Alcaraz has enjoyed a triumphant start to the summer, retaining his French Open title with an epic five-set win over Jannik Sinner before transitioning smoothly from Parisian clay to English grass to claim a second victory in three years at Queen’s Club. But a first-round meeting with Fabio Fognini was never likely to be a straightforward assignment, even allowing for the fact that the gifted Italian arrived at Wimbledon without a main-draw win at tour level this season, and Alcaraz was aware from the outset that it could be a challenging afternoon.

“I knew at the beginning it was going to be very difficult playing against Fabio,” said Alcaraz after claiming a 7-5, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 victory in blistering heat. “It doesn’t matter, his last year, his last tournaments, the talent that Fabio has is immense. In every match he can show his best tennis.” 

For four hours and 37 minutes, Fognini did just that, delving deep into the box of tricks that once earned him a place in the world’s top 10. He ran, he hustled, he harried. He flicked forehands to every corner of the court, often at full stretch and always with no discernible sign of effort. He knifed backhands loaded with slice and sidespin to Alcaraz’s forehand, forcing the Spaniard to pick the ball off his shoelaces. At one point he even turned southpaw, almost catching the champion off guard with a lunging left-handed forehand. 

Fognini is 38 now and he has indicated this will be his final season on tour. Wimbledon has never been the happiest of hunting grounds – this was his 15th visit and he has never been beyond round three – but what a swansong it was. So good, in fact, that the Italian said afterwards it might even have been the last match of his career. If so, he went out on a high.

That Alcaraz emerged unscathed was down to a combination of resilience, rapidly accumulated experience, and the sheer breadth of his options. He struggled with his serve, particularly early on, and made a whopping 62 unforced errors. But there are so many weapons in the Spaniard’s arsenal that even when one element of his game is misfiring – and at one point or another he stuttered in just about every area against Fognini – there is always something else to fall back on. Not least the extraordinary tenacity that also got him over the line against Sinner at Roland Garros earlier this month.

“I’m getting mature and I know how to deal with some situations,” said Alcaraz, who has been beaten just once in the 15 five-set matches he has contested so far in his career. “I always say that the champions always find a way. I really want to see myself in that [list] of champions. I really want to put myself like a champion that always finds a way to win. 

“I’ve been playing really, really tough matches the last year, the last year in this tournament. Just really proud that I always find a way. Today I did it, even though Fabio was playing great tennis. Just really proud to overcome the problem, to overcome the tough moments.”

Alcaraz’s epic win puts him in distinguished company. Roger Federer memorably fought back from two sets to love down against Alejandro Falla in 2010, while Pete Sampras held firm in the fifth set against Britain’s Barry Cowan in 2001. Going further back, Bjorn Borg pulled off several Houdini-like acts of escapology during his run of five straight titles, overcoming a two-set deficit against Mark Edmondson in 1977, recovering from two sets to one down against Victor Amaya the following year, and overturning a similar deficit against Vijay Amritraj in 1979. 

Even after winning two titles in SW19, Alcaraz has a way to go before matching that trio – between them, Federer, Sampras and Borg were crowned champions on no fewer than 19 occasions – but this will nonetheless go down as a worthy addition to the catalogue of great escapes. Amid all his achievements – five majors, seven Masters 1000 titles, youngest world No 1 in rankings history, the list goes on – it is easy to forget that the Spaniard is still a relative newcomer to the tournament. This year marks his fifth visit, and against Fognini he was opening the Centre Court programme as defending champion for only the second time. Understandably, there were nerves.

“It feels like it was the first time,” said Alcaraz, who has now won his past 19 matches. “It doesn’t matter, the winning streak that I have right now, that I’ve been playing great on grass, that I have been preparing really well the week before. Wimbledon is different. 

“I could feel today that I was really nervous at the beginning. Being the first match on Centre Court, it’s a huge privilege for me. Even though I played the first match last year, it feels [like] the first time. I just try to deal with the nerves the best way possible.”

Alcaraz can draw comfort from the knowledge that he is not alone. In weathering an early storm on the Centre Court grass, he has trodden a path familiar to many a past champion; few would be surprised if it led him to a third title.

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“Knowing that there is someone chasing me or I have a target on my back right now, I love it,” she said in Paris a few weeks ago. “I take it as a challenge. Every time I go out there, I feel like, OK, let’s go. Let’s see who is ready for the pressure moments.”

Such self-belief has been evident throughout Sabalenka’s reign at the top of the rankings. Since reclaiming top spot from Iga Swiatek last October, following an eight-week run at No 1 in late 2023, the 27-year-old has been a model of consistency, winning WTA 1000 titles in Miami and Madrid and reaching the finals of the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Stuttgart and Roland Garros. 

In the process, she has made a mockery of the notion that it is harder to hang on to top spot than to reach it. As Swiatek has struggled to hit the high notes with the regularity that kept her at No 1 for 125 weeks, Sabalenka has cemented her status. She goes into Wimbledon almost 4,000 ahead of second-placed Coco Gauff and, having reached the semi-finals in her past two appearances at the All England Club, a firm title favourite in the eyes of the oddsmakers.

But while Sabalenka’s setbacks have been few, they have been significant. Defeat to Madison Keys in Melbourne denied her a third straight Australian Open title, while an error-strewn loss to Gauff in Paris earlier this month leaves her still searching for a first grand slam title on a surface other than hard courts. 

Events in the French capital also laid bare the mental fault-lines in Sabalenka’s game. She has made good the damage caused by her ungracious remarks in the aftermath of that match, when she blamed defeat on the windy conditions, her own poor play and Gauff’s mishits, but the emotional volatility that sparked that outburst, a quality she has worked so hard to tame, cannot be solved simply with contrite remarks and social media snippets.     

“Usually after losing, I’m quite good,” said Sabalenka, who has apologised to Gauff publicly and privately, and last week performed a TikTok routine with the American after practising with her on Centre Court, apparently confirming the hatchet has been buried between the pair.

”I can accept losing, of course. I usually never struggle. It’s just this time it was super tough for me, I don’t know why. I wanted it badly and I just was upset that I couldn’t make it. This time, emotions took over me. 

“But on court, in the finals or semi-finals sometimes, I can get over-emotional and I would like to improve that, I would like to stay to the same mentality I have during the tournament. 

“I believe I get over-emotional at the last stages of the tournaments because I have this desire of winning. Sometimes it gets over me and I can lose control over my emotions. I would love to control that at the last stages of the tournament.”

It is a rare chink in the armour of a player whose withering power and growing variety seem tailor-made for Wimbledon, and it points to a deeper challenge for the Belarusian. For all Sabalenka’s insistence that she is comfortable with the external pressures that go with the No 1 ranking, the tiger within has been harder to tame. 

The weight of that burden was evident in her nervous start to the Australian Open final, and it surfaced again in Paris, where she became increasingly frustrated by her inability to capitalise on a blistering start. At a point in her career where even her closest rivals often struggle to touch her, Sabalenka may just be her own worst enemy.

The irony is glaringly apparent – even to the Belarusian, who has acknowledged the disparity between her on- and off-court persona. Always a bubbly presence when not in the heat of battle, Sabalenka arrived in SW19 fresh from a surprise defeat to former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in Berlin, but with a broad smile on her face. 

