Familiarity seemed to breed a certain strain of contempt at the French Open in 2021, as players swept aside the established norms even as spectators returned to the stands and Grand Slam tennis made a springtime comeback on the clay of Roland Garros.
The air of change was etched in stone prior to the start of the tournament, as for the first time in the modern history of Grand Slam tennis, world number one Novak Djokovic, world number three and thirteen-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, and world number eight Roger Federer found themselves in the same side of the draw.
When Dominic Thiem continued his run of poor form by losing in the first round to Pablo Andújar, the French Open was guaranteed a new finalist from the bottom half of the men’s draw. In the shock of the opening day at Roland Garros, the reigning US Open champion and two-time runner-up in France suffered his worst performance to date at the tournament, falling in four sets to the talented 35-year-old Spanish underdog.
Stefanos Tsitsipas faced no such trouble as he opened his campaign with a comfortable victory over Jérémy Chardy, while Alexander Zverev was forced to come back from two sets down versus Oscar Otte. In the women’s draw, Victoria Azarenka outlasted the 2009 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, Petra Kvitová rallied in three to beat the Belgian qualifier Greet Minnen, and Madison Keys weathered a second-set storm up against French wild card Océane Dodin.
If the drama was already beginning to take shape out on court, most of the controversy over the first few days at Roland Garros piled upon the shoulders of Naomi Osaka, following her decision to forgo the usual media obligations after citing concern for her mental health. In an Instagram post published a few days before the start of the tournament, Osaka explained
‘I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one. We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me.’
In typical fashion, Osaka was tentatively describing her own mental state while serving to highlight some of the longstanding concerns around media duties and sports journalism. Post-match press conferences can sometimes be tetchy affairs, with tennis players sometimes bemoaning the short turnaround times and repetitive lines of questioning.
At the same time journalists remain part of an ecosystem which allows tennis to thrive and prosper on the world stage. As social media becomes the site of breaking news and seems to foster closer engagement with athletes, the press still has a role to play in summarising and analysing the sport, at its best forging empathy and understanding even as perceived arbiters of meaning are increasingly scorned by the wider public.
Tact and tone is often lacking, particularly when the emotions are still raw and players shorn of confidence post-match. Yet as Osaka indicated, she has always maintained a warm relationship with the press, who eagerly covered her series of tributes to the victims of racial injustice at the US Open last September.
Osaka’s statement was itself a call for change and understanding, which chafed so close to the onset of a major tournament. The Grand Slams collectively seemed more eager to placate journalists and sponsors when they issued a strongly-worded response, outlining the fines and the eventual prospect of disqualification which Osaka would face if she continued to decline her contractual obligation to meet with the press.
In the end, Osaka decided to withdraw from the French Open ahead of her scheduled second round match, expounding on her social anxiety and writing that she has suffered long bouts of depression since her breakthrough at the US Open in 2018. Her decision left the tournament without one of its star names and brightest talents, while gradually restoring focus to the tennis in France. Amid words of support from her fans and some of her peers, concrete discussions around mental health and the specifics of press conferences were put on hold, although following her example other players at the French Open already seemed more willing to speak out.
As the week progressed the big names continued to fall in the women’s draw. In the first round, the sixth seed Bianca Andreescu was edged out by the unheralded Slovenian Tamara Zidanšek, while 2016 champion and twelfth seed Garbiñe Muguruza was dispatched by the young Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk. Ahead of the second round, Petra Kvitová joined Osaka on the sidelines, ironically after suffering a freak fall at the end of a post-match press conference.
Tenth seed Belinda Bencic lost out to a resurgent Daria Kasatkina, and ninth seed Karolína Plíšková suffered the same fate at the hands of Sloane Stephens. When the top seed Ash Barty was forced to retire from her second round match against Magda Linette, the 20-year-old Polish star Iga Świątek was installed as the tournament favourite, her clay court prowess having carried her to a maiden Grand Slam at the pandemic-stricken French Open last October.
In the third round the hotly-tipped third seed Aryna Sabalenka succumbed to the all-court talents of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, while fifth seed Elina Svitolina was dispatched by Barbora Krejčíková, who until recently was regarded as a doubles specialist. Pavyluchenkova and Krejčíková continued to show fine form in the fourth round, as they stretched past former Grand Slam champions Victoria Azarenka and Sloane Stephens.
