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The 2014 French Open men’s final will be played between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. This is the fifth encounter between the two at the French, and Nadal leads the series 5-0. Is there any reason to suggest this year’s result will be any different? The tennis review looks at the factors involved and predicts the result.

History:

In 2012, Djokovic was trying to become the first man to hold all four slam titles at once since Laver. Nadal got in his way. Last year, Djokovic led Nadal 4-1 in the fifth set when he was the no.1 seed only to lose. Nadal is the man to beat at the French and Djokovic  has yet to do it.

He has beaten Nadal four times on the Clay though, and all in ATP 1000 finals, too. And in his most recent victory in the Rome final, he played some of the best tennis of his career in the final two sets.

Form:

Djokovic has had the best form throughout the tournament-his beating of Tsonga and Raonic were more or less exhibitions-but his last match was a little alarming. Djokovic fell of the rails in the third against Gulbis, dropped the set and then smashed his racket in the fourth before squeaking through as Gulbis’ splayed errors around the court. Djokovic looked fatigued and was not reluctant to discuss what was wrong with him, saying only he was glad for the day’s rest.

Nadal meanwhile has gotten gradually better as the event has gone on, his showpiece display against Murray in which he lost only 6 games going down as one of his best ever performances.

With Djokovic’s condition dipping as Nadal peaks, Nadal has the slight edge here.

Games:

Nadal will look to be aggressive, serve big and get his forehand dictating from the get go. He will have to. If he serves anything less than at 70 percent, Djokovic will go for his returns and work the rallies to set up his flat backhand down the line.

This match might be decided at the net, a place where Becker must be proving to be worth every cent in the Djokovic camp. Djokovic has been coming in, and will need to against Nadal unless he wants to find himself scrambling for high bouncing balls far behind the baseline.

A high first serve percentage and an attacking mindset, and Djokovic will play the big points in the forecourt and at the net, and that, like it did in Rome, is his best chance of creating history. Anything else and a ninth title for Nadal will be what goes down in the history books post this season’s French Open.

Maria Sharapova did everything she had to do, as she promised, to win the 2014 French Open women’s championships. The world no.8 beat world no.3 Simone Halep 6-4, 6-7, 6-4, in 3hr02, two minutes shy of the record for the longest women’s final.

In the first set, Sharapova proved the steadier of the two, taking it 6-4, the first time she had won the first set this Roland Garros since the third round. Many predicted Halep would take the first set as she did in the pair’s Madrid final encounter, but Sharapova, competing in her ninth slam final to her opponent’s first, was, understandably, the steadier of the two in a nervy opening set.

Halep fought back in the second, and served for it twice, but proved too passive to close it out as Sharapova attacked relentlessly and took the set to a tiebreak. Sharapova led it 4-2 until Halep’s game of finding the angles and the open court began to pay off on the big points and she took the breaker.

The two swapped breaks in the first games of the third set before holding all the way to 4-4. It was here that Sharapova proved who was the vastly more experienced of the two. The hit and miss of her ground strokes vanished, her grunting went up a gear, and it was all hit as she raced through the last two games to take her second Roland Garros crown in her third consecutive final.

The match will go down as a spectacle for its see-saw nature not only in momentum but quality, too. More than anything though, it will be remembered for the spectacle provided by Sharapova as she grunted, fist-pumped her winners and her opponent’s errors, took her time between serves to often outrageous levels and then sunk to her knees as she won, the irony of the once-monikered cow on ice winning Roland Garros twice, the only slam she has managed to do so, anything but lost on her.

Maria Sharapova will play Simona Halep in the final of this year’s French Open. The tennis review takes a look at what might prove to be the deciding factors in the match.

Pedigree:

This match is a veteran versus up and comer, almost as much as was Sharapova’s first slam final when she faced Serena Williams at Wimbledon ’04. Maria has been winning slams for a decade, four of them, and the career slam at that, and has been in four other finals. At the French, she is 1-1 in finals, winning in ’12 and being runner-up last year.

