opening set, Andreeva regrouped to go 3-0 up in the second. But once again, Boisson scrapped her way level as Andreeva cracked, earning a warning for ball abuse after launching a ball into the stands in frustration. Boisson, locked in her bubble, broke for 4-3, triggering yet another deafening ovation. A gritty hold followed, as she saved two break points, before the Russian crumbled on serve. As match point landed, Boisson collapsed onto the clay, then rose with arms aloft, her face streaked with terre battue and emotion. On her right arm, a simple tattoo: RESILIENCE. -Reuters
CNA
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNA
Boisson bottles up Andreeva to spark French Open fairytale
PARIS :Lois Boisson sent the Roland Garros faithful into a state of euphoria on Wednesday, conjuring the unimaginable as she toppled Russian wunderkind Mirra Andreeva 7-6(6) 6-3 to reach the French Open semi-finals. In her maiden Grand Slam main draw appearance, granted via a wild card, the world No. 361 became the first Frenchwoman to reach the Roland Garros last four since Marion Bartoli in 2011 — and she did it in style. In a bleak year for French women's tennis, with just one player inside the top 100, the 22-year-old Boisson — sidelined from last year's tournament by a serious knee injury — stunned world number three Jessica Pegula in the fourth round before ousting the baby-faced but battle-hardened 18-year-old Andreeva, the world number six. Next up? A clash with world number two Coco Gauff for a place in Saturday's final. "It's incredible. Thank you for supporting me like this — I have no words," Boisson told a delirious home crowd that chanted her name, roared at every point, and turned against Andreeva when the Russian's frustrations boiled over. 'I ran a bit too much because I was so tense early on,' she admitted. 'But I fought hard in that first set, which was so intense. At the start of the second, I felt a little empty, but I hung in there and finished the job.' Andreeva, a semi-finalist in Paris last year, entered as the heavy favourite. She looked to be cruising when she raced to a 3-1 lead under the closed roof on Court Philippe Chatrier. But Boisson refused to blink, point-by-point clawing her way back. It was Andreeva who had to dig deep to stay alive, surviving a 14-minute game at 5-6 and saving three set points before forcing a tiebreak. Even then, Boisson hung tough, recovering from 0-2, saving a set point, and snatching the set when an increasingly rattled Andreeva sent a forehand just wide. After an exhausting 68-minute opening set, Andreeva regrouped to go 3-0 up in the second. But once again, Boisson scrapped her way level as Andreeva cracked, earning a warning for ball abuse after launching a ball into the stands in frustration. Boisson, locked in her bubble, broke for 4-3, triggering yet another deafening ovation. A gritty hold followed, as she saved two break points, before the Russian crumbled on serve. As match point landed, Boisson collapsed onto the clay, then rose with arms aloft, her face streaked with terre battue and emotion.
New York Times
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Welcome to Court Suzanne-Lenglen, the French Open amphitheatre of heaven and hell at Roland Garros
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Debilitating back pain has a new cure: 10,000 people chanting your name in song, before delivering a perfect rendition of the La Marseillaise. For it to work, it needs to be administered in the fifth set of a five-hour tennis match, on one specific court. Welcome to Court Suzanne-Lenglen at Roland Garros. If you're a French tennis player, it is heaven. If you're any other tennis player, like Jaume Munar of Spain, whose brain that chorus of 10,000 finally fileted to get a limping Arthur Fils and his ailing back over the finish line, it is hell, a maelstrom of anxiety. Every medicine has a side effect. Advertisement 'Ici Paris?' Fils asked the French faithful, when former player Marion Bartoli put a microphone to his lips at the center of the court in the afterglow of a resurrection, measured by a 7-6(3), 7-6(4), 2-6, 0-6, 6-4 scoreline. It could not be anywhere else. Scour the globe and it's impossible to find hometown fans quite like the French on a court like Suzanne-Lenglen. It may not have the wide-open majesty of Court Philippe-Chatrier, with that 'La Victoire Appartient Au Plus Opiniâtre' quote emblazoned on the rim of the upper deck. But, as that axiom goes, if victory belongs to the most tenacious, at the French Open the vibes belong to Suzanne-Lenglen. Judging by the daily schedule, it's clear that organizers recognize the surge a partisan crowd can provide their players, and the damage that it can do to an opponent. The tournament did not respond to a message seeking comment on whether or not this is a strategy. Fils is the project this year. He's the rising star of French men's tennis, a 20-year-old dynamo with movie-star charisma who is already the world No. 14. Until this year, he had yet to win a match at the French Open. Twice he had played his first-round match on the third court, Simonne-Mathieu, a jewel box of an arena in the middle of a garden and lined by a greenhouse, and come away defeated. Fils owns up to the fact that his mind can drift during a match, occasionally losing his focus and his grit when matches begin to slip away. Simonne-Mathieu has elegance to burn. It's just not a cauldron, as Fils has quickly learned. He opened on Lenglen Monday, then got another gig Friday afternoon at the place where the seats hug the court, where the fans know they can scramble an opponent's brain like a chef scrambles an egg. Did they ever have to cook for Fils against Munar. Advertisement After winning the first two sets in tiebreaks, Fils fell off a cliff, struggling with his balky back and cramps. In his news conference, he said that the back pain has been with him since childhood. Figuring