She has had plenty of fun since, including practices with Jannik Sinner, her male counterpart at the top of the rankings, and seven-time champion Novak Djokovic, who spent more than half an hour afterwards in deep conversation with her.

There was further merriment when Djokovic gatecrashed the final moments of Sabalenka’s  pre-tournament press conference.

“What do you think about hitting with me, how do you see my level?” she enquired jokingly.

“I think you have the potential, you’re a really talented player, you have nice strokes, good technique,” Djokovic replied without missing a beat. “Can I be honest? You’re lacking intensity on the court, you don’t have enough intensity. It’s too flat.”

The Serb’s irony occasioned much laughter, yet there was also truth in his jest. For all the comic mileage to be found in casting the impassioned Sabalenka as too laid back, there is a point at which  desire suffocates, where intensity spills over into something more destructive. Sabalenka has identified the problem; her ability to find a solution is likely to shape the outcome of her challenge for a first Wimbledon title.

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The nugget of wisdom bequeathed to Carlos Alcaraz by his grandfather, and tattooed in shorthand on his left wrist, has never felt more pertinent than it did on Sunday at Roland Garros, where the 22-year-old Spaniard saved three championship points against Jannik Sinner, the Italian world No 1, to win the longest French Open final in history.

Having divided the past six majors equally between them, the pair have already inherited the mantle of the Big Three. But their epic first meeting in a grand slam final brought vibrant confirmation that tennis has a life beyond Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, with Alcaraz recovering from two sets to love down for the first time in his career to prevail in a fifth-set tiebreak after five hours and 29 minutes of pure theatre. 

In staving off three match points, Alcaraz achieved a feat not seen in the men’s game since 1927, when Henri Cochet came within a point of defeat on six occasions before finally prevailing against fellow “French musketeer” Jean Borotra in five sets. 

That statistic alone is indicative of the historic nature of what was undoubtedly the greatest comeback in a grand slam final since the open era began in 1968. Djokovic saved two match points to deny Federer a 21st major at Wimbledon in 2019, but the most obvious point of comparison came in 2004, when Gastón Gaudio prevailed in an all-Argentine Roland Garros final, likewise saving a pair of championship points after dropping the first two sets against Guillermo Coria. 

That, though, was a nervous, cramp-ridden affair; this was tennis of an entirely different order. In the first French Open final to be decided by a final-set tiebreak, Alcaraz initially found Sinner every bit as impenetrable as the Italian’s previous 20 grand slam opponents. Yet the Spaniard somehow summoned the will and the level to force a decider in which Sinner displayed extraordinary reserves of physical and mental fortitude, defying cramp and then defying Alcaraz, who served for the title at 5-4, to take the contest down to the wire. 

Only at the death was Alcaraz finally able to pull clear, the defending champion riding the momentum from a jaw-dropping backhand pass in his final service game to produce a near-flawless exhibition of shot-making in the climactic tiebreak. A brilliant running forehand sealed a victory for the ages, 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2), and sent rapturous observers scurrying for superlatives, with some even comparing the match to the 1980 and 2008 Wimbledon finals between, respectively, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe and Nadal-Federer.

“If people put our match in that table, it’s a huge honour for me,” said Alcaraz after sealing his fifth grand slam title. “I don’t know if it is at the same level as those matches because those matches are, you know, the history of tennis and the history of the sport. So I let people talk about it, if for them [the matches] are almost the same. 

“But for me, watching from outside or realising what that match is in the history of tennis, I don’t know if our match is in the same table as them. But [I’m] just happy to put our match and our names in the history of the grand slams, in the history of Roland Garros. I [leave] the discussion to the people.”

So what of that discussion? The drama of the denouement was undeniable, and both men produced some majestic tennis. For two sets, Sinner was almost unplayable; by the end, it was Alcaraz who was untouchable. Yet it should also be acknowledged that, until the latter stages, they rarely played their best tennis at the same time. As Sinner marched into a seemingly unassailable lead, suffocating Alcaraz with the quality of his serving and deep, central returns, which denied the Spaniard the angles on which he thrives, the heightened sense of anticipation surrounding the contest dwindled. 

Put it this way: had Sinner gone on to seal the title in four sets, the match would never have been mentioned in the same breath as Borg-McEnroe 1980 or Federer-Nadal 2008, both of which featured genre-defining fourth-set tiebreaks in which match points were saved and individual points forever seared in the memory. The equivalent shootout here was relatively devoid of jeopardy, two of Sinner’s three points coming early, and from unforced errors. 

Instead, the pivotal moments came when Sinner made three straight errors with Alcaraz serving at 3-5, 0-40. Duly emboldened, the Spaniard slammed down an ace, smoked a forehand down the line, and cupped a hand to his ear, drinking in the acclaim of a crowd desperate to see more. Alcaraz duly obliged, breaking with some scintillating all-court play, and from that moment on the fascination became whether he could finish what he had started, staging a repeat of his comeback from a similarly parlous position against Sinner at the 2022 US Open.

So while the score might have evoked memories of those classic Wimbledon finals, the context was as different as the surface and the protagonists; a new match, for a new generation. And perhaps that is as it should be: not every chapter in the sport’s evolution has to echo the previous one, as Sinner pointed out.

“I think every rivalry is different, no?” Sinner said of the contest’s place in the pantheon. “Back in the days, they played a little bit different tennis. Now, you know, the ball is going fast. It’s very physical. It’s slightly different from my point of view, you cannot compare.”

Everyone will have their own opinion, of course, and many of the sport’s luminaries were in no doubt about what they were seeing. 

“They’re playing at a pace that’s not human,” enthused TV pundit and three-time French Open champion Mats Wilander. “Insane level,” Stan Wawrinka declared on social media. McEnroe even suggested both men would have been favourites against peak Nadal – proof, if nothing else, that the American analyst’s aptitude for going too far burns as bright as it did in his playing days. But Alcaraz probably had it about right when he remarked that, good as the match was, he’d seen better.

“To say it was one of the greatest finals in the history of the grand slams, it’s really high status,” he told TNT Sports. “I have to say that there have been better finals. I’m going to say one: Novak [Djokovic] against Rafa [Nadal], the final of the Australian Open [in 2012]. That level of final is pretty high. In history, there have been better finals I guess. But I’m just really happy to put my name into one of the best finals, the longest finals, here in Roland Garros.”  

Few could have guessed what was coming in the early stages. While Sinner was clinical, Alcaraz seemed to be all out of the stardust he normally sprinkles on these occasions. Even when he won the third set it felt more like a gesture of defiance, a minor skirmish won, than the start of a more wholesale turnaround. 

While Alcaraz’s spirit was admirable, it was still difficult to imagine Sinner letting the match slip. The Italian’s serve dipped markedly in that middle set – he won just 44% of points behind his first delivery, compared with 70% for the match as a whole – and the likelihood remained that he would find a solution.

