Tennis News

PARIS, France – World No.1 Serena Williams survived a scare from No.60 Yulia Putintseva, while No.58 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands continued her incredible run in Paris, stunning No.8 seed Timea Bacsinszky.

Kiki Bertens puts cancer scare behind her: Confession time: Heading into the quarterfinal round of Roland Garros, there was only one permutation of results that was going to leave me truly shocked in Paris. Yulia Puntintseva beating Serena Williams? I could understand that. Tsvetana Pironkova beating Samantha Stosur or Shelby Rogers beating Garbiñe Muguruza? I could see a situation where that could happen.

But Kiki Bertens knocking out No.8 seed Timea Bacsinszky in straight sets to make her first Slam semifinal? No, that one I did not see coming. Neither did Bertens. Or her family. On match point she fell to the ground in disbelief, stood up, and looked at her box, which was full of family and friends.

She shrugged.

“I was like, Can you believe it?” Bertens beamed, while speaking to reporters. “Because I cannot. And also my parents were like, No, this is not happening.

“But, yeah, it is.”

Yeah. It is.

On yet another cold wet day in Paris, Bertens became the first Dutch woman since 1971 to advance to the French Open semifinal, beating Bacsinszky, 7-5, 6-2, to score her 12th consecutive win. She’ll face World No.1 Serena Williams on Friday. Behind in much of the first set, Bertens battled back from a break down time after time until she was able to reel off the last three games to take the set. She continued her roll in the second set, racing to a 4-0 lead, before holding off Bacsinszky for the win.

“The circumstances were really tough,” Bertens said. “The court is really slow. The balls are heavy. It’s really tough to play aggressive, and especially with Timea. She is like changing a lot, like with some slower balls and some higher ones, so it was pretty tough for me.

“But I think afterwards I was 4-2 down, and then I was just like, Okay, we are just gonna be calm and try to fight for each point. I did it and I won the first set.”

It sounds so simple. It’s been anything but.

“The last two years were pretty hard for me,” Bertens said. “First I had my ankle surgery and afterwards I had some issues with my health, so that was like pretty tough two years. But since this season we worked really hard to be healthy again, to be fit again. So, yeah, I feel really good now.”

It was a year ago here at Roland Garros, after a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 first round loss to Svetlana Kuznetsova, that Bertens gave a tearful interview to the Dutch press revealing a cancer scare that had plagued her for over a year. According to the Dutch press, Bertens went in for a WTA health exam during the Miami Open in 2014 and a WTA physiotherapist discovered a lump on her thyroid gland.

Bertens sought out tests in the Netherlands but continued to play for over a year not knowing if the lump was cancerous or not. She had scheduled surgery on the lump after the French Open that year but after a miracle run to the fourth round as a qualifier, she canceled the surgery for fear of the risks.

The stress led to sleepless nights and anxiety. She told Dutch reporters that she was resigned to the idea that she had cancer, trying to prepare herself for the worst. But the uncertainty continued to eat at her. It wasn’t until last year, right before Roland Garros, that she got the green light. She had done a test in America and the lump was benign. The tears she shed with reporters were tears of relief and joy. She could finally move on.

“Now I can start again at zero,” she said last year at Roland Garros. “Stress does so much with your body. I have not slept for a year.”

But Bertens’ struggles didn’t end there. Due to the stress of the cancer scare she was unable to train at an elite level and her fitness slipped. She struggled to get through matches for the rest of the year. She lost 6-1, 6-0 to Petra Kvitova in the first round a few weeks later. With her ranking outside the Top 100, she played mainly on the ITF Circuit, popping up only a the tour’s lower level events.

Last September she hired Raemon Sluiter, a former ATP player, as her new coach. Their off-season priority was to get her back to a top-level of fitness.

“In the preseason I did a lot of work,” Bertens said. “Like the first three weeks was only physical practices, like two, sometimes three times a day. It was hell really, but I’m really glad we did it. Like with my whole team we were like working every day like really hard.”

The hard work has paid off. Along with a new diet – she doesn’t eat carbohydrates in the evening and says she’s sleeping better and has more energy in the mornings – Bertens looks as fit as ever. It’s translated directly into her game. When the tour transitioned to her favorite clay, the wins began to come in bunches.

She beat Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in Fed Cup, then proceeded to make the semifinals of Rabat, where she had match point to make the final but lost to Marina Erakovic.

