Searchez la Femme

Lame Ladies at the French Open

Justine Henin, we miss you!

I've spent the last week watching the Tennis Channel's (once again excellent) coverage of the 2008 French Open (aka Les Internationaux de France de Roland Garros or Tournoi de Roland-Garros) at Roland Garros in Paris and I've yet to see a quality women's tennis match. Trust me, I really want to believe the erroneous hype consistently perpetuated by people who don't follow tennis seriously that women's professional tennis is better and more exciting than the men's game and that recent World No. 1-by-default (following Justin Henin sudden retirement from the WTA just two weeks before Roland Garros) Maria Sharapova is A) the sexiest Russian female athlete since Anna Kournikova and B) womens tennis' reigning Queen, but alas, I cannot do it. Myopic though they be, I still have eyes that see with proper magnification and I'm sorry to report that the women's game has never been more lame.


Ah, Justine: It was all yours for the taking

Oh, Justine, this so would have been your fifth French Open title had you showed up, even if you played half-heartedly. You could have stayed up drinking wine all night in a Left Bank cafe pondering existentialism and sulked all day on the red clay courts and still have beaten these pretenders to your throne with their dull power games and primordial grunting. The towering Amazons were there like a set of 10-pins, ready to be bowled over - 5-10 XXL Serena and 6-2 Venus Williams, 6-1 Sharapova, 6-1 Ana Ivanovic and 5-10 Jelena Jankovic. (Admittedly, Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic are cruising through the field at Roland Garros, but then they haven't really been seriously challenged by any players of note)

Maria Sharapova seems like a nice, articulate young woman of 21. I have nothing against her, but I'm so sick of these know-nothing guys who always wink and mutter what a babe she is, in the same way they only know one other female tennis player, the ridiculously over-hyped Anna Kournikova who was never ever on tennis' radar screen. Sharapova is only hot if you think an albatross with blonde hair and pimples is hot - and that grunting wouldn't sound so sexy it you heard it coming from a bathroom stall. And as for being an "exotic Russian babe," she speaks like an American Mall Brat, having spent almost as much time living in Florida as Russia. World, get over it!

Russian Toward the Exits

And as for being the game's reigning Queen, Sharapova is still a work-in-progress. Yes, she won the Australian Open earlier this year and, admittedly, she is one of only a handful of WTA players with that increasingly rare "killer instinct" (I'd put her right behind Serena Williams in that regard) who can put games away. Even Henin, though methodic and workmanlike, had moments of "existential crisis" when it came time to closing out matches (much like her equally talented rival/headcase Amelie Mauresmo).


Sharapova: The Sound & The Fury

But at Roland Garros, Sharapova could never maintain her form long enough to close in for the kill. She should made an embarrasingly early exit in the First Round but somehow managed to escape with a 6-1, 3-6, 10-8 victory over fellow Russian Evgeniya Rodina, a match in which Sharpova had 68 unforced errors (to her inexperienced opponent's mere 28) and double-faulted 17 times! That's inexcusable at the pro level. I don't even double-fault that many times on the public courts around town! Rodina is a counter-puncher whose lack of anything remotely resembling a power game let Sharapova off the hook in the deciding third set when she was leading 4-3 and looked ready to break her opponent to go up 5-3 and serve for the match; instead, Sharapova somehow managed to hold to pull even at 4-4 and then ride it out until the end.

She then struggled through three sets with unknown American Bethanie Mattek (6-2, 3-6, 6-2), making 51 unforced errors and double-faulting 10 times. But she couldn't escape her bad form in her next match against fellow Russian (and Marat Safin's kid sister) Dinara Safina, 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-5), 6-2. Safina should have won the first set and Sharapova (up 5-2 with match point and then up 5-2 in the tiebreaker befor elosing the next five points!) should have won the second set, but counter-punching baseliner Safina deserved the match by the time the pair played for all the marbles in the third set. Too bad she won't go much farther; despite improved fitness training, she's still a baseliner with limited mobility - being particularly exposed by Sharpova's drop shots.

Meanwhile, Sharapova's charm seemed to slip away as easily as her game as the end neared. According to Associated Press reporter Howard Fendrich, "Maria Sharapova did not go quietly. No, her departure from the French Open was filled with sound and fury: her stroke-accompanying shrieks, her self-loathing shouts between points and the spectators' hearty boos and high-pitched whistles that ushered the No. 1-seeded woman to the exit." After the match, Sharapova left Court Suzanne Lenglen without acknowledging the crowd, saying "I can't please everyone. It's not in my job description."