True, the flashes of brilliance from Alcaraz’s racket were becoming more frequent. But the defending champion was still overpressing, trying to force the play rather than construct points with an endgame in mind. A case in point came at the start of the third, when a searing crosscourt forehand fell narrowly wide, costing him a break. Alcaraz gestured frustratedly to his box, evidently mystified by the imprecision of his baseline bombs. 

By the latter stages of the decider, however, the Spaniard was beginning to hit his targets with ominous frequency. There was a setback when he failed to serve out the match at 5-4, but that was mainly because Sinner threw the kitchen sink at him.

The Italian had never previously won a match spanning more than three hours and 50 minutes. Yet, despite showing signs of cramp early in the set, he came within two points of doing so with Alcaraz serving at 5-6, 15-30. It was an incredible effort, given this was just his second tournament after a three-month drug ban, but Alcaraz remained immovable.

Only Borg and Nadal have won five grand slam titles at a younger age, a timeline all the more remarkable for the fact that he reached that milestone at 22 years, one month and three days – exactly the same age Nadal was when he achieved the same feat. 

“I have to realise that I’ve done it, I think that’s the first step,” Alcaraz said of that unlikely conjunction. “The coincidence of winning my fifth grand slam at the same age as Rafa Nadal, I’m going to say that’s destiny, I guess. 

“It is a stat that I’m going to keep for me forever, winning the fifth grand slam at the same time as Rafa, my idol, my inspiration. It’s a huge honour, honestly. You know, hopefully it’s not going to stop like this.”

After the greatest comeback in living memory, that seems unlikely. Alcaraz showed the mental strength to keep fighting when all looked lost, the spirit to work his way back into contention, and the courage to play his best tennis when the need was greatest. Head, heart, cojones: just like his grandfather always told him.

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Yet the 38-year-old Serbian arrived at Roland Garros, where a fourth title would finally pull him clear of Margaret Court as the most successful player in history, as something of an enigma. 

On the one hand, until a few days ago Djokovic had not won a tour-level event since the 2023 ATP Finals. In recent months, he has exited tournaments in Qatar, Indian Wells, Monte Carlo and Madrid without winning a match. His ranking has slipped to sixth, while his coaching partnership with former rival Andy Murray, which the pair originally planned to continue through the French Open, recently came to an abrupt conclusion. 

But just as the impression of a great champion on the wane was hardening, Djokovic’s victory at last weekend’s Geneva Open changed the parameters. With four restorative wins behind him – not to mention the 100th title of his career – Djokovic could look forward to his Paris opener against Mackenzie McDonald with his confidence replenished. 

His participation in Rafael Nadal’s retirement ceremony on Sunday, when he appeared alongside Roger Federer and Murray, will doubtless have offered a further ego boost, a timely reminder of his place in the sport’s history, while a return to Court Philippe Chatrier, the scene of his extraordinary Olympic triumph over Carlos Alcaraz last summer, will only have intensified the feelgood factor.

The question was, which Djokovic would we see? The guy who has spent much of the year struggling to string two wins together, or the one who said all along that the French Open was the be-all-and-end-all of his clay-court campaign? For once, there was something strangely unknowable about this most familiar of champions. 

Perhaps the prevailing sense of uncertainty weighed on the 98th-ranked McDonald. The gifted 30-year-old memorably defeated an injury-stricken Nadal at the 2023 Australian Open, but never looked remotely capable of staging a similar performance here, particularly once Djokovic successfully lobbied officials to get the roof closed after just five games. 

It took a few minutes of remonstration from Djokovic – and a few more for the giant retractable canopy to snap into place – but, the moment it did, McDonald’s challenge was effectively extinguished. While the conditions remained slow and the balls heavy, once Djokovic no longer had to contend with the wind, his movement, variety of shot and technical excellence became unanswerable. 

“He makes it seem like a video game, almost, for him,” said McDonald. “He’s able to do so much. I don’t even think he was playing his best tennis or his highest level. But if I pushed him to a different point, he would bring it.”

All of which, no doubt, would have been music to the former champion’s ears at the business end of a torrid spring. But was the roof closure a case of star power carrying the day, given that play continued without interruption on the outside courts? Not a bit of it, insisted Djokovic following his 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 win. 

“I was just asking if and when they were going to make a decision to close the roof and how long we were going to play under that rain,” said the Serb. “It was quite pouring rain out there on the court, because it was affecting the court as well, the court became quite damp and [there were] a lot of bad bounces.

“At one point, the supervisor told me, ‘They’re playing everywhere on the outside courts in the same conditions.’ I said: ‘Yeah, but we are on a court with a roof, so why do you have the roof? What’s the point?’ In the end, they closed the roof, and I think it was better for everyone.”

Djokovic also shed further light on the thinking behind his decision to skip the Italian Open, which he has won six times, and where the courts most closely resemble those at Roland Garros, in favour of taking a wildcard for Geneva, a 250 event where he inevitably encountered a relatively modest level of opposition.

“It was a decision to play Madrid instead of Rome this year,” said Djokovic. “This year I wanted to play Madrid, I haven’t played in a while. I felt like I just didn’t want to play both, as I played Monte Carlo shortly after Miami.

“Geneva was not in the plans, it was not in the schedule. But I was talking with my team and decided to have that, because I didn’t have any – practically, only two – matches on clay. 

“I’m the type of player that is required to play a bit more in order to find the right game for clay. It doesn’t come as natural to me as maybe for some other guys. I rarely started really well on clay, if you analyse all of my seasons in my career. So it takes a little bit of time for me to get accustomed with the surface and movement and striking the ball. 

“I think it was a good move to go to Geneva, to be honest, because I was also struggling a little bit with my confidence level and doubting my game a bit. So it was good that I got four matches under my belt, won a title. Coming into Roland Garros, it feels different compared to the feeling I had three weeks ago. Let’s see how far I can go here, but I have a good feeling for now.”     

Already, Djokovic is beginning to look and sound more like his old self; whether he can ride those positive feelings to the business end of the fortnight remains to be seen.

The post Novak Djokovic: a riddle wrapped in a French Open mystery appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

And perhaps that was fitting, for the 31-year-old Frenchwoman, who announced at the weekend that she intends to retire this autumn, has known her share of heartbreak at Roland Garros down the years.

Like any player from a grand slam nation, winning on home soil was always Garcia’s most cherished ambition, but a quarter-final run in 2017 will forever remain an outlier now. 

She had failed to advance beyond the second round on all but three of her previous 15 visits to Paris and, as she waited in the Court Suzanne Lenglen tunnel before facing Bernarda Pera of the United States, the emotions swirling inside were palpable in her dewy-eyed demeanour. 

There were near-identical scenes 90 minutes later, by which time a 6-4, 6-4 defeat had brought the curtain down on her French Open career. Yet Garcia has become accustomed to dealing with such emotions since deciding to bid farewell to a sport that, she said in a social media announcement, had brought extremes of love and hate, happiness and anger.

“Since the start of the year, I knew it would be my last season and my last Roland Garros,” Garcia told the crowd, battling to retain her composure. “I hesitated for a while before telling you, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to deal with my emotions.

“I have to admit that I’ve been crying since the start of the week. But I always played with my emotions – the good ones, the bad ones – and often, the stress and the wish to do things too perfectly stopped me, especially here, in Roland Garros.”