“I had match point there I [lost] the match and in my head I was so stressed and all the time and we were like talking with my coach after that match for so long. I think after that match I just was so calm in my head and just trying to go out there every day and just give everything and then just do my own thing. I think that’s the most important thing.”

Then came Nürnberg. Playing the week before the French Open, Bertens won the title as a qualifier, her first trophy since Fes in 2012. Heading into the French Open only Samantha Stosur had more clay court wins than Bertens this year. Back in action immediately in Paris, she scored the biggest win of her career, beating No.3 Angelique Kerber in the first round and has since knocked out Camila Giorgi, No.29 Daria Kasatkina, No.15 Madison Keys, and now No.8 Bacsinszky.

“Mentally I feel pretty good,” Bertens said. “But physically, yeah, it was tough today out there. I think I had some problems with my calf today, so especially in the second set it was really hard to push off with the serve.”

Her physically state will surely be tested against Serena. Bertens took a medical timeout after the first set against Bacsinszky to get her calf taped. Regardless of how the match turns out, this has been the most surprising of fortnights for Bertens.

Bacsinszky undone: Timea Bacsinszky has spent much of the last two months adapting to the conditions and her opponents. But she couldn’t solve the puzzle of Kiki Bertens. The Swiss struggled in the heavier conditions and simply couldn’t execute her game plan to keep Bertens off-balance.

“The conditions, they were heavier than yesterday,” Bacsinszky said. “I was really struggling with my ball length, so I couldn’t really find a good spot to bother her. Well, she was probably having also a great momentum.

“So I think we played kind of equal all the first set. I mean, I could have won also those games. It could have gone either way. And it was the same in the second set, too. So congrats to her, because she she was able to win the important points.”

After the match, Bacsinszky pointed out that she hasn’t been as in the zone as people think.

“People think, Okay, you get to win many matches and it’s like, Oh, just playing too good and you’re just feeling it. Last year I was mentioning two matches that I had my eyes shut and everything was going in. But all year long, like this year, it didn’t happen yet for me to have such a match. So many times I was feeling kind of not that well in the match but I was able to turn it around.

“Luckily for me it doesn’t happen quite often that I cannot turn it around, but this time I really couldn’t.”

Serena Williams fends off The Feisty One: To paraphrase Andy Murray after the 2012 Wimbledon final, “She’s getting closer.” Yulia Putintseva had twice taken Serena Williams to a first set tie-break only to see the American run away with the match in straight sets. This time Putintseva played a fantastic match to keep Serena off-balance, taking the first set 7-5 and earning break point late in the second set for a chance to serve out the match, only to see Serena roar back to win, 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals.

“I think I have more experience now, because I played two times before with Serena on the big courts,” Putintseva said. “This time I was just more confident when I was serving for a set. I was just not thinking. I was just doing it and it went well.”

As for Serena, it wasn’t her best day. It was a frustrating performance from the American, who is trying to defend her French Open title and match Steffi Graf’s Open Era record of 22 major titles. “I just was not playing my best,” Serena said. “I kept missing, just misfiring. Honestly, at one point I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I guess I was not the most positive mentally, but obviously I didn’t want to stop.”

Despite coming so close to a massive upset – she was just five points away from the win and joked afterwards that a couple of let-cord winners would have sealed it – Putintseva took nothing but positives from her performance.

“I think the match was very close and very far from being on my side,” Putintseva said. “I was trying to do everything what I can, to run, to cover, to attack when I can, to go forward. But it just was unlucky situation end of the second set for me. But it’s okay. I mean, still have some years to play Grand Slams.”

Simultaneous Semifinals Set for Friday: Starting at 1pm it will be Serena vs. Bertens on Court Philippe Chatrier. Garbiñe Muguruza vs. Samantha Stosur will also start at 1pm on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

In the doubles, the semifinals are also set. No.5 seed Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic take on Margarita Gasparyan and Svetlana Kuznetsova, while No.7 seeds and 2013 champions Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina play Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.

Garbiñe Muguruza’s maiden Roland Garros victory earned her one of the most impressive moves of the fortnight on the Road To Singapore; the Spaniard shot up 13 spots from No.17 to put herself at No.4 in line for qualification for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

Up to a career-high ranking of No.2 on the WTA rankings, Muguruza is now in pole position to play the WTA Finals for a second straight year. In her 2015 debut, she roared through the round robin stage without dropping a match, losing to eventual champion Agnieszka Radwanska in three grueling sets.