Sister Act, Deux

Of the other heavyweights in the Land of the Giants, I really thought Henin's retirement had paved the way for Serena Williams to steamroll her way to another French Open title (she won it in 2002), but it was not to be for her or big sis Venus. In fact, the Williams sisters played like they still had jet lag one week after arriving in Paris, both losing on the same day to unknowns - and they could have lost even earlier in the tournament if any of their opponents had anything close to a power game.

For too long the sisters have gotten by on pure athleticism and - in Serena's case, that inner "competitve gear" (aka "killer instinct") that she can kick into place to vanquish opponents who who dare to seriously challenge her. But Serena's lack of fitness (no matter what she says about her training, she's a big girl built more like Babar the elephant's Queen Celeste than a tennis player, and always looks out of breath whenever an opponent runs her on the court instead of letting her settle in on the baseline and dictate play with her big ground strokes) and horrible net play. Serena may have cruised to wins over overmatched fellow Yank Ashley Harkleroad (6-2, 6-1) and France's own Mathilde Johansson (6-2, 7-5), but she was found out by veteran Slovenian player Katarina Srebotnik, whose deep ground strokes, solid serving and consistent net play ran Serena ragged, 6-4 and 6-4.


Serena: Amazing Grace?

Meanwhile, Venus' reluctance to come to net (where her imposing 6-2 height and US Air Force-certified wingspan make any opponent's return virtually impossible), combined with the usual litany of high double-digit unforced errors, ensured defeat at Roland Garros. Against Israeli qualifier Tzipora Obziler - at 35 the oldest player in the tournament - Venus made 39 unforced errors (to her opponents' 17) and dropped a set before eventually pulling away 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Obziler used steady serving, deep forehands and net volleys to scare Venus before the American finally imposed herself at the net to shorten the rallies in the final set and make the great escape from the First Round (where she has succumbed in years past to Austrian interlopers such as Barbara Schett and Barbara Schwartz).


She got legs but don't know how to use 'em

Then it was on to play another old-timer, Tunisia's stylish 30-year-old Selima Sfar, whom Venus vanquished 6-2 and 6-4, but looked not the better player for it, merely the bigger and more powerful. It was a lot closer than the scoreline suggests. Venus would eventually lose in the Third Round, upset by 26th-seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy 7-5 and 6-3 only hours after her sis Serena had succumbed to Srebotnik.

East Side Stories

The women's draw is now strictly an East Side Story, whittled down to three Russian, two Serbs and an Estonian. At this point, it's looking increasingly like No. 2-seed Ana Ivanovic's title if she can reign in her "niceness" and continue to pummel her opponents like she did that pretty Czech girl the other day. She'll meet No. 3-seed Jelena Jankovic next in an all-Serbian semifinal. Jankovic also has a shot, but she lacks Ivanovic's big serve and I don't think she has the focus/heart/"killer instinct" yet. On top of that, she didn't look at all impressive in her 6-3, 6-2 victory over unknown Spanish qualifier Carla Suarez Navarro (who had a powerful one-handed backhand but no forehand). More importantly, Jankovic is 1-5 lifetime against Ivanovic, including a loss earlier this year on hardcourt at Indian Wells and a 0-1 record against her on clay.

Though Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina have made it to the quarterfinals, the only other contender I see with a real chance is Svetlana Kuznetsova, who bullied Nadia Petrova 6-2 and 6-1 in another all-Russian Third Round match and should finish off Estonian upstart Kaia Kanepi in her next match. Kuznetsova should prevail over whoever wins the Dementiva-Safina match (I'll take Safina in that all-Russian quarterfinal). Even though Kuznetsova lost her way the last few years, she once had the killer instinct of a champion, winning a U.S. Open in 2004 and finishing runner-up there last year to Henin. Can she reclaim her focus to steal one away from a Henin-less French Open? We'll find out shortly.

(Oh, and in case anyone's wondering how the the contenders listed above might have done against a still-active Justine Henin: As of March 24, 2008, Henin had a career record of 4-0 vs. Ana Ivanovic - including a win in last year's French Open final -and was 9-0 vs. Jelena Jankovic, 7-2 vs. Elena Dementieva, 5-1 vs. Dinara Safina, 16-2 vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova and 1-0 against Kanepi - beating the Estonian 6-2 and 6-0 at their only meeting earlier this year in the quarterfinals at Sydney.)