Halep has never made a slam semi until this year and so this first slam final will be a test of has-she-got-what-it-takes. Maria passed that test in her first Major-the question is can Halep?

Current form:

The rankings say Halep, who is no.3 now, has had the better past twelve months than Sharapova, with six titles to her credit. But Maria has had the better last few weeks, climbing from no.9 to no.7 and winning in Stuttgart and Madrid.

Halep has been in the better form this tournament. She has not dropped a set while Sharapova, after winning her third round match 0 and 0, went a set down in her next three matches, and against Muguruza and Bouchard came within games of exiting the event.

Motivation:

Both women are coming from very different places here. For Halep, this will be all new to her and she will be hungry for her first slam. For Sharapova, with no Serena or Azarenka in the final, and with clay being by far her best surface, these chances to grab a fifth slam will be few and far between and for a woman who won her first slam a decade ago, she is already familiar with how precious these chances are.

Nerves:

Both women will battle nerves. Even Maria, who has been in 8 slam finals, was so nervous in her match against Bouchard her face looked like it had been frozen. Maria’s nerves, though, will at least be familiar to her, and she will know how to use them to her advantage. They should pass, too, as the match progresses. Maria has been equally on the winners and losers side of slam finals and will know how to handle the outcome whatever happens. Meanwhile, this is virgin territory to Halep and whether she ends up being a Safina-Zvonereva or a Majoli-Sharapova in her first slam final outing will come down to how she deals with those pesky butterflies not quite sure how to fly out the cage.

Games:

This final pitches the big hitting clay-court honed Sharapova versus the more versatile Halep. Sharapova has weapons in abundance in that she can keep the ball away from her opponent and then attack the short ball with either side of her groundies. Halep will look to mix things up and go for the double handed backhand when she can. She will also look to change the direction of the ball and never let Sharapova find her rhythm.

Those tactics worked well in Madrid where Halep took the first set 6-1, but Halep could not sustain her form and she could not stop Maria gaining the edge where it truly counts in professional tennis and which is discussed in the next category.

Mentality:

While Halep has been in the better form the past fortnight and possesses a game which can trouble Sharapova, the Russian is mentally, when she is not facing Serena, the greatest force in the game.

If Halep gets ahead, Maria will knuckle down and keep Halep honest. She will make Halep win the match in the face of relentless hard-hitting, grunting, fist pumps and icy cross-court glares. She will also make Halep do it to her time. Sharapova will face the back of the court while Halep waits to serve, brush her hair over her eyes as Halep waits to receive and move up and down the baseline between points until she is clear how she wants to win the next point.

Halep may have the game to beat Sharapova, but the biggest question on the day is going to be this- has she got the mind to do it, too?

Prediction:

Sharapova and slam final debutantes have quite the relationship, and it has not worked in Maria’s favor. While she won her first slam final, she was the runner-up to both Kvitova and Azarenka in theirs. Just like Kvitova at wimbledon and Azarenka in Australia, Halep’s game is tailor made for Roland Garros- she won the junior title there.

Sharapova also has another pattern that works both for and against her. While she has won all her slams in straight set finals, she has also lost them all in straight sets.

If Halep is going to win this, it has to be in straights. If it goes to a third, it will be about intensity and mind games, and Maria is the queen of those when facing anyone but Serena.

Expect the match to go the way of Sharapova’s last three. A dropped first set before Sharapova reigns in her game, ups the ante in every way and then continues to reign on the clay.

The men’s semi-finals at the French Open were concluded today. The two semi-finals were as different as the weather has been the last couple of days. Here is what went on the first summer’s day of this French Open.