Often, but not always. While capable of losing to players with a fraction of her ability on her off days, at her best Garcia was one of the finest exponents of first-strike tennis in the sport, a player whose all-court ability and natural athleticism made her a match for anyone. The challenge, always, lay in casting aside self-doubt, in ignoring the observers who insisted she should rein in her high-risk, high-reward style.   

Those voices were never louder or more plentiful than at Roland Garros, and it is perhaps unsurprising that Garcia’s finest singles run at a major came not on the Parisian clay, but in the concrete jungle of New York, where she was a semi-finalist in 2022. Garcia would go on to win the WTA Finals that year, equalling a career-best ranking of fourth, but a combination of injuries, faltering form and the sheer grind of life on tour, which diminished her joy for the game, made further progress elusive.

Whatever pain Garcia felt in playing her last singles match at Porte d’Auteuil, it will be as nothing compared to the physical pain she has endured. Earlier this year, she revealed in an emotionally charged social media post how a chronic shoulder injury had left her reliant on anti-inflammatory medications, corticosteroid injections and plasma treatments. She questioned the “mindset that athletes are conditioned into from a young age” that “playing injured is somehow honourable or necessary”, and wondered whether “the victories glorified by society” were really worth the physical toll.

“Is it truly worth pushing our bodies to such extremes?” wrote Garcia. “Is enduring chronic pain in your 40s – an outcome of years spent pushing athletic limits – something to be celebrated, or have we collectively taken sports too far?”

Those questions will have felt all the more urgent against the backdrop of happiness in her personal life. Last summer, Garcia announced her engagement to Borja Duran, a former associate professor at the University of Barcelona with whom she co-founded the Tennis Insider Club podcast. Always an involved presence at Garcia’s matches, Duran will have felt her pre-match show of emotion as keenly as anyone.

Once the racket was in her hand, though, a smile broke across Garcia’s features, one that broadened as sections of the crowd greeted each ball she struck in the warm-up with a cheer. The arena was sparsely populated at that point, most spectators having gone to stretch their legs after watching Carlos Alcaraz open his title defence with a straight-sets victory over the Italian qualifier Giulio Zeppieiri, but it was a taste of what lay ahead.

Spare a thought for Pera in all this. With just four wins all season, she could have wished for an easier first-round assignment than Garcia, a player of such abundant gifts that Andy Murray once tipped her as a future world No 1. Yet the 30-year-old Croatian-American went into the match with just one loss from their four previous meetings, and she made the most of that psychological edge.

When Garcia drilled a sumptuous inside-out forehand for a winner to hold in the sixth game, before fashioning her second break point of the afternoon, it seemed the locals were in for a good afternoon. But as chants of “Caro! Caro!” rained down from the stands, Pera refused to be intimidated. On an afternoon when her stinging southpaw serve would prove the bedrock of her game, she staved off the danger to hold, then went firmly on the attack, firing returns from inside the baseline, crushing approach shots and dispatching overheads with calm authority. 

In the ninth game, Pera’s enterprise was rewarded with a brea,k and from there she rode her momentum to serve out the first set and secure an early break in the second. 

Her task was made easier by some understandably sluggish movement from Garcia, who was playing her first match since mid-March and struggled at times to get in and out of the corners with her trademark agility. Still, no amount of pain was going to come between the Frenchwoman and a final crack at her home slam, and what she lacked in explosiveness she did her best to compensate for with her hand skills and anticipation.

Those qualities were never more apparent than when a venomous service return forced Garcia deep into her forehand corner early in the second set. With the ball almost behind her, Garcia somehow improvised a brilliant drop shot, loaded with backspin, then scrambled across the baseline to prod home a lobbed backhand winner with her opponent stranded at the net. That drew a broad grin from Garcia, but it was only her second point in 16, a bleak indication of the direction of travel. 

A pair of unforced errors made it four straight games for Pera and, as mistakes continued to flow from Garcia’s racket, four quickly became six. Roused by the locals at the next changeover, the former world No 4 clawed back one of the breaks with a delicious blend of power and finesse, but Pera’s lead would prove unassailable. 

“It was such an emotional match, even when we were back there [in the tunnel] I started crying,” said Pera. “Caroline is one of the nicest people on tour, and I’m honoured to get to know you and spend time with you and share the court with you.”

The reality remains that, even with her finest tennis of the day, Garcia could do no more than bring respectability to the scoreline – a reminder, if one were needed, of why she has decided to call it a day.

“I tried to give my best here,” said Garcia, handed the stage afterwards by on-court interviewer Alizé Cornet. 

“I always dreamt of winning the trophy. Unfortunately, I will never achieve that goal. But all those great, positive moments, and the difficult moments shared with the French public will stay with me forever.”

As Paris made plain, the feeling is mutual.

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He had been welcomed on to Court Philippe Chatrier with a thunderous and prolonged ovation. He had welled up repeatedly while delivering a touching and heartfelt speech in three different languages. He had been reunited with Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, his three greatest rivals. And he had received a special trophy commemorating the most absurd record in tennis or, perhaps, any other sport, namely the 14 French Open titles that made Roland Garros the only proper setting in which to celebrate his extraordinary career.

Throughout the special tribute ceremony held in his honour, the suited-and-booted Spaniard had just about held it together. True, he was obliged to wipe the moisture from his eyes almost as frequently as he once flicked the sweat from his brow in the heat of combat. But as befits a man who prevailed in all but four of his 116 outings in Paris, Nadal refused to succumb fully to the emotions swirling within.

Refused, that is, until the master of ceremonies announced there was one more surprise in store. With that, the 38-year-old was escorted to the side of the court by tournament director Amélie Mauresmo and Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, where the clay was swept away to reveal a plaque bearing Nadal’s footprint, name and an image of the Coupe des Mousquetaires above the number 14. “Your footprint will stay here forever,” glossed the announcer, lest anyone should miss the significance of the moment.

It was the apex of an extraordinary afternoon, Nadal’s face crumpling with emotion as he embraced Morreton before gazing down at the homage with an expression of awed humility. He has often spoken of how he never saw himself as anything special, just an ordinary guy from Manacor who happened to be especially good at tennis. It was a refrain he returned to in a press conference afterwards. But at that moment, his face seemed to say, “All this – for me?” On the court where he was all but invincible, Nadal has never looked so lost.

By its very nature, clay is ephemeral. No one knows this better than Nadal, who spent two decades sliding his foot along the baseline between points, erasing ball marks from the red dirt. It was a futile exercise: Nadal’s imprint on the Parisian clay was always going to be unfading, with or without a commemorative plaque. Now, though, it will be indelible in the most literal sense. No wonder he looked overwhelmed.

“It has been an amazing surprise,” Nadal said later. “Honestly, I didn’t know anything about the ceremony. The only thing that I knew before going there was that there was going to be a video when I go on, then my speech and a couple of surprises, but they didn’t want me to tell me.

“When I saw that [plaque], I thought it was going to be just for this year. But knowing that’s going to be there forever is a present that I can’t describe in words. But for me it was, and it is, and it’s always going to be, a huge honour and very, very emotional to have this spot on the most important court of my tennis career, without a doubt. 