When Serena Williams lost out at the same stage to Elena Rybakina, once more curtailing her quest for a record-tying twenty-fourth Grand Slam, the women’s draw began to look wildly unfamiliar. The Greek gladiator Maria Sakkari was experiencing something of a breakthrough as she battled past Elise Mertens then breezed beyond Sofia Kenin. Eight women remained, and in unprecedented scenes six of those women were celebrating their first time in the quarter-finals of a major.
The men’s draw was progressing more smoothly, with the plain sailing even extending to clay court antagonist Daniil Medvedev. In four appearances, the second seed had never stretched beyond the first round of the French Open, and earlier this season in Rome even pled for disqualification owing to his perennial dislike for clay. Now Medvedev seemed to be coming to terms with the red stuff, with Zverev and Tsitsipas also making light work of the bottom half of the draw, where they were joined at the quarter-final stage by the gallant Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
In the top half Rafa Nadal looked imperious, even easing past the Italian prospect Jannik Sinner. Novak Djokovic faced his first real test in the fourth round, where the 19-year-old Lorenzo Musetti cut a swathe through his opponent over two sets, only for Djokovic to prevail as Musetti floundered. That left Roger Federer as the last of the big names, and the great Swiss impressed over three rounds as he continued his comeback from two knee surgeries. Entering his third tournament in the past sixteen months, Federer faced stern challenges from Marin Čilić and Dominik Koepfer, coming through only to withdraw ahead of the fourth round as he set his gaze towards Wimbledon.
With some coronavirus measures still in place across France, the French Open this year cautiously welcomed back visitors. 5,000 fans were allowed on site until the second Wednesday of the tournament, when eased restrictions saw the number rise to 13,000. In turn Court Philippe Chatrier could host 1,000 spectators until France reached phase three of lockdown easing on 9 June, with the number climbing to 5,000 as the competition reached a climax.
Paris was also lingering under an evening curfew, which did nothing to prevent the debut of night matches. For the first time at Roland Garros, some of the biggest names in tennis were asked to play on Philippe Chatrier under starry skies and the glare of floodlights. But the evening curfew meant that no fans were in attendance until 9 June, when a solitary night session embraced spectators.
Serena Williams had kicked off the festivities with the first night match of the tournament, and Roger Federer played beyond midnight as he fought to overcome Koepfer in four sets. But when Novak Djokovic faced Matteo Berrettini in the quarter-finals in front of 5,000 fans, even the noise of the crowd became muted.
A few years older than his Italian compatriots Sinner and Musetti, the ninth seed Berrettini sought to capitalise on the exertions Musetti had put Djokovic through in the fourth round. Meanwhile the withdrawal of Federer had provided Berrettini with a few days of rest mid-tournament. Urged on by a partisan crowd, Berrettini took the third set against Djokovic and made a bright start to the fourth, when a revised 11 pm curfew forced organisers to clear the stands. The players returned to court after a twenty-minute delay and Djokovic regained the upper hand, breaking in the fourth to secure the victory.
Rafa Nadal waved goodbye to his 36-set winning streak at Roland Garros, as a typically game Diego Schwartzman snatched the second set of their quarter-final match. But Nadal prevailed in four to set up the anticipated semi versus Djokovic. In the other side of the draw, Daniil Medvedev regarded a job well done, hailing his progress on clay even as he lost out to Stefanos Tsitsipas. Alexander Zverev overpowered Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the other quarter-final clash, and would meet Tsitsipas in a battle of the new generation.
Coco Gauff reached her first major quarter-final at the age of just 17 years old, after working her way past fellow seeds Jennifer Brady and Ons Jabeur. But in the quarters a first-set tiebreak proved decisive as the wily Krejčíková emerged as victor. Then Maria Sakkari blew the tournament wide open by defeating the heavy favourite Iga Świątek in two sets, managing to outmuscle and outmanoeuvre her young opponent.
Krejčíková and Sakkari met in a semi-final that suffered growing pains before emerging as an ironclad epic. Krejčíková edged ahead at the end of an era-strewn opening set, with Sakkari piling up the unforced errors while the Czech struggled with her backhand down the line. Through gritted teeth, Sakkari came back in the second and had match point in the third, only for Krejčíková to prevail with the final score reading 7-5, 4-6, 9-7. An erroneous line call on match point in the end only postponed Krejčíková’s victory, while renewing the clamour for Hawk-Eye technology even on the shifting clay of Roland Garros.
All four competitors in the women’s draw were marking their debut in a Grand Slam semi-final. Of the four, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was by far the most experienced, having made the quarter-finals of a major six times previously. Her first Grand Slam quarter-final came at Roland Garros back in 2011. Ten years later she faced off in the semis against Tamara Zidanšek, and held her nerve to come through 7-5, 6-3.
