The first sensations of Roland Garros
The top tennis players and former winners of the TBS are already leaving Roland Garros. Let’s look at the most unexpected defeats of the first round.
Ones Jaebert
The real contender at Roland Garros was knocked out by 56th-ranked Magda Linette, 3-6, 7-6, 7-5. In the last game of the match she made a break, although she was losing 0:40.
While in the WTA, the Tunisian tennis player is the only one who could give battle to Polish Iga Swiontek (she has an unreal series of 29 wins). The last final in Rome was the proof of that. Yes, many will remember Lyudmila Samsonova – she took a set from the WTA No.1 in Stuttgart and even claimed a match, but she did not hold out. However, the Russian is still less likely to reach the final stages, while Jaber took the Masters on the ground in Madrid, reached the finals in Charleston and Rome.
It was Lynette’s 20th match against a top-10 opponent for the 30-year-old and she has taken three of them: last year at Roland Garros she beat former No. 1 Ashley Barty on setback, and at Wimbledon she was stronger than No. 5 Elina Svitolina.
Garbiñe Muguruza
The two-time TBS winner, including the 2016 Roland Garros, Garbiñe Muguruza led by a set advantage, 2-0 in the second game and had two break points in her match against the oldest on the ground majors, Kaia Kanepi. But the stubborn Estonian broke the course of the match – 2:6, 6:3, 6:4. Another top-10 tennis player left the tournament.
“When I control the game, I’m good. If I don’t, the matches are difficult. In the end there is only one winner,” Muguruza said after the match.
But the truth is that Garbiñe was the favorite of the match. The Spaniard had a bad start to the wet season: she lost in Madrid and Rome early, and in February of this year she moved down by seven places in the WTA ranking.
Dominic Thiem
Thiem is having a very hard time returning to world tennis after a prolonged wrist injury and several surgeries. The Austrian lost in the first round of WG2022 to No. 87 Hugo Delien, 3-6, 2-6, 4-6. It was his 11th consecutive loss. Former WTA No. 7 Barbara Shett is convinced that the two-time “Roland Garros” finalist and USO-2020 champion needs psychological confidence for victory. He will recover and return to the top ten ranking, but he must play in smaller tournaments – the Challenger level is just the right one for that.
“He’s not hitting the ball as hard as he used to, especially from the forehand, and he’s doubting himself at this point. It’s more of a psychological problem at this point after losing several matches in a row,” Barbara said. – Whenever he hits it from the right side, I feel like he doesn’t have time to follow the ball as fast as he used to. Not so long ago, he was a player who had one of the hardest shots on the tour – that’s what the players themselves said. He lacks that at the moment.”
Naomi Osaka
While the four-time Slams champion and former world number one Osaka is struggling with mood swings, starting her own sports agency and digging into herself, her tennis results are slowly but surely heading into the abyss. Naomi was cut off in Madrid – lost to Spain’s Sara Sorribes-Tormo, 47th racket of the world (3:6, 1:6) and withdrew from the “Masters” in Rome.
American with Russian roots Amanda Anisimova is Osaka’s new bad dream at the Slams. She defeated Japan in the third round on AO-2022, and today, May 23, at the “WG”-2022, she defeated her at the start of the tournament. And she did it in a very mundane way: in 1.5 hours.
Either Naomi is still reeling from last year’s incident at the press-conference of the Paris major, or the richest tennis player in the world is still full of business ideas and new co-operations with partners, and it is not a coincidence that the TBS winner has earned $53.2 M for the year, becoming the richest woman-athlete in the world.
Recall, in 2021 there was a scandal involving Osaka: after an uncomfortable question from a journalist, she declared a boycott of the media and withdrew from the tournament in the interests of mental health.
“I’m not going to lie, when I came here again, I was very worried. I was just a little worried that there were people that I had offended in some way and I would just run into them here. What happened last year is still on my mind. Of course, I’m still thinking about it, and I’m also preparing myself in case I go out on the court and some fan says something insulting to me, like in Indian Wells. But yeah, for the most part I think I’m fine.”
For now, the Roland Garros matches have been suspended because of rain. Meetings continue only on the Central Court with a roof.
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