“It’s difficult to describe the feeling, but it’s something that really touched me. Very, very special.”

A special career deserved nothing less, and in that respect there was a feeling among many that Nadal’s sendoff at last November’s Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, where his final match ended with a straight-sets defeat to Botic van de Zandschulp, fell short. Conducted in Spanish before an adoring home crowd, that ceremony was touching enough, but not even a video montage featuring Federer, Djokovic, Murray and Serena Williams could prevent it from feeling like a domestic affair. 

If that was Nadal’s farewell to his nation, this was his farewell to the wider tennis world. 

An adieu to the Parisian crowd, most of whom had been given clay-coloured T-shirts bearing the date and the legend “Meric Rafa”, with the remainder donning white versions that formed a human mosaic spelling out “14 RG” alongside a trophy, and “RAFA” either side of two hearts.

A goodbye to his legion of English-speaking fans, for the benefit of whom he recalled his first visit to Paris in 2004, when he was unable to compete due to a foot injury, but nonetheless clambered to the top of Chatrier on crutches, surveying the clay-court kingdom he would start to rule the following year. 

A gracias to his family, to his pregnant wife, Mery, who cradled the couple’s two-year-old son in the stands, to his parents Ana María and Sebastián, to his nonagenarian grandmothers, and of course to his uncle, Toni, who moulded him into one of the greatest players of all time.

“Toni, you are the reason I am here,” said Nadal, choking with emotion as he looked up to his uncle, stationed in the stands close to his sister Maribel. “Thank you for devoting a large part of your life to being with me, coaching, talking, making me suffer, making me laugh, and also pushing me to my limits. 

“What we have lived was not always easy, but without a doubt it was worth it. You have been, without a doubt, the best coach I could have ever had in my career and in my life.”

Later, there was a word too for Federer, Djokovic and Murray, Nadal hailing their four-way rivalry as a model of ferocious competitive spirit allied with good sportsmanship. 

“After all these years fighting for everything, it’s unbelievable how time changes the perspective,” the champion of 22 majors told his former rivals after they emerged on court to a huge ovation. 

“All these nerves, pressure, strange feelings that you feel when we see each other, when we are really rivals – it’s completely different when you finish your career.

“At the end, now, it’s all about being happy about everything that we achieved. At the end, all of us achieved our dreams: we became tennis players, we played in the most important stadiums of our careers, and I think we built amazing rivalries, but in a good way. 

“I think we showed the world that we can fight as hard as possible, but in a good way, being good colleagues and respecting each other very well.”

Fittingly, though, the last word went to the city he held spellbound for the better part of two decades.

“Thank you France, thank you Paris,” said Nadal. “You have given me emotions and moments I could never have imagined. 

“You made me feel like a Frenchman. I can no longer play in front of you any more, but my heart and my memories will always be linked to this magical place.”

Much as the plaque that bears Nadal’s name and footprint will ensure memories of his epic feats will forever remain embedded in the clay, just where they belong.

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The former champion, all but one of whose five grand slam titles have come at Roland Garros, will face Jessica Pegula for a place in the semi-finals on Wednesday night, just as she did in 2022. Swiatek ran out a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) winner that day – an encouraging precedent from her perspective, no doubt, but one unlikely to have any bearing on the rematch, given that she barely recalls it.

“I don’t remember a lot,” said Swiatek. “I remember it was the first match in 2022 where I felt like the ball is kind of listening to me a little bit more, and that’s the only thing. I don’t remember [the] specifics of how that match went, I don’t even remember the score, so I can’t really say a lot. I haven’t watched this game [since], so that’s why probably.”

There is another reason why Swiatek’s memory of the fortnight is based more on impressions than details. Having arrived in New York that year complaining that the balls were too light to control, her title-winning run was a largely pragmatic, attritional affair rather than a Carlos Alcaraz-style highlights reel. The satisfaction she felt afterwards owed more to the outcome than the experience.

“I wouldn’t say I played my best game or whatever that year, so it was a big surprise for me that I could win this tournament, because I felt like I kind of won it ugly,” said Swiatek after advancing to the quarter-finals with a far from unsightly 6-4, 6-1 victory over Liudmila Samsonova.

“That’s why I probably [don’t remember]. But I was fighting every match for every ball, and my defence was pretty great. So on the other hand, I understand why I won this tournament.”

Should she repeat that achievement on Saturday, Swiatek is likely to recall her latest campaign in New York with greater clarity. Since a shaky opening match against Kamilla Rakhimova, a lucky loser who came within a whisker of forcing a third set, the former champion has progressed through the upper half of the draw with calm authority, brushing aside Ena Shibahara, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Samsonova in straight sets. This time, though, her success has been built less on an ability to scrap and retrieve, and more on the excellence of her vastly improved service.

That might seem an unlikely claim to make about a player more noted for her dominant play off the ground and wing-heeled athleticism. The evidence, however, is compelling. Swiatek remains unbroken across her past three matches. No player left in the draw has won more service games, and among that cohort of survivors only Qinwen Zheng – dismissed 6-1, 6-2 by Aryna Sabalenka in Tuesday’s night session – had claimed more points behind her first delivery going into the quarter-finals (80% to 79%). On second serve, meanwhile, Swiatek leads the field with a 64% success rate.

Those statistics are indicative of the work the 23-year-old has put in behind the scenes to produce a smoother and more compact motion, the fruits of which are evident in the five titles she has won this season, including a fourth in five years at Roland Garros. Yet having a good serve and knowing what to do with it are two very different things.

A service-dominated first set against the 16th-seeded Samsonova showcased Swiatek’s growing variety and tactical nous with ball in hand. While touching speeds of up to 115mph, the Pole also leavened the mix with regular changes of pace and direction. That was never more evident than when, eschewing her natural tendency to pull the opponent wide in the advantage court, she closed out two consecutive first-set services games with devastatingly accurate serves down the centre line. The deft manner in which Swiatek navigated such moments laid the foundations for a victory that, once she broke for the first time to claim the set, assumed an air of inevitably.

 “At the beginning I felt like we were playing kind of men’s style, just holding our serves,” Swiatek told Rennae Stubbs on court afterwards. “But I knew that if I kept pushing I would get some chances to break Mila. That happened in the last game of the first set, and I’m happy that I was there to close it. In the second set I was leading, and I just wanted to keep being focused, not let my mind drift off.”

Samsonova may lack the grand slam pedigree of Jelena Ostapenko, the former French Open champion who defeated Swiatek in the fourth round last year, but the Russian is not without the tools to discomfit Swiatek on a fast hard court. Taking a leaf out of the Ostapenko playbook, she did all she could to rush the top seed with her flat, powerful groundstrokes and heavy serve, and in the fifth game she threatened to make inroads, some mighty hitting bringing up 0-30 on Swiatek’s serve. The Pole refused to be flustered, however, setting up her forehand with a pair of solid first serves.