In the battle of the Greek god and the teutonic German, it was Tsitsipas who took an early lead as he raced through the opening sets. Tsitsipas was a semi-finalist in France last year, mere weeks after Zverev finished runner-up at the US Open, with the emerging faces of the men’s game edging ever closer towards a Grand Slam title.
After winning seven straight games to take the second set, Tsitsipas allowed Zverev back into the match, and the German began to dominate on serve heading into the decider. Then the momentum shifted again, as Tsitsipas saved three break points in the first game of the fifth set, eventually taking five match points to cement the 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 victory.
The other men’s semi was the match everyone had been anticipating since the draw was announced. In seventeen appearances at Roland Garros, Rafa Nadal had only lost twice, showing an unprecedented level of dominance on his way to thirteen French Open titles. He faced the world number one Novak Djokovic, who defeated Rafa in the quarter-finals back in 2015 only to succumb to Stan Wawrinka in the final. Djokovic was therefore looking to add to his solitary success at the French, which came in 2016 versus Andy Murray.
Nadal got off to the best possible start as he went 5-0 up in the first set, but there were chinks of light for Djokovic before Nadal called a wrap at 6-3. Djokovic proceeded to wrest control of the match in stunning fashion. In one of the classic matches on clay and in this storied rivalry between two greats of the sport, Djokovic saved numerous break points in the second set then capitalised in the tiebreak at the end of the third, strolling away in the fourth set to claim a momentous 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 victory. While the match could have turned at points in the second and third set, on the cool evening clay Nadal’s groundstrokes struggled to penetrate the seamless defence of Djokovic.
A five-time Grand Slam champion in doubles competition, Barbora Krejčíková only entered the top 100 as a singles player following the French Open last year. In March she reached the final in Dubai, then at Strasbourg in May she won her first WTA singles title. Now in the final of the French Open she faced Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, one of the most consistent players of her generation, now also on the cusp of her first major singles glory.
The experience of both players told in what proved a cagey but never particularly anxious final. After sharing the first couple of sets, it was Krejčíková who crept ahead in the decisive third after Pavlyuchenkova sought treatment for a thigh injury. After squandering two match points at 5-3, Krejčíková quickly regained her composure, wrapping things up in her next service game to win 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.
Adding to the lineage of Czech major winners, Krejčíková possesses enough depth and variety from the back of the court to thrive on any surface. She received the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen from the Czech-born tennis icon Martina Navratilova, and paid tribute in her victory speech to her former mentor Jana Novotná, who died at the age of 49 in 2017. Then on Sunday morning Krejčíková was at it again, teaming up with her longtime partner Kateřina Siniaková to score historic success in the women’s doubles. Defeating the duo of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Iga Świątek, Krejčíková became the first woman to hold singles and doubles titles at Roland Garros since Mary Pierce in 2000.
After beating Nadal, it seemed like Novak Djokovic had completed much of the hard work. Instead Stefanos Tsitsipas took the first-set tiebreak in the men’s final at Roland Garros, and rolled through the second set to briefly appear on the verge of victory. Tsitsipas showed exceptional movement over the tricky red clay, unlike Nadal hitting the ball with a lot of topspin while also stepping up to the baseline, frequently succeeding in taking time away from his opponent.
As inevitable as the rising sun, Djokovic mounted a comeback. Working through any lingering fatigue, he began to target the Tsitsipas backhand, upped the consistency on his first serve, and chipped away at his opponent through a series of exquisite drop shots. When the tide turned in the third set, Djokovic threatened to ease his way to victory, but Tsitsipas showed great fighting spirit. After falling behind to an early break in the fifth set, he redoubled his efforts on serve to keep things competitive, but Djokovic proved too tough to crack and prevailed for a 6-7 (6-8), 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 scoreline.
Djokovic therefore claimed his nineteenth Grand Slam title, just one behind the record held by Nadal and Federer. After victory at the Australian Open in February, he remains on course for a ‘Golden Slam’ of all four majors in one calendar year, which would place him on top of the all-time list. His second triumph at Roland Garros also makes him the only man in the Open Era to have won the Career Grand Slam twice, with at least two victories at all four majors.
Tsitsipas meanwhile broke his duck by progressing from a major semi-final at the fourth time of asking. Greece still awaits its first Grand Slam title, but Sakkari and Tsitsipas don’t intend to hang around and will hope to build swiftly on their success in Paris.