Novak Djokovic beat Ernests Gulbis 6-3, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

This match was as messy as they get at this stage of slams. Gulbis’ nerves resulted in error after error in the first two sets while an out-of-sorts Djokovic was just solid enough to close them out. In the third, Djokovic’s mind and game seemed to melt in the heat as Gulbis dug deeper and took the third set. The fourth saw an increasingly agitated Djokovic break a racket at 2-1 up as the match and his chances of the career slam got dicier. Luckily for the Serb, his opponent was in his first slam semi and did not have the experience to take advantage of his dip in form. Djokovic held firm, keeping his winners stats higher than his errors overall, while Gulbis hit one too many errors- 44 in all- and Djokovic  took the fourth set and the match.

The Serb later said he had no idea what would have happened if the match would have gone to a fifth. Gulbis competing in his first slam final or a weary Djokovic up against an increasingly in-form Nadal, most likely. Luckily the match did not go the distance and a rattled Djokovic, and an ill one, too, will have a day of rest before arguably the most pressurized match of his career.

Rafael Nadal beat Andy Murray 6-3, 6-2, 6-1.

This match was all about how good Nadal’s serve was and how poorly Murray returned. Truth is that Murray could not return well when faced with Nadal’s serve clipping the lines and bouncing on the dry clay nice and high and out of Murray’s reach. It was the same story for the groundstrokes, too. Nadal certainly picked his moment to find his best form, controlling points with his forehand and with aggression from the get-go and hitting 24 winners to 15 errors. He was also lucky to face an opponent somewhat frazzled by his earlier endeavors in the event.

Nadal will go into the final on a high after this performance. He certainly deserves to. Talk of his demise has been dominating tennis headlines lately, but Sunday, if the eight time champ plays like he did today, might be the day Nadal lays all such talk to rest, for now anyway.

Novak Djokovic Vs Ernests Gulbis

Djokovic’s seeded last four opponent was Roger Federer, but Gulbis knocked the 2009 champion out in the fourth round. That was something of a favor for Djokovic as Federer was the player who stopped Djokovic in the semi-finals in Paris in ’11, Djokovic’s best year. Federer has also beaten Djokovic twice this year and pushed him to a final set tiebreaker in the Indian Wells final.

While Federer might have spoiled the career slam procession Djokovic is in the midst of, Gulbis is unlikely to threaten him. Yes, Gulbis has the weapons to blow anyone off the court, but no one has better defensive skills than Djokovic, and no one is better at turning defense into offense either.

Expect Djokovic to weather the Gulbis storm, when the forehands and backhands are cracking into the open court, and then for the Serb to wreck havoc when the balls start flying long, and early, too. Once Djokovic gets his vice like grip on proceedings, he will then hang with Gulbis in his best moments, frustrate him into error and then close the deal.

Nadal Vs Murray

These two meet at odd stages in their career. Nadal is having one of his weakest clay court seasons, and Murray’s best form after a poor season has come on the dirt. In their recent meeting in Rome, Murray played the most aggressive tennis you are likely to see from him to take a set of Nadal and push the match to 7-5 in the third.

Can Murray go one better in this semi? He would need to go three better to take three sets of the eight time champion. He would also need to sustain that aggressive game. not his natural one. Murray may be able to do it for a set or two but just as Nadal did against Ferrer, he would soon figure out how to deal with the problem and then impose his own aggressive game and all his clay court wiles.

 

The French Open quarters were completed on a rain delayed day in Paris. The tennis review has a quick look at what went down when the raindrops were not falling.

The men’s game.

The semi-finals will see three of the ‘big four’, and the conqueror of the missing member of the quartet in Gulbis.

Nadal dropped the first set to Ferrer before racing through the next three sets. No one really expected Ferrer to repeat his Monte-Carlo success over five sets at Roland Garros. Nadal can afford to drop a set in a best of five as he can work his way into play and the kind of game that is necessary to beat Nadal on clay is nigh to impossible to sustain over five. By the time the match is into the fourth set, the challenger is dropping off, getting tired, while Nadal is into his groove and has energy to burn. Against Ferrer, over whom Nadal has a 17-2 head to head on clay, by the time Nadal had his game together, Ferrer’s game and how to overcome it was all too familiar as he rolled into the last eight.