The Top 3 shuffled on the Road To Singapore leaderboard, giving us a new No.1 in 21-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams. Despite finishing second to Muguruza at the French Open, the American has nonetheless enjoyed a near-perfect start to 2016, one that has seen her reach the finals or better at four of her five tournaments this season.

Semifinalists Samantha Stosur and Kiki Bertens enjoyed the biggest bumps; former US Open champion Stosur nearly cut her Road To Singapore ranking in half to go from No.16 to No.9, while Bertens put herself in Singapore contention by moving from No.35 to No.12.

RTS Ranking Movers

Serena Williams: No.3 to No.1 (+2)
Garbiñe Muguruza: No.17 to No.4 (+13)
Samantha Stosur: No.16 to No.9 (+7)
Kiki Bertens: No.35 to No.12 (+23)
Irina-Camelia Begu: No.27 to No.19 (+8)
Elina Svitolina: No.31 to No.20 (+11)
Yulia Putintseva: No.45 to No.24 (+21)

Click here to see the full Road To Singapore leaderboard standings with Paris in the books.

1. Garbiñe Muguruza is the next big thing: The new World No.2 became just the second woman born in the 1990s to win a major title, joining two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in a, as it stands now, very exclusive club. Kvitova is 26 and well alongside a generation of players that includes Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber, and Agnieszka Radwanska. But the 22-year-old Muguruza is the first representative of her generation of women, which includes Eugenie Bouchard, Sloane Stephens, and Madison Keys, to break through.

And there’s no reason to believe Roland Garros will be Muguruza’s only major title. The big-hitting Spaniard, already playing in her second major final in 12 months, was able to push Serena Williams around the court and power her way to a 7-5, 6-4 win in the final. She has the physicality to endure and a big all-court style that is built on solid technique. Most importantly, she has the ambition and mentality that is focused on not the spoils of success, but the success itself.

Read more about Muguruza’s meteoric rise from WTA Insider here.

2. The gap between Serena Williams and the field is shrinking: Heading into this season, Serena was riding a 15-match win-streak in tournament finals, dating back to 2013. In 2016 she has won one of the three finals she’s played so far, with two of the losses coming at Slams. It was Angelique Kerber getting the best of her in the Australian Open final, Victoria Azarenka beating her in the BNP Paribas Open final, and now Muguruza in Paris. You have to go back over a decade to 2004 to find the last time, and only other time, Serena has ever lost three finals in a season.

The debates over whether this is a result of Serena’s level dipping dramatically, how much injuries or fitness impact that dip, or how much the competition behind her has improved, will rage on. But this time a year ago, Serena held 11,291 ranking points, holding a 4,421 point lead on then-No.2 Kvitova. Today she holds 8,330 points, holding a 1,564 point lead on No.2 Muguruza.

3. Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic love the stage: Many French players have come and gone and many have said playing at home at Roland Garros can be an incredibly stressful time. With the expectations, attention, and crowd support, it can be difficult to just focus on the task at hand and play tennis.

But both Garcia and Mladenovic shook off any concerns this year in Paris. Coming off her title run in Strasbourg, Garcia played confident and inspired tennis despite going out to No.2 seed Radwanska in the second round. Mladenovic offered a fantastic challenge to Serena in the third round in one of the best matches of the tournament. And then the two paired up and rode their wave of confidence in doubles, becoming the first French pair to win the women’s title at Roland Garros since 1971.

4. Victoria Azarenka’s toughest rival: After dominating the hard court season, Azarenka sputtered on clay. Her biggest enemy continues to be her body. She pulled out of the Mutua Madrid Open with a back injury and then retired in the first round of Roland Garros due to a knee injury. Now she’s already withdrawn from this week’s Aegon Open Nottingham due to the same knee injury.

5. City of Milestones: No Slam has produced more first-time winners than Roland Garros. In the Open Era, there have been 45 different players to win a Grand Slam singles title. Roland Garros has produced the most first-time winners (16), followed by Australian Open (11), Wimbledon (9) and US Open (9).

But it wasn’t just about Muguruza joining the Slam club in Paris. Kiki Bertens, who had been past the second round of a Slam just once in her career, found herself in her first major semifinal. The unseeded Dutchwoman, ranked No.58 at the start of the tournament, won the title in Nürnberg as a qualifier and proceeded to mow down the field in Paris. She beat Angelique Kerber, Camila Giorgi, Daria Kasatkina, Madison Keys, and Timea Bacsinszky, tallying 12 consecutive wins over three weeks.

