← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
QUICK SERVED: French Open Day 11 - Djokovic Advances, Andreeva Falls to Wild Card, & more
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- [00:01]
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John Wertheim
Hey everyone, John Wertheim. Here it is, day 11 from Roland Garros. Welcome to Quick Serve where we wrap up the day we are it's after midnight here. Just come right from the court. If you sense exhilaration, it's because we just watched Novak Djokovic do Djokovician things, taking out number three Sasha Zverev in four, four sets. Again, we've been talking about this all tournament. When Novak gets going, is he not a contender now? It has been answered definitively. He's a contender. He just beat the number three player in the world. What really impressed me was how he did it, not only losing the first set and then coming back, but this was really a match, one with strategy and one with the brain as well as the lungs, arms, heart and arms. 35 drop shots, taking advantage of court positioning and then if you really want to see Novak Djokovic encapsulated, if you have access to this on DVR or on YouTube, however you get it, watch that last game where 38 years old, the window's closing. How many more opportunities does he have? Pressure mounting and the way he staved off, he blew some match points, he played a couple of loose points, didn't make a lot of first serves and still figured out a way to win. Serving and volleying just outlasting Zverev. Just a performance that we've grown accustomed to. But stand back and this is just absolutely extraordinary. Novak Djokovic into, get this, his 51st major semifinal. He reached the semis for the first time here in 2007, 38 years old, and now all he has to do is beat, potentially anyway, the number two and number one player in the world to win the title. But no, I mean, this was just an extraordinary performance. Add it to the compendium, of course. But recency bias notwithstanding, this was one of the more extraordinary matches I've seen him play against a guy 10 years his junior who came within a set of winning this event last year. And Novak lost the first set and then just would not be denied a strategic win, a win that really has to validate his decision honestly, to keep playing. I talked to him immediately after the match and he was just glowing. And as trite as it sounds, really, this is why he's still out there. Just a grand. You can even hear, I mean, I'm at my hotel right near Roland Garros. You can still hear the, the fans as they're making their way to Ubers and the Metro, just exhilarated by that win. That was kind of the story of the day. That was just an extraordinary sporting event. It was the night match. Hard to believe that it sounds like the session feels like it got started in about February. But at 11am more than 13 hours ago, today's session got kicked off with the women's quarters. Madison Keys and Coco Gauff. Later on when we do our wrap, maybe we'll talk about the scheduling. A little unfortunate that two top players, two recent major winners, two Americans who both won on hard court, why they had an 11 o' clock start time, never mind that it was 5am Eastern, 2am Pacific. It also was a time when there were few fans in the seats, there was a roof over the court. There was just sort of a hollow feel to start this match, which was unfortunate given the stakes, given the excellent players. And for the first 90 minutes or so, this was a really patchy match. Candidly, this was not classic tennis. Madison Keys had a lead who's 4, 1, 40, 15 up, then sort of went away and the first set went to a tiebreaker. Madison Keys ended up winning that. Coco came back, took the second and then really cleaned up her tennis and closed it out and was far and away the superior player for the last half hour. This will not go down as a classic though. All credit to Coco. For what do we always say she has learned how to win when she is not at her best. She wasn't today. 15 winners to 40, one unforced errors and 10 double faults and she still wins a high stakes match like this. She advances Steffi Graf can pop her 1972 Miami Dolphins bubbly. She remains the last remaining player to have won the Grand Slam all four majors. Madison Keys on the women's side anyway, now is forestalled from doing that. Steffi Graf of course, is the last person in the world to take a victory lap. But let's do note that there will not be a Grand Slam winner on the women's side with Madison Keys out. Good win for Coco Gauff. And she was very candid about it afterwards. I don't think anybody was under delusions. This was her best tennis. But she did what she had to do and she won. And now she's in the semifinal. Who will she play in the semifinal? She will play Lois Boissa. That is not a sentence anyone envisioned saying when the tournament started. Or candidly even a few days ago, Lois Poisson backed up her win over Jesse Pegula by taking out Mira Andreeva. I will say this is a really fine player. This was a French prospect who had some knee injuries. She was supposed to get a wild card last year. And now as I read this several different ways, I believe she's a 22nd ranked French player. She still got the wild card, sort of a make good from last year. What did she do? She won five matches and will emerge from this tournament with a top 75 ranking. And as the number one French woman. She is really a talented player. Has this whipping forehand. Remind me a little bit maybe of Stam Stoser forehand, much better than the backhand. But you know what, she also has a lot of poise. 