It was ideal preparation for facing Pegula, another clean, flat ball-striker. Swiatek is in no danger of becoming a servebot just yet, but the ability to win the occasional free point on serve will do her no harm as she seeks a seventh win over the 30-year-old American in what will be their 10th meeting. Notably, all three of Pegula’s wins have come on hard courts, although the pair have not played since last November’s showdown at the WTA Finals in Cancún, where she was on the wrong end of a 6-1, 6-0 drubbing.

Seeded sixth at Flushing Meadows, Pegula has likewise made improvements to her game since that meeting. Her outstanding form over the North American hard-court swing, which has brought a successful defence of her Canadian Open title and a final appearance in Cincinnati, has seen her defeated just once in her past 14 matches, and her impressive 6-4, 6-2 win over Diana Shnaider in the previous round suggests Swiatek will have her work cut out.

“I feel like my movement has really improved, which has really helped me stay in a lot of these points and these sets and these games and be super consistent,” said Pegula. “I think I’ve been serving pretty well. Even if it’s not working, I’ve been getting myself out of service games by serving smart or serving well in big moments.”

On Wednesday night, the American can expect to see those skills mirrored at the opposite end of the court. Like Swiatek, she has yet to drop a set; unlike Swiatek, she has failed to advance beyond a grand slam quarter-final in six previous attempts. Two of those defeats came at the hands of the Pole, and her return game will need to be at its best if she is to alter that narrative. We are unlikely to see a repeat of the 13 breaks the players shared in their quarter-final meeting two years ago.

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That is to take nothing away from Botic van de Zandschulp, who delivered a performance of rare quality, poise and determination to consign the third seed and bookmakers’ favourite to a 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 defeat at Flushing Meadows. The 28-year-old Dutchman made a mockery of the fact that he had previously failed to win two consecutive main draw matches at tour level this year.

Yet Alcaraz was a shadow of the player who arrived in New York seeking to follow Rod Laver and Rafael Nadal into the record books by becoming only the third man in the open era to win at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows in the same calendar year. In truth, he has not resembled that player since losing the Olympic men’s singles final to Novak Djokovic. Between that defeat, which left the 21-year-old devastated, and his surprise opening-round loss to Gaël Monfils in Cincinnati less than a fortnight later, Alcaraz has lost three of his past four matches. While he rightly refused to take credit away from Van de Zandschulp, the Spaniard acknowledged that it has been a long summer.

“The tennis schedule is so tight,” said Alcaraz. “I’ve been playing a lot of matches lately with Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the Olympics. I took a little break after the Olympics. I thought it was enough. It was really helpful for me. Probably it wasn’t enough.

“I came here without as much energy as I thought I was going to come with. But I don’t want to use that as an excuse. It’s so tight. I’m a player who needs more days or more of a break coming into the big tournaments and important ones. I have to think about it and learn about it.”

An uncharacteristically flat display supported that analysis. While Alcaraz looked fresh enough physically, his shot selection and inconsistency offered clear evidence of mental fatigue. The warning signs were there as early as the Spaniard’s opening service game, where he went for a spectacular tweener at 30-30 when a deep defensive lob would potentially have allowed him to reset the point. Facing a break point, Alcaraz sent a regulation backhand long, one of 27 unforced errors he would make on a night when he frequently looked lost.

A signature feature of Alcaraz’s success has been his ability to adjust tactically, to solve problems on the fly by relying on his all-court virtuosity. For once, though, the magical shot-making that so often ignites crowds and creates irresistible momentum was largely absent. Instead, it was Van de Zandschulp who dictated with his forehand; who delighted with eye-catching defensive play; who dominated at the net. Alcaraz was effectively beaten at his own game, never more so than when Van de Zandschulp pulled off a stunning half-volley winner at full stretch midway through the third set. Alcaraz lacked the clarity of mind to find a solution.

“It was a fight against myself in my mind during the match,” said the Spaniard. “In tennis, you are playing against someone that wants the same as you: to win. You have to be as calm as you can, to think better in the match and try to do good things. Today, I was playing against the opponent as well as myself in my mind. A lot of emotions I couldn’t control. I was up in some points, then I’d lose some points and get down. It was a rollercoaster in my mind. It can’t be like that if I want to think about [winning] big things. I have to improve it.”

It is tempting to wonder whether the easiest way to do so would have been to take a leaf out of Djokovic’s book by resisting the temptation to play a warm-up event so soon after the emotional maelstrom of the Olympics. The manner in which Alcaraz obliterated a racket during his loss to Monfils in Cincinnati hardly spoke of a player ready to repeat his swashbuckling US Open title run of two years ago.

This was Alcaraz’s earliest defeat at a major since 2021, when he was bundled out of Wimbledon in round two by Daniil Medvedev. Yet, while it will go down as one of the biggest upsets of recent times at Flushing Meadows, a letdown at some point in this marathon summer was probably inevitable.

Consider the evidence. After returning from a forearm injury to win the French Open for the first time in early June, Alcaraz had just eight days to recover and adjust to grass before opening his short-lived title defence at Queen’s Club. He went on to become only the sixth man in the open era to complete the “Channel double” of Roland Garros and Wimbledon, but once again there was barely time to savour the achievement. Less than a fortnight later, Alcaraz was back at Roland Garros for the Olympics, where he played nine matches in nine days in singles and doubles. That left just 11 days to make the transition to hard courts in preparation for Cincinnati. It is a tribute to the efforts of his support team that he has managed to avoid injury.

While there is nothing new about the unforgiving demands of an Olympic summer, the cumulative toll of such a schedule – physically, mentally and emotionally – should not be underestimated. And while Alcaraz might be a victim of his own success, it is not only the elite who are affected by the sport’s jam-packed calendar. Mackenzie McDonald, the American world No 140, recently alluded to the difficulty of streamlining the structure of a sport with seven competing governing bodies, and the damage that the continuing failure to do so causes throughout the tennis food chain.

“The tours are not united enough to collaborate without egos and money getting involved,” McDonald told the Associated Press. “The players are absolutely getting crushed in so many ways – physically, mentally, financially. Having a normal life? We’re far from it. And then actually getting what we deserve, especially at the slams? It’s sad. I’ll put it that way.”

Iga Swiatek, the women’s world No 1, has complained that the concerns of players are going unheeded, while Holger Rune, who became another high-profile casualty when he was defeated by Brandon Nakashima in the opening round, has complained that the sport is “almost ongoing, 24/7”. When the sport’s most marketable young stars are falling so early – Rune came into the tournament carrying a knee injury that he felt unable to rest – questions need to be asked, recurring though the refrain may be.

Disillusioned by injuries and poor form, Van de Zandschulp nearly disembarked from the revolving carousel altogether after losing to Fabio Fognini in the opening round of this year’s French Open. It is not an option either man will be considering any time soon, but for Alcaraz a period of rest and recuperation seems needful.

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Seconds later, his Olympic men’s doubles challenge alongside Dan Evans would be over. But the wonder was not that the British thirtysomethings were outgunned 6-2, 6-4 by their American opponents, both of whom are ranked just outside the top 10 in singles and in the prime of their careers. The real marvel, after saving five match points against Japan’s Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori in the opening round, and then another two against Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen of Belgium in the second, was that Murray and Evans reached the quarter-finals in the first place. 

