All Eyes on Serena At Roland Garros

Get out of bed, women’s tennis fans. The days of dreary, rain-delayed tournaments in Berlin are over. No more drama about Kim Clijsters’s wedding, honeymoon, and sour farewell tour. Time to forget about the collection of injured shoulders, strained wrists, and appendectomies that have made the women’s game mostly irrelevant since January. Act II of “The Serena Williams Show ” opens in Paris next week. Don’t bet on an early closing.It doesn’t matter that Williams played eight matches on clay in the last three years and lost four of them. Or that she hasn’t won a tournament on the surface since 2002, when she took her only two clay titles in Rome and at Roland Garros. Or that she hasn’t played much this year on other surfaces, either. Since her stunning victory at the Australian Open, Williams has graced the tennis world with her presence 11 times, an average of three matches a month.For any other woman, these facts would add up to certain failure at the French Open. Williams, however, is like no one else who has ever played the game. She doesn’t need much fitness, or much practice, or many matches. In Australia, you’ll recall, she lost to Sybille Bammer, ranked no. 56 in the world at the time, less than two weeks before the tournament began. The performance angered her so much, Williams explained afterward, that she ran a few wind sprints in the local park, did some lunges, and presto! Championship form, faster than one can bring a pot of water to boil.Williams’s fitness remains a myth: One need only watch video clips from 2002, when she won all three majors she entered and posted a record of 56–5. Today’s Serena isn’t half as fit as the 2002 edition. But if the Australian Open taught us anything, it’s that physical fitness doesn’t matter as much for Williams as mental fitness. If she serves well and believes that no one can beat her in a match that matters, she’ll likely win. She’s that good.If her comments in Rome last week are any indication, we can expect to see a confident Serena in Paris next week — and the week after that, and perhaps on the final Saturday. In Rome, she had just lost to Patty Schnyder, the lefty from Switzerland whose array of spins worked wonders on a windy day, when she told reporters: “I think not winning today is going to actually end up working good for me because I get to get even more fit.”And this: “Where I am today, in Paris I’ll probably be even better.”And: “I’m going to do well, and I think once I start believing that, it’ll happen.”The field favors her. The three women with the best chance to win this tournament other than Williams are Justine Henin, the two-time defending champ; Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has bumped her ranking up to no. 3 with several strong performances of late; and Jelena Jankovic, the most durable woman on the tour these days (she’s played 47 matches this year, more than Williams played in all of 2005 and 2006). Of those three, Henin has the best chance (Kuznetsova is too erratic and Williams usually feasts on Jankovic’s serve).Several other competitors one might expect to do well in Paris are either injured or in terrible form. Maria Sharapova continues to struggle with a shoulder injury and her serve. Martina Hingis, twice a finalist in Paris, has withdrawn with a hip injury. Amelie Mauresmo never plays well in front of her home crowd and has yet to find her game after recovering from an appendectomy. Nicole Vaidisova, the 18-year-old Czech who reached the semifinals last year, recently injured her wrist and may not compete.Williams and her quest for a calendar-year Grand Slam could salvage what so far has been a dreary season. Those of you who spent many hours watching Serena and her sister Venus pummel their colleagues match after match a few years ago might agree that Serena, as she is now, is more entertaining and enjoyable to watch than ever before. In her dominant days, she won too easily, and not in the pretty way that Roger Federer usually glides past his opponents. Serena’s brand of tennis is bruising and loud; one couldn’t help feel a little guilty watching her thump players who had not right stepping on the court with her.She struggles more often these days, even with lesser players like Nadia Petrova and Shahar Peer, who both pushed Williams to the limit in Australia. At Roland Garros, Williams will have a far more difficult time than she did in Australia. In the past, clay has narrowed the gulf between her and her competitors — for her career, she is 10% less likely to win a match on clay than on other surfaces (see chart above). Williams hits much more forceful shots than her foes, and her footwork isn’t superb (her court positioning, not her speed). It’s more difficult for her to recover from a full swing when the ground beneath her isn’t firm.How important is Serena to this tournament? If she didn’t play or lost early, I’d be concerned that the women’s tour might have a dud of an event on its hands. Henin’s quest for a third straight title is intriguing, while Jankovic (title in Rome over Kuznetsova) and her Serbian countrywoman Ana Ivanovic (title in Berlin) give fans some fresh faces to cheer. But the fact is, there’s no woman in sight who brings as much to the court as Williams does. Her victory in Australia was the event of the season, men or women, and her come-from-behind win over Henin at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, after facing two match points, was a fitting encore. Everything else in the women’s game this year has been a bore. Paris deserves better.tperrotta@nysun.com

All Eyes on Serena At Roland Garros

All Eyes on Serena At Roland Garros

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