Serena Williams Survives French Open Scare
At this point in women’s tennis, if you’re playing some girl with an “–ova” at the end of her last name, you know you’re probably in for a difficult couple of hours no matter what round you’re in or what the girl is ranked. On a cold and windy day in Paris, Serena Williams learned that lesson yet again. Undefeated (37-0) in first-round matches at Grand Slams, Serena got a lot more than she bargained for in the first round of the French Open today from the Czech Republic’s Klara Zakopalova, who is currently ranked No. 100 in the world.
The match followed a familiar trajectory for Serena -- romp through the first set, lose some focus and manage to bungle away the second, and then return from some early uncertainty in the third to blow her opponent off the court.
This time, however, Serena looked even more vulnerable than usual, needing nine match points to seal the deal. She actually might not have won this thing at all if Zakopalova hadn’t met her halfway, breaking out in a serious case of the yips in the third set right after she’d seized the momentum in the match. After saving five match points and winning the second set in a tiebreak, Zakopalova had all the mo’ and then some when she broke Serena early in the third and took the serve at two games to one.
But Zakopalova's game deserted her at that point in a recognizable kind of meltdown for young, talented players on tour when they try to hunt with the big dogs. They've got the game, but they don't have the faith in their game. Deep down, they don't believe they're going to win, and so when it comes to crunch time, they find ways to lose. You see it all the time. Zakopalova went up a break in the third, and suddenly she had that expression on her face, the one that says, “holy fricking freakazoid, I'm about to beat Serena Williams in the first round of a Slam.”
The yips arrived with a vengeance at that point, and Zakopalova fell completely to pieces, losing the next four games to go to 5-2. Down again, and in the more comfortable position of having her back to the wall, she staged one more rally to hold serve at 5-3 and then break Serena with some brilliant winners to get back on serve at 5-4.
But her mojo deserted her when she served to try and even the set. Serena broke her easily to close out the match at 6-4 in the third.
It was a definite scare for Williams, who came into the day on an unprecedented four-match losing streak. Her knee is dicey, and her own confidence, rarely a weak point for Serena, seems in poor shape as well. The draw favors her -- she could go through to the quarters without facing a ranked player -- but based on her shaky play today, she looks ripe to be had by anyone who can back up her game with just a touch of moxie in the big moments.
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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