Then there was Shelby Rogers, ranked outside the Top 100 at the start of the tournament, who did he own heavy lifting to make her first Slam quarterfinal. Like Bertens, Rogers paved her own way, with wins over Karolina Pliskova, Elena Vesnina, Petra Kvitova, and Irina-Camelia Begu, before losing to the eventual champion.

6. Daria Kasatkina and Naomi Osaka continue their rise: Both 18-year-olds made the third round of the Australian Open in their tournament debut. They each replicated the feat in their Paris debuts. Osaka beat No.32 seed Jelena Ostapenko and Mirjana Lucic-Baroni before pushing No.6 seed Simona Halep to three sets. She’s now firmly in the Top 100 at No.87. Kasatkina, seeded in her first Roland Garros, had a good look to make the second week before a leg injury derailed her late in the third set against Bertens. The young Russian appears to have secured her singles spot on the Russian Olympic team, now up to No.31.

7. Weather is the ultimate equalizer: In a stunning turn of events in the second week, Samantha Stosur and Tsvetana Pironkova resumed their rain-interrupted matches to score big upsets, with Stosur ralling from 3-5 down at the break to roll to a 7-6(0), 6-3 win over Halep. Pironkova did one better, knocking out Radwanska after being down 6-3, 3-0 at the break. The Bulgarian reeled off 10 consecutive games on the restart and eventually won 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 to make her first French Open quarterfinal.

The cool, wet conditions in Paris were a big storyline in the second week. Roland Garros saw its first washout in 16 years on the second Monday, forcing a schedule shift that saw Serena play four straight days, including Saturday’s final, compared to Muguruza, who played two straight days.

Top players are understandably accustomed to playing in the best of conditions and circumstances. They get the best court assignments, but the preferred scheduling, and as a result they can be put off by even the slightest of disturbances. On the flip side, lower-ranked players, such as No.102 Pironkova are more seasoned in dealing with the litany of variables that can crop up on the ITF circuit or qualifying.

8. Olympic picture comes into focus: Roland Garros was the last opportunity for players to grab ranking points to put them into contention for their respective Olympic teams. A full explanation of the complex qualifying scheme can be found here.

Ranking aside, Bertens needed to make the fourth round in Paris due to specific rules put into place by the Dutch Federation, and secured her spot by beating Kasatkina 10-8 in the third. Pironkova also went from being an Olympic afterthought to landing right on the bubble at No.71. Her spot will come down to how many players ranked ahead of her are ruled out of Rio. The ITF will confirm the composition of the field on June 30th.

9. Familiar faces on the Road to Singapore: With the clay season complete and two of the four Slams in the books, the RTS Leaderboard is now starting to take shape. Here’s where we stand at the halfway point:

1. Serena Williams (Rome champion, Australian Open finalist, Indian Wells finalist, French Open finalist).
2. Angelique Kerber (Australian Open champion, Stuttgart champion, Miami semifinalist, Charleston semifinalist).
3. Victoria Azarenka (Brisbane champion, Indian Wells champion, Miami champion).
4. Garbiñe Muguruza (Roland Garros champion, Rome semifinalist).
5. Agnieszka Radwanska (Shenzhen champion, Australian Open semifinalist, Doha semifinalist, Indian Wells semifinalist, Stuttgart semifinalist).
6. Carla Suárez Navarro (Doha champion, Brisbane semifinalist, Australian Open quarterfinalist).
7. Simona Halep (Madrid champion, Indian Wells quarterfinalist, Miami quarterfinalist).
8. Svetlana Kuznetsova (Sydney champion, Miami finalist).

10. Internationals matter: Bertens played Nuremberg the week before Roland Garros, won the tournament as a qualifier, and proceeded to knock off No.3 seed Kerber in the first round en route to the semifinals. Rogers made her second WTA final in February, on clay at the Rio Open. Stosur’s run to the Prague Open final, losing narrowly to Lucie Safarova, was a confidence building week for a woman who was playing far better on clay than people realized before Paris. And Cagla Buyukakcay, who became the first Turkish woman to qualify for the main draw at a Slam and win match, won the Istanbul Cup in April.

While the results throughout the fortnight in Paris were surprising at times, you would have seen the results coming if you were keeping an eye on the tour’s International tournaments. They may not be the biggest tournaments on tour, but they’re prime scouting ground to discover who may just be on the verge of a breakout week.

All photos courtesy of Getty Images.