In the men’s draw at Roland Garros, upsets narrowly avoided. In the women’s draw, utter chaos.
A day after Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev both fought back from match point down to reach round three, Karolina Pliskova became the latest women’s seed to fall on the Parisian clay, soundly beaten by the splendidly monikered Léolia Jeanjean, a French wildcard ranked 227th.
“It’s incredible thinking that I actually won in two sets against a top-10 player, a previous No 1,” said Jeanjean, who is playing in a tour-level main draw for the first time, after her 6-2, 6-2 win over the Czech eighth seed. “It’s incredible.”
Incredible perhaps, but by no means unique.
In short space, Pliskova was followed out of the tournament by the American star Danielle Collins, the ninth seed, who was undone 6-4, 6-3 by her compatriot Shelby Rogers. Next it was the turn of former champion Simona Halep, seeded 19th, who was stunned by Zheng Qinwen, a Chinese teenager ranked 74th and playing in only her second grand slam. Not to be outdone, Alizé Cornet later defeated 13th seed Jelena Ostapenko, the champion of five years ago, 6-0, 1-6, 6-3.
The vanquished quartet are in good company.
The shocks began early on Sunday, when sixth seed Ons Jabeur, widely seen as a leading contender for the title after winning in Madrid and reaching the final in Rome finalist, was bundled out by Poland’s Magda Linette. Later the same day, Garbiñe Muguruza, the 2016 winner, was beaten by Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi. The leading women have been falling like dominoes ever since.
Barbora Krejcikova, the defending champion and second seed, was seen off in three sets by world No 97 Diane Parry. Anett Kontaveit, seeded fifth, was beaten by Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic. Maria Sakkari, a semi-finalist last year, fell to Karolina Muchova, while Emma Raducanu, the US Open champion and 12th seed, was toppled by Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
Of the top 10 seeds, only Iga Swiatek, Paula Badosa and Aryna Sabalenka remain. All are in the top half of the draw; in the opposite section, 14th seed Belinda Bencic is the highest-ranked player left standing.
What on Earth is going on? And why hasn’t the carnage in the women’s draw been echoed in the men’s, where the top 10 seeds remain intact?
One theory is that the strength in depth of the women’s game is such that ranking and reputation counts for little.
Another is that, by virtue of playing over five sets rather than three, the men simply have longer to work things out, to steady the ship when things go awry. If the best-of-three format applied to both draws, then Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alcaraz and Felix Auger-Aliassime – respectively the third, fourth, sixth and ninth seeds – would all be starting their grass-court preparations by now.
Paula Badosa, who recovered from a break down in the final set to advance 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 at the expense of Slovenia’s Kaja Juvan, finds truth in both suggestions.
“The level is very high right now and you can lose against anyone,” said the Spanish third seed, whose evident irritation at receiving a warning for coaching after she dropped serve at the start of the third set spurred an immediate break back.
“There have been a lot of surprises – and in the men’s, I have been following as well, yesterday so many tough matches, seeded [players], having match points [against them].
“But I think in their case having the five-set matches helped them, because you have a lot [more] time, and you have time to recover. In our case, it’s a little bit different on that side, because it’s like normal. The surprises are coming and coming, and it’s going to be always like that, because the level has raised a lot.”
Jessica Pegula has hit upon a novel solution to the more limited scope for comebacks over three sets: sprint for the line first, flirt with disaster later. Not for the faint-hearted, it is nonetheless an approach that allows plenty of time to stage a recovery. The 11th-seeded American first experimented with the strategy against China’s Wang Qiang in the opening round, where she led 6-2, 5-1 before eventually sealing the second set three games later, on her 10th match point.
Pegula only needed the nine match points against Anhelina Kalinina, although on this occasion the action played out over the long haul. Having missed three chances to seal victory at 6-1, 5-1, Pegula stuttered in the face of an extraordinary fightback by the Ukrainian world No 36 as Kalinina reeled off seven consecutive games. At 4-1 up in the decider she looked to have safely negotiated the crisis, but Kalinina once again came storming back before the American completed a 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 win.
“There’s been, I think even on the men’s side, a lot of top players saving match points and winning in five,” said Pegula. “These are the rounds where anything can happen, and that’s why I’m even more happy to be through, considering the last few matches.”
Pegula nonetheless reaffirmed Badosa’s view that no opponent can be taken for granted. “As far as seeds dropping out, I think to me it’s not surprising, especially in the women’s game,” she said. “There’s so many good players right now that I take every match as being extremely tough.”
Nor should context be overlooked. Any number of factors can affect the outcome of a tennis match, and individual circumstances can never be discounted. Muguruza has been struggling for form all season. Krejcikova was returning from an extended injury layoff, and came into the tournament not so much undercooked as downright raw. Halep, meanwhile, suffered a panic attack during her loss to Qinwen, which goes to show that even former world No 1s are not immune to the natural pressures of competition.
“I probably put pressure on myself too much, because I really wanted to do well,” said Halep. “I felt good. I practised. I worked hard. But it just didn’t happen, and probably I got a little bit of panic during [the match] thinking, overthinking. But I was leading, so there is no reason in particular why it happened. But it happened, so I have to accept it. It’s something normal that everybody has.”
Men are no less susceptible to such pressures, yet they have longer to work through the resulting challenges. Is the answer then for women to play best of five?
“It would be amazing for me, because I feel like my physical part is my strength,” said Sakkari following her loss to Muchova. “But the tournament’s never going to end, so we’re going to have to stay here for a month or build 15 more courts. So I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, because the calendar would have to be shorter.”
Even if the practicalities of scheduling allowed it, Pegula is unconvinced such a move would be for her.
“I think women, we’ve been playing two out of three for a while,” she said. “I don’t, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t want to play three out of five. I think that would just kind of draw things out. That’s just my personal opinion.
“But yeah, it’s definitely different when you’re looking at [the men], you know. You have to win more sets against those top players than in the women, and I think you see those momentum changes a lot more.”