French Open 2018: Serene veneer might just vanish

Bringing human life into the world has brought to her a sense of calm to Serena Williams.

Serena Williams during a practice session ahead of the French Open at Roland Garros.

Oh, momma — the word from Roland Garros is that Serena Williams is walking round without the pent-up aggression and invisible walls that normally accompany her attempts to win a major. Bringing human life into the world has brought her a sense of calm, they reckon, but of course the starry-eyed veneer may vanish if she struggles in her first grand slam appearance since the birth of her baby girl.

Williams has surrounded herself with royalty in the lead-up to her eagerly anticipated return to the French Open. She was in the VVIP section for the wedding of Prince Harry and Megs Markle and had a few hits with Bernie Tomic. She’s said to have retained her composure throughout both of these potentially overwhelming occasions. Having skipped the Australian Open because she was not ready to swap baby formula for bristling forehands, she plays the Czech Republic’s Kristyna Pliskova tonight. To avoid any confusion, we should point out that Kristyna is the worst of Pliskova sisters. The world No 70. Williams’ ranking is No 453, a fall that even Tomic has avoided, after the WTA ruled her ranking and seedings could not be protected during and after her pregnancy. Maria Sharapova has described the call as harsh. You know there’s been an administrative bungle when Sharapova is siding with Williams.

The 23-time major champion looked like a million bucks at the royal wedding, taking a kiss on the cheek from the Tomic-esque ­George Clooney before settling into her seat and watching her mate Megs get hitched to a redhead. She’s always been a woman of incredible inner-strength and if she now feels as if she’s also playing for her girl, Alexis, she might take some stopping.

But a lack of match toughness has done many a former champion in, and her toughest assignments at Roland Garros could be her earliest ones. Pliskova says all the pressure is on momma.

She’d just lost a match at last week’s WTA event at Nuremberg when her mobile phone started going ding. “I saw some messages from a couple of people saying, ‘You can win!’” she told the New York Times. “And I said, ‘What?’ They’re crazy. I just lost! What are they talking about?’”

She cottoned on to the fact that of the 127 women who could have drawn Williams, it was her. They’d never played. The last time Williams lost at a major was at the 2016 US Open — against the best Pliskova, the world No 6 Karolina.

“I’m pretty excited to play ­Serena,” the worst Pliskova said. “It’s so good to play her at least once in your life. I don’t know if she’s going to be playing for long, so I’m really happy I can play against her. It’s going to be really, really tough but I think the pressure is going to be on her. Everybody is so excited that she’s back, and everybody’s expecting that she will play good, like she was before. I play my best tennis when I play against top players … you can play loose.”

Meanwhile, French Open organisers were scrambling to find an opponent for Tomic last night after the withdrawal of Nick Kyrgios. It was no surprise that one of them threw in the towel in their first career clash, but there was probably an expectation they would wait until the match actually started. Seven lucky losers from qualifying had already been elevated into the main draw. Others had left Paris. When local baristas, publicans, Eiffel Tour operators and pizza delivery boys all announced themselves as unavailable, Tomic was bracketed with XXX. He’s been cranky with the media in Paris, telling reporters, “No media. Just leave me alone.” In a rather farcical situation, he went to bed on Sunday evening with no idea who his opponent would be. Then again, as ever, it was likely to be himself.