22 years old, story of the tournament. And she really fed off the crowd. Crowd. We've seen players at other slams, including this one, who get a little bit sort of spooked by the home crowd. And the pressure is something they can't quite shoulder. This was the opposite. She really rode the crowd today against Mira Andreeva. She was down in both sets and mounted a comeback. Really hanging in there in the rallies. I mean don't read too much into that 361 ranking. That's really more consequence. That's more by dint of the fact that she's been injured and haven't played much. I mean this is a class player. That forehand in particular, that's a top 20 forehand. And Mira Andreeva, we've talked a lot about her poise and how sort of preternaturally mature she is. Today we got the 18 year old version. The crowd really got to her. She was not playing her best Tennis. The opponent got to her. She smacked a ball into the high reaches of the stadium. At one point she asked her coach Conchita Martinez to leave. This was not a particularly. This was a learning experience. She'll grow from this. A disappointing loss, but Mira and Draven not at her best today. Lois blossom into the semifinals. There has not been a French female champion here since Mary Pierce 25 years ago. I didn't think of that anniversary of Mary Pierce, but yeah, now the toast of this tournament. She will be wildly popular. She will be cheered like crazy tomorrow. It's a great story but this is also a player who, she's legit. I mean this is not someone who just came in here and this is sort of a one hit wonder. An eye on Lois Boisson. There's, there's a lot of game there. She, she's a strong player. She's a fit player. And I was also really struck by her reaction. She did kind of the, the clay angel when she won the match. But when she collected herself it was sort of like my dream was never to get to the semifinals. It was to win this thing. And there's a real sort of sense of this. This is all well and good, but I'm, I'm going for the trophy now. So. Lois Bossab really has shown a lot of, a lot of good tennis but also sort of a lot of good presence and maturity and self belief. She now is into the semifinal, the third semifinal, third match of the day session. Anyway. Jannik Sinner, the fairy tale had to end. Alexander Bublik, those are his words. He was sort of well aware as anyone that at some point things have to regress to the mean and that they did. A potentially tricky, dangerous opponent for Jannik Senner who took all danger and tricks out of the equation. Just clearly superior. I think public probably physically tired, emotionally tired. He won that five setter in the fourth round, won that very emotional four setter in the quarterfinals and just in the fourth round and just didn't have much to give against center today. Sinner has not lost a set here. Andy and I were joking about this, but it really is this sort of anything you can do, I can do better. You watch Alcaraz play and you said who in the world can beat this guy? And then the next day you watch Sinner play and you say who in the world can beat this guy? We are still on track for a 1 versus 2 final. Of course, Novak Djokovic may have something to say about that. Which reminds me, I think we should pause here. I mean, the full disclosure is I am working for tnt. But imagine you're tnt. You have cut a considerable check to take over the television rights. It's your first year doing this. And on the women's side you have Coco Gauff, iga, Swiatek, Irita Sabalenka and this outlier, but she also happens to be French, so it's this great story. And then on the women's side you've got Djokovic, Alcaraz, Sinner and Mussetti. Really can't go wrong. That's good fortune for a first time TV partner. Let us look ahead to tomorrow's schedule and see where we are. We start with. What do we start with? The mixed doubles final. Could that be right? Yes, it is right. Remember, the U.S. open is going to hold the mixed doubles final before the tournament. This is a little different. But Thursday tends to be a little early to start handing out trophies. Who do we have in the final? Taylor Townsend and Evan King. The American lefties against Sarah Arani and Vavasori, the Italians. That should be a fun one. Taylor Counten is an absolute treat to watch if you haven't done so already. Then we get started with the women's semifinals. Remember, there is no day off between quarterfinals and semifinals. The first semifinal are the players who played yesterday. So they actually did get the day off at Sabalenka and iga. This is everything we want. We talked about this yesterday. These are probably the two best players post Serena Ash Barty make a case for her as well. But Sabalenka, number one top seed and then iga of course, as the player who's won this event for the last five times and is rounding into form. They've, they've had battles. They've had battles on clay, they've had classic matches. This should be fun. This should be a lot of fun. And I think they're, they're also a. They're coming off sort of statement wins at least the round before last for IGA against Robakina when she really had this pivotal moment when the match was getting away and she turn things around. And then Sabalenka beating Junction Nguyen is also sort of a validation match. So they're coming off of good wins, the both of them and this ought to be fun. They were followed by Boisson and Coco Gauff. Not surprisingly, no head to head record. On paper, Coco ought to win this match. Then again, you could have said that about every opponent Lois Boisson has played. It's probably I'm thinking it's probably to Bossin's advantage, or at least I think she benefits from the fact that there is no day off and she's not going to have to do the French equivalent of the Today show and it's not going to have crazy media and attention and her phone blowing up. She's got a match to play tomorrow. I think for Coco, the key to this is just managing really the crowd as much as the opponent. We all know what Coco can do. We all know the ways in which even when the forehand goes off and the double falls start coming, she can play through them. I think the one thing I'm not sure she has experienced is this sort of college tennis atmosphere. Verandreeva, who does not have Coco's age or maturity, was clearly impacted by that. How will Coco deal with fans cheering, double faults and hooting and sort of the antics that came into play today? That's probably going to be the biggest danger point for Coco because on paper, this is a match she ought to win. Those are the women's semifinals. We are getting to the business end of this tournament. It's been a really fun event. I mean, again, just sort of look at these draws and you say the one outlier happens to be this French player who's taken out three, three seeds. So good day of tennis here. It's technically it's already Thursday, so I hope it's a good day today. Novak djokovic into his 51st major semifinal, age 38. Beating Zverev is probably your top story, but a lot of possibilities left, A lot of exciting matches left. We're thrilled to be here. Andy will be back tomorrow to break down X's nose. Thursday is also Andre Agassi's first day on TNT as we continue our good soldiering for that network. Enjoy the tennis, everyone. That'll do it. That's quick served from Paris into the early morning hours of Thursday. Enjoy these remaining few days, everyone.
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