Nadal will face Andy Murray in the semis. Murray’s presence is something of a surprise considering he has had a poor season and dropped in the rankings to eighth place. Murray was lucky to avoid Wawrinka in the last eight- Stan has thrashed him the last two times they played. Murray had to contend with Monfils instead, and it is hard to predict what will happen with the Frenchman, especially at Roland Garros where he can either make a deep run or disappoint.  Back in the last eight, Monfils took Murray to five but dropped the fifth set to love as the skies darkened at 9:40pm. Murray is too much of an accomplished pro at handling such conditions- see his controversial win over Baghdatis at Wimbledon ’12 which ended promptly at 11pm as dictated by the AELTC-and was always going to triumph when matters came to the wire.

The other semi sees Djokovic versus Gulbis. Pundits are calling Djokovic’s win over Raonic a real exhibition. Djokovic’s pedigree at Roland Garros is not disputed and such a performance over an increasingly confident Raonic speaks volumes about how focused and ready he is to take the title.

Gulbis will be a contest for the Serb. The Latvian followed up his win over Federer with a win over Berdych, downing the 2009 semi-finalist in straights. But Gulbis has the game to blow anyone of court, and has beaten Berdych in straights at a slam before at Wimbledon ’12. Berdych is also not the sternest of tests. Like Gulbis, when Berdych is on, he can beat anyone, but he is prone to upsets and blowouts. Still, the most compelling thing about the match was to see if Gulbis could follow up his win over Federer, and he did it with conviction, which bodes well for the semis.

The French Open is into the quarter-final stages. Let’s look at what happened in the first four rounds.

Seeds washed up on the dirt

Grand slams always feature a slew of upsets in the early rounds, and the French Open 2014 was no different.  After a slow first Sunday, the upsets kicked off. In the men’s, some of the favorites were knocked out such as Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori, and Grigor Dimitrov.

All three struggled with going into one of their slams as regarded favorites. Wawrinka, in particular, had the added pressure of going in as the Australian Open champion. As for Nishikori and Dimitrov, both men will have to try better to deal with their next-big-thing status as the game looks to them to replace the current ‘big four.’

But it was in the women’s game where the shocks really were seismic. Serena Williams, Li Na, Agnieszka Radwanska all went down before round four. It was the first time in history all three of the top women’s seeds went out so early in a Major.

Williams was as ineffective as she has ever been in her career. Li Na has thrown in similar subpar performances but her Australian Open win had people hoping for better. Radwanska? No one was really talking about her winning and she had been suffering with an injury since Indian Wells.

Perhaps the saddest upset was that of Federer. Ernests Gulbis is a dangerous player and has beaten Federer before in 2010 on clay so the upset was not such a huge shock, especially  considering Ernests is 25 and Federer 32. More of a shock was the manner of the defeat. Federer had set points in the second to take a two sets to love lead but could not close it out. Had he taken the second, considering the see-saw form of his opponent, Federer would most likely have made it through to his tenth consecutive French Open quarter-final.

New faces

Garbine Muguruza, Serena’s conqueror, made it through to the last eight. Perhaps she is feeling inspired by Serena who told her she could go on to win the whole thing. Maria Sharapova awaits to test out whether or not Serena was right.

Milos Raonic is through to his first Grand slam last eight, and at Roland Garros, of all places, too. More than just a serve, Raonic will face Djokovic in what will be the match of his career so far.

Old Faces back in the mix.

What is so interesting about the last eight of the men and women’s draw is the number of faces who made a comeback after some time away. Petkovic made three slam quarters, including the French, in 2011, before injuries sidelined her. Kuznetsova won the title in 2009, made the semis in ’08, and the final in ’06. She also made the last eight last year where she took a set off Serena.

And in the men, Gulbis broke through at the 2008 French only to then win two more matches at the event this year. Up against Berdych in the last eight, Gulbis has the chance to make his first slam semi.