By any normal reckoning, Murray should not have been in Paris at all. It is barely a month since he underwent surgery to have a spinal cyst removed, a procedure that requires a six-week recovery period for most people. But Murray is not most people, and little about his career has been normal. Before he went under the knife, doctors told him he would miss both Wimbledon and the Olympics. Predictably, he played both, metal hip and all. Of course he did. Few athletes have taken more delight in confounding medical opinion. Yet the pain he endured to make it happen should not be underestimated.

“It’s been really hard,” said Murray. “Physically, pain wise, I feel bad. Physically, I can obviously can go on the court and perform at a level that’s competitive. We were close to getting in the medal rounds here. That’s OK. But the pain and discomfort in my body is not good, and that’s why I’m happy to be finishing. 

“Because if I kept going and kept trying, eventually you end up having an injury potentially ending your career. So I know that now is the right time, and physically.”

Endings are rarely perfect, and against Fritz and Paul it was a losing battle from the outset. In an ideal world, Murray’s body would have allowed him a last stand on the singles court, as he had planned. Even so, it would be hard to imagine a more apt scenario for his farewell campaign, certainly in this final, injury-plagued phase of his career. He has battled his body from the moment he first impacted on the public consciousness as a gangly teenager on the grass courts of Queen’s Club in 2005, when he was seized by cramp, dramatically crashing to the turf as though picked off by a lurking sniper, in a last-16 defeat to Sweden’s Thomas Johannson. 

Cramp got the better of Murray again a couple of weeks later at Wimbledon, derailing him in the closing stages of a five-set struggle with former finalist David Nalbandian. The need to build a body capable of withstanding the demands of the tour was clear, and so Murray set about transforming himself into one of the tour’s fittest, most durable athletes. His brutal Miami training blocks became part of tennis folklore. When he reached his first Wimbledon quarter-final in 2008, he famously celebrated by pulling up his sleeve to reveal a flexed bicep, a signal to his team that the hard miles were paying off. 

Murray would ultimately pay a heavy price for his punishing training regime and seemingly limitless capacity for suffering. But by the time the pain in his right hip began to sound the death knell on his best years, at Wimbledon in 2017 – where, effectively playing on one leg, he came within a set of the semi-finals – his legacy had long since been secured. No longer simply Andy, he had become “The first British man to…”, an epithet virtually interchangeable with his first name. The first British man to win an Olympic singles gold medal since 1908. The first British man to win the US Open in 76 years; the first to reach a Wimbledon final in 74 years, the first to win one in 77 years, and the linchpin of the first British team to win the Davis Cup since 1936. What more apposite way to go out than defying his body one last time, on a stage that has defined his career?

Murray’s physical transformation was just one aspect of his refusal to accept the hand fate dealt him. Stronger yet was his will, so powerful that it reshaped the reality around him. For Murray was not the greatest player of his generation; Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic saw to that. Even when rankings or form or draws suggested otherwise, it rarely seemed likely that Murray would reach grand slam finals ahead of that feted trio. But he did it time and again, making a mockery of logic and outside expectations. Murray became the fourth voice in a three-way conversation, refusing to be silenced. His talent was undeniable, but it was as much Murray’s tenacity, his sheer stubbornness, that enabled him to contest 11 major finals, win three, and become only the 10th man in the open era to reach the title round at all four.

In a sense, Murray’s career has been a web of paradoxes and impossibilities. He was never the best until he was the best. That moment came in 2016, his annus mirabilis, when Murray finished the season by winning five straight tournaments, culminating with the ATP Finals, where he dislodged Djokovic as world No 1. In the toughest era there has ever been, he retained that position for 41 weeks until his body betrayed him. Murray was the man who could, even when it seemed others should; a player who left an indelible imprint on the sport at a time when it seemed nigh-on impossible to do so. 

Consider what today’s tennis landscape would look like without Murray. Had he not beaten Djokovic in the US Open final of 2012 and then again at Wimbledon the following summer, the Serb would already be out on his own with 26 majors, clear of Margaret Court as the most successful player in history. Federer would have an Olympic gold medal in singles, the only significant honour to elude him. Nadal, whom Murray defeated for the first time in the 2008 US Open semi-finals, might have gone on to beat Federer in the final of a third consecutive major, a victory that would have seen the Spaniard complete a non-calendar year grand slam at the 2009 Australian Open.

More often, of course, Murray was bested by those players. Djokovic denied him the winner’s trophy four times at the Australian Open and once at Roland Garros. Federer thwarted him in finals at Melbourne Park, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows. But all the near misses and disappointments only made Murray’s victories more meaningful. In an age of tennis immortals, his often tearful setbacks made him relatable in a way that the near-infallibility of his rivals never could.

Murray’s authenticity, his willingness to bare his emotions, to fail and keep coming back for more, is one of the reasons why he was so widely beloved. After a stuttering start with the British public, who initially failed to warm to his dry humour – particularly his infamous quip about wanting “anyone but England” to win the 2006 World Cup – Murray’s emotional speech after losing the 2012 Wimbledon final won hearts and minds aplenty. A month later, as he avenged that defeat against Federer on Centre Court to win the first of his two Olympic gold medals, he was cheered to the rafters. His love affair with the people had begun in earnest.

Even so, it wasn’t always pretty. The flipside of Murray’s authenticity was the incessant chuntering, the swearing, the furious broadsides he so often directed at his hapless support teams. A poker player he was not. 

“I wish I’d behaved differently at times on the court,” said Murray. “But there’s lots of things, like my character on the court, that I did like.”

No less agreeable was his character away from the court. Taught to play by his mother, Judy, a former Scottish No 1, Murray had a natural respect for the women’s game and, typically, was no more afraid to articulate it than he was to appoint Amélie Mauresmo as his coach. After losing at Wimbledon in 2017, he memorably took to task a reporter who suggested that his vanquisher, Sam Querrey, was the first American player to reach a major semi-final since 2009. “Male player,” Murray shot back, mindful of the achievements of Venus and Serena Williams, the latter of whom he would partner two years later in the Wimbledon mixed doubles. 

Thoughtful and eloquent, Murray gradually was not only a champion for the WTA, but also a spokesman for his sport, and perhaps even its voice and conscience. He never shirked difficult questions. From the use of technology and the abuse of bathroom breaks to scheduling issues and the ATP’s lack of a domestic violence policy, whenever there was an issue to be discussed, Murray’s opinion was always among the first sought. He was invariably worth listening to.

No appraisal of Murray’s achievements would be complete without a respectful nod to the final phase of his career. After an emotionally-charged press conference at the 2019 Australian Open in which he said his ailing hip would no longer allow him to compete effectively, Murray looked to be done and dusted. An arthroscopic procedure the previous year hadn’t worked as well as hoped, and he was unsure he would even be able to limp on for long enough to bow out at Wimbledon. 

A fortnight after a valiant five-set defeat to Roberto Bautista Agut, which was followed by a farewell video tribute featuring contributions from Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, Murray returned to the operating table, having a metal hip installed. No player had successfully returned to top-flight singles after undergoing such a procedure.