out how to manage it is a work in progress. He received treatment off the court during a medical timeout, then tried to survive as slowly as possible until the painkillers kicked in. All the tension of the first two sets and all those chants of 'Arrrrthur, Arrrthur…' vanished into air as he lost 12 of the next 14 games. But then he trotted out for the fifth set, won the first point with his trademark power, and Lenglen exploded. Then he won three more, and that was a game and the cauldron was once again on the fire and Munar was the frog in a cold pot brought to heat. Fils struck back after Munar broke him to get a lead that this crowd wouldn't let stick, then played an extraordinary game at 4-4 in which he missed two cut-and-paste routine overheads but hit a cavalcade of forehand winners to hold serve. All their efforts, Fils and the fans morphing into one, culminated with that Marseillaise that held up play as Munar served to stay in the match at 4-5. Imagine that moment of French defiance at Humphrey Bogart's Rick's American Cafe in 'Casablanca,' but a thousand times louder. The chair umpire didn't bother trying to quiet them. Then, the Lenglen crowd played its joker. A Munar double fault at 0-30 brought a burst of cheers. But instead of roaring on and drawing a 's'il vous plaît' from the umpire, the crowd started a hissing 'shhhhhhh' that rolled and rolled and rolled. Munar pleaded with the chair umpire. Munar pleaded with Fils. Fils shrugged. Three points later, Fils put Munar's desperate lunge for a drop shot that had rolled off a net cord into the open court. He and his throng of 10,000 had done their work. The celebration was on. Fils gave Munar a calm, appreciative handshake and then ripped off his shirt and tossed it into the crowd. Advertisement 'Unbelievable,' Fils said of the atmosphere, after three hours of cold and hot baths, massages, fluids and food. He called Lenglen 'one of the best courts of the world, if it's not the best one.' Had he been playing anywhere else, he doubted he would have been able to finish the match, let alone win it. But not everyone felt so indebted to the citizens of Suzanne-Lenglen, especially the Spaniard whose brain had gone to goo. 'I don't want to bite my tongue,' he said in his own, when asked about what had gone down. 'I think it's a lack of respect to sing and to interrupt and here it happens a lot. The fans are here for a show, but sometimes it turns into a circus or theater.' It should be said that there are other courts, here and in other places, that can provide players with rocket boosters. Gaël Monfils likely doesn't come back from two sets down against Hugo Dellien in the first set anywhere but Chatrier at night, a court which the 38-year-old beating heart of French men's tennis can turn into a pressure cooker like no one else. It was packed for his second-round match under the lights, in which Monfils give fits to Jack Draper, 15 years younger and the world No. 5. Monfils was a point or a couple of them away from taking Draper the distance in the fourth set, but he couldn't quite get over the line. The Lenglen throngs can only do so much. Corentin Moutet, the crafty lefty famous for his slices, drop shots and underarm serves — and as an occasional practitioner of the dark arts of tennis — got the benefit of landing on the Lenglen schedule Thursday. Moutet is the rare player who can turn Simonne-Mathieu's bucolics into a bear pit, as he did last year against Nicolás Jarry of Chile. For more than three hours, he heard the chants of 'Coco, Coco…' as the 10,000 sang his nickname. They switched to bellowing 'Mooooo-tay…Moooo-tay' when the moment called for it. They even tried the 'Shhhhhhhh….' trick with Moutet on the brink of pushing his duel to a fourth set. The only problem was that the guy on the other side of the net happened to be the greatest men's player of the modern era: Novak Djokovic. Djokovic, who usually plays on the far more cavernous Chatrier, stepped back from the baseline, smiled, resisted his tendency to troll and got busy with finishing the match. Advertisement He chose his words carefully during his on-court interview when the 6-3, 6-2, 7-6(1) win was complete. 'I tried to stay calm on the court and it's not easy,' he said with a grin. 'I know it's a very special atmosphere.' Later, the man who has only made a handful of visits to Lenglen the past decade said that with the crowd so much closer than in the larger stadiums he is used to, it becomes a tangible being. Spectators get more emotionally involved because they feel like they are a part of the action. That intimacy can manifest in various ways. Former world No. 4 Carolina Garcia played her last match at her home Slam there, as close to her adoring public as she could be. 'That's what makes this court, Suzanne-Lenglen, really interesting,' Djokovic said. After Moutet was done, Lenglen tried to get it done for Leolia Jeanjean, the world No. 100, against Daria Kasatkina, a master of off-speed tennis and a mainstay of the top 20 the past three years. Again, that was too tall a task. The effort for Fils would have to carry the day. They will likely get another chance on the weekend, when Fils takes on Andrey Rublev in the third round. Players can request court assignments, which can have varying degrees of impact. There is little doubt about where Fils will want to play. 'Sometimes they're noisy, and sometimes it's a bit annoying for the opponent,' he said. 'But this is part of life. You've got no choice.' He recalled a match in Brazil against João Fonseca that was rough going, although Fonseca now draws febrile crowds wherever he goes. New Yorkers wreck their lungs for Frances Tiafoe. The Aussies turn Nick Kyrgios' matches into roller derbies. Even the Wimbledon crowd went into paroxysms for Andy Murray — after the points were over. 'I think that the French public is one of the best, if not the best,' Fils said. 'And that's just the way it is.'