Two of the favorites going into the French Open were knocked out on day two as players contrived to make sure that the drama missing on the opening day was more than made up for on the second.

Kei Nishikori, the tenth seed, lost 6-7, 1-6, 2-6 to Martin Klizan. Nishikori had played the tournament of his career in Madrid before injury forced him to retire in the final versus Nadal. He skipped Rome, and it seemed an inhibited Nishikori had not fully recovered from his ailment.

Stanislas Wawrinka, the third seed, had had an up and down clay season, winning in Monte Carlo and then going out early in Rome and Madrid, But the 2014 Australian Open Champion and 2013 French Open quarter-finalist was expected to bring his best to the best of five set format of a Major. He could not though, and his opponent Garcia-Lopez, the Casablanca winner and Monte-Carlo quarter finalist, smelled the chance of an upset and breathed it right in, beating Wawrinka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-0, coming back from 1-3 down in the first.

In hindsight, Wawrinka and Nishikori were  two of the more vulnerable top seeds and they could not have had tougher opponents: Klizan is the recent Munich Champion and a former top 30 player who has knocked the likes of Tsonga out of the U.S Open; Garcia-Lopez has career victories over Murray and Nadal and an attacking game that can stand up to anyone on its day.

Unfortunately for Nishikori and Wawrinka, both their opponents had their day on a wet one in Paris and dampened the spirits of the sizable Wawrinka and Nishikori fan bases. Both men will now have a couple of weeks to lick their wounds and start preparing for Wimbledon, where considering their poor records at the event and their shock losses in Paris, they will face opponents armed with salt ready to see if those wounds still sting.

 

The second day of the French Open is nearly on us. Here is what to look forward to on day 2.

Court Phillip Chatrier:

Stan Wawrinka Vs Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Wawinka won in Madrid but looked a little shaky in the remaining Clay court events. Garcia Lopez is the title winner in Casablanca and made the quarters in Monte Carlo, taking a set off Djokovic.  While Wawrinka leads the head to head 4-2, both of Lopez’ wins come on clay and if Wawrinka is not at his best, he could be in a lot of trouble.

Court Suzanne Lenglen:

Dominika Cibulkova Vs Virginie Razzano

The 2009 semi-finalist Cibulkova comes up against the woman who knocked Serena Williams out of the first round in 2012. Expect a very loud Parisian crowd to push Razzano hard and for Razzano to push Cibulkova even harder.

Rafael Nadal versus Robert Ginepri

Worth watching to see Ginepri back in action in a big slam match for the first time since 2005 when he made the semis of the US Open,  and to see the very strange sight of Rafael Nadal, 8 time champ and defending champion, too, opening the defense of his title not on Chatrier but on Lenglen.

Court 1:

Martin Klizan Vs Kei Nishikori

Klizan was the qualifier who won Munich beating Youzhny and Fognini on the way, Nishikori is the world no. 10 who so nearly beat Nadal in the Madrid final. Nishikori should win, but Klizan will make it tough, and you never know what can happen in these opening round five setters, especially as Nishikori will be playing his first slam as a bona fide fav and not an outside bet.

Sloane Stephens Vs Shuai Peng

Peng can have her day, and Stephens can have her off ones. If that should be the case tomorrow, then we get the first upset in the women’s game.

Court 2:

Monica Puig vesus Samatha Stosur

Stosur was once a favorite to win the title while Puig became the first Puerto Rican to win a WTA of any kind last weekend. Stosur is far from the player who made the finals in 2010 and is ripe for the upset. Puig is in form, young and has nothing to lose.

Paul-Henri Matthieu Vs Dominic Thiem

Matthieu has been involved in some French Open epics- Nadal in 2006, Isner in 2012- while Thiem is just getting his career started. Thiem picked off Wawrinka in Madrid and Matthieu is far from his peak, ranked 90 and struggling in qualifying events. With the interest in Thiem rising amongst fans and media, and the home crowd support for Mathieu, this match promises to be the kind of early round battle at a Major fans can get their teeth into.