Five months later, however, Murray resurfaced on the grass courts of Queen’s Club and won the doubles title alongside Feliciano López. By October, he had claimed the 46th title of his career at the European Open in Antwerp. And while that was the last trophy Murray would lift, he continued to break new ground. 

At last year’s Australian Open, he saved a match point to edge a near-five hour first-round thriller against Matteo Berrettini, then returned less than 48 hours later to win the longest match of his career, recovering from two sets to love and a break down to beat Thanasi Kokkinakis in five hours and 45 minutes. That match, which finished at 4.05am, was the second longest in Australian Open history. It was typical of Murray’s warrior-like mentality – he never did go in for the routine – and yet, in the circumstances, those feats of endurance felt almost superhuman. 

Last August, Murray achieved a ranking of 36th in the world, the highest he would climb with his resurfaced hip. In a sense, it was a milestone almost as great as any in his career. But in recent months, his body has failed him with growing frequency. In March, he ruptured ankle ligaments in Miami; no sooner had he returned, just in time to compete in one last French Open, than his back began to deteriorate. There were only so many more times he could achieve the impossible. It was time to go. 

“I’m happy with how it finished,” said Murray. “I’m glad I got to go out here at the Olympics and finish on my terms, because at times in the last few years that wasn’t a certainty.”

In truth, there were never any certainties. Scotland didn’t produce tennis stars; not world-beating ones like Murray at any rate. But from humble beginnings at his local club in Dunblane, where he started playing aged three and honed his competitive instincts, as younger siblings so often do, against his brother Jamie, a future doubles world No 1, Murray rose to conquer the world. That, perhaps, was the biggest impossibility of all.

“If I went back to the beginning of my career, when I started in Scotland, no one standing here, myself included and my family, none of them, would have expected that I would have gone on to do what I did,” said Murray. “Even when I was 18, 19 years old, there were still a lot of people who doubted my ability, talent, work ethic and mentality.”

No one doubts him now.

The post Farewell Andy Murray, master of the unimaginable appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

So despite announcing that she would retire after these Olympics, when the end came, the 36-year-old German was never going to go gently into that good night. Instead, Kerber did what she has always done: she gave everything, ran from first ball to last, conjured improbable angles at full stretch. Crouching low to the court in signature fashion, she absorbed and redirected the ferocious firepower of Qinwen Zheng, the Chinese world No 7, confounding an opponent 15 years her junior with changes of pace, spin and height.

And when none of that proved quite enough, and she had blown a 4-1 lead in the decider and found herself three match points down in the last tiebreak of her career, Kerber produced a magnificent final flourish. She defiantly drilled an untouchable forehand return down the line to save one match point. She pulled Zheng from corner to corner before flicking an audacious cross-court winner to fend off another. And then, as a cagey 19-shot rally drained the air from her already burning lungs, Kerber opened her shoulders and found the baseline with the sweetest of backhands, levelling the score once again. It was the perfect vignette of her unique style, a counterpuncher with a deadly southpaw edge, as happy throwing up moonballs as lasering geometry-defying forehands at full pelt.

But Zheng too has something of the very best about her. The 21-year-old reached her first major final six months ago at the Australian Open, and her response spoke of even bigger things to come. Zheng may never play a more courageous, clear-headed drop shot than the one she produced to bring up a fourth match point. She would not be denied again. The final shot of Kerber’s career was a forehand that nosedived into the net, confirm a 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) defeat.

There are worse ways to go than in a final-set tiebreak. Even so, it was an incongruous ending. In one way, the moment belonged to Kerber. Yet there was undeniable power in the sight of a tearful Zheng falling to the clay in celebration, overwhelmed by the enormity of becoming only the second Chinese player to reach an Olympic semi-final. Kerber knows as well as anyone what such moments feel like. But she has of late become increasingly familiar with the sting of defeat. Having arrived in Paris off the back of five straight losses, her run to the quarter-finals – the first time she has reached that stage of a tournament in two years – felt touched by magic. It was, as she acknowledged, a good time to stop.

“There are a lot of emotions,” said Kerber, who defeated Naomi Osaka, Jaqueline Cristian and Leylah Fernandez to make the last eight. “I gave everything I could on court, and I think this is what counts for me. Especially coming here, playing great matches, feeling that I can still play with the top players and having this decision in my hands, to have no injuries.

“I cannot stop better than here, playing for your country, playing on [Court Philippe] Chatrier, such a great crowd, and I just tried my best.”

Throughout a distinguished career, Kerber rarely gave less. A late developer in tennis terms, the German offered a first hint of things to come in 2011, when she broke a sequence of four straight first-round defeats at grand slam level with a run to the US Open semi-finals while ranked 92 in the world. Kerber reached the same stage at Wimbledon the following year, hard on the heels of a last-eight finish at the French Open. But although she became a fixture in the top 10, three relatively lean seasons at the majors followed, prompting her to re-evaluate her game and career. Kerber cleaned up her diet, worked hard to improve her second serve – always the most vulnerable aspect of her game, given that she is a natural right-hander – and sought the counsel of her celebrated compatriot Steffi Graf.

At the start of 2016, it all came together in the most improbable fashion at the Australian Open, where Kerber, now 28, survived a match point in the opening round against Misaki Doi of Japan and went on to win her first grand slam title the hard way, defeating Serena Williams in the final. 

The belief she took from that win would underpin a historic season. A run to the Wimbledon final, where Williams exacted revenge for her defeat in Melbourne, was followed by an Olympic silver medal in Rio de Janeiro, where Kerber was upset in the final by the unseeded Monica Puig. More was to come at the US Open, where the German recovered from a break down in the final set against Karolina Pliskova to win the title and cement her rise to world No 1, the oldest woman ever to claim that distinction for the first time. A season that brought 63 victories would end with another career milestone at the WTA Finals in Singapore, where she finished runner-up to Dominika Cibulková.

It was a tough act to follow, but Kerber came close in 2018, reaching the last four in Melbourne, the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, and finally winning Wimbledon, the title she had coveted since childhood. At 30 years old, it was her crowning achievement.

“Winning here, it’s forever,” said Kerber. “Nobody can take the title away from me now.”

Five years later, however, her priorities were forever altered by the birth of her daughter, Liana. Kerber’s appetite for the sport remained intact, but she no longer saw herself simply as a tennis player; sport had become secondary.

“I still love tennis, but first and foremost I’m a mother with my whole heart, and it’s a real joy,” said Kerber. “There’s a little person in my life that is far more important than tennis.”

That being the case, what better place to finish than at the Olympics, where her performances – a quarter-final at London 2012, a final in Rio de Janeiro four years later, and now another last-eight appearance in Paris – have reflected the different phases of her career. Kerber acknowledged that pattern in her retirement announcement, which stands as a fitting valedictory statement.

“I will never forget Paris 2024, because it will be my last professional tournament as a tennis player,” wrote Kerber. “And whereas this might actually be the right decision, it will never feel that way. Simply because I love the sport with all my heart, and I’m thankful for the memories and opportunities it has given me.

“The Olympics I’ve participated in so far have been more than just competitions, as they represent different chapters of my life as a tennis player: the climb, the peak… and now the finish line.”

To the very last, Kerber never stopped sprinting for that line.

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