My French Open Stars

Ones To Watch


Selima Sfar

Age: 30
Country: Tunisia
Ranking: 241

Throwback-style unseeded challenger who made a match of it with Venus Williams, whose WTA ranking is 234 places ahead of the No. 241 Tunisian. Any other player with even the slightest power game would have upset Williams, who played a typically sloppy and inconsistent game full of unforced errors and poor technique. But the petite (5-5, 121 pounds) Sfar, she of the one-handed backhand (a beauty), drop shots and slices, just didn't have any go-to weapons besides physical fitness and guile. Still, her 2-6, 4-6 loss to Venus was not as straightforward as the scoreline suggests. As the UK's Guardian reported: "Williams will encounter few more perplexing assignments. Sfar, with her penchant for serve-and-volley, elegant one-handed backhand and willingness to mix looped topspin ground strokes with chipped drives, is a throwback to a bygone era. Faced with the Tunisian's variety of shot and tactic, Williams rarely looked settled."

Sfar, on the other hand, looked lovely, wearing a form-fitting one-piece that left little to the imagination and paid tribute to her washboard abs and taut legs. You can have your supermodels, Hooters waitresses, and pin-up girls; to me, nothing is sexier than a fit female tennis player with long, lean legs and a one-handed backhand(schwing!).


Sfar's Pilates-worthy abs

Sfar, who has been ranked as high as 75th in the world (July 2001), achieved most of her success in B-circuit ITF tournaments, where's she's won 11 singles tournaments and 17 doubles titles. But at 30 and with a finese style that doesn't fit today's power game, don't look for Sfar to win any major WTA tournaments; watch her simply for enjoyment of "the beautiful game" itself. That in itself makes this graceful athlete a winner.


Janko Tipsarovic
Age: 23
Country: Serbia
Ranking: No. 33

There's a new Serb gunslinger in town and he's got game. While the world rightly raves about Novak Jokovic - and Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic on the women's side - Janko is the latest Serbian tennis star whose name ends in "vic" with a game ready to break into the Top 10. His trademarks, besides the noseguard over the bridge of his nose (what's that all about, anyway?) and the plentiful tattoos that peek out from under his shirt (forearm and back of neck), are his unbelievable power and baseline game. His forehand is a force to be reckoned with - this guy hits winners that leave no doubt about their intention - and his two-handed backhand is not far behind.

Tipsy started 2008 by reaching the third round of the Australian Open, where he more than held his own against World No. 1 Roger Federer, losing the deciding fifth set by 10-8 in a match that lasted 4 1/2 hours - no wonder they call the guy "Marathon Man"! He made it to the quarter finals at Zagreb, the third round of Monte Carlo (beating Paul-Henri Mathieu and Nicolas Lapentti before falling to David Ferrer), and barely lost a third-set tiebreaker to big-serving Chilean Fernando Gonzalez in Rome. He's also beaten James Blake this year. At the French Open, he lost in the first round, in four sets, to Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti, but is still alive through the third round in men's doubles with fellow Serb partner Victor Troicki.

Oh, and about those tattoos. According to Wikipedia, they reflect his love of classic literature (rather unusual for a pro athlete): his left arm features a quote from Fyodor Dostoyesky's The Idiot ("Beauty will save the world") written in Japanese characters (after deciding it didn't look as cool in Russian), while a tattoo on his right arm represents the first two letters of the names of his father, his mother, himself and his brother, also written in Japanese Katakana. The tattoo on his back is a quote from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Word has it that he reads Goethe and Nietzsche - for fun.

Tipsy is quite the entertaining character to watch. Besides the tats, he also has piercings (he has a labret and a barbell in the right brow) and at one time sported glasses, which is rarely seen on today's tour...



...and even sunglasses - which you never see in the pro game (I wonder why?).


Future's so bright he has to wear shades

The Guardian's Robert Kitson was so impressed that he wrote a poetic piece about Tipsarovic following a 2006 loss at Wimbleton to Andy Roddick. "Imagine a fly fisherman on the deck of a deep-sea trawler and you will get an idea of how Tipsarevic operates. In a world full of power-hitters he directs balls to improbable corners of the court with more subtlety and skill than the pile-driving Roddick will manage in his entire career."

These two are definitely ones to watch, one as a coming contender, the other simply for the beauty of her game.

Honorable Mentions:
I was also very impressed by the play of Brazilian qualifier Tomaz Belluci in that first set (which he lost 5-7), First Round match against Nadal, Frenchman Julien Benneteau who gave it his all against Federer in the Fourth Round (4-6, 5-7, 5-7), and especially Latvian Ernests Gulbis - the 19-year-old phenom who became the first player in the history of his small Baltic homeland to enter the top 100. He's currently No. 80 in the world, but should move up after making it to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in three tight sets 5-7, 6-7 (3-7), 5-7.