Tennis: Glory, glory – the French Open champ Covid made
Barbora Krejcikova was unseeded, unheard of and most unlikely. Now she’s the French Open champion. She’s all things good about sport – the chance you might get your moment in the sun.
Here’s the glory of sport. All of it. The lure. The promise. The dangling carrot. The treasure. The possibility that aches and pains and blisters and hotel rooms and painstaking travel and invisible hours on practice courts and psychologists couches will all become worth it when The Universe gifts you a moment like this.
Here’s Barbora Krejcikova. Never in her wildest dreams. Here she is right now, standing in this glorious colosseum of world sport, standing where Laver and Court and Borg and Graf and Navraitlova and Les Quatre Mousquetaires and Williams and Djokovic have given blood and sweat, and where the baseline is still dotted with the tears of Nadal. And here she is now, someone called Barbora Krejcikova, like a mouse who’s about to succeed in killing all the cats. The 25-year-old has had a career of mostly anonymous doubles victories and low-tier singles tournaments in Hong Kong and the like but now, here she is, needing only one more point to claim the French Open.
Win a major and your career is a raging success. Nothing can ever change it. Your name is forever on the trophy and the clubhouse honour board. Forever in the record books. Leading 6-1, 2-6, 5-4, 40-30, she is standing where giants of world sport have stood. Which makes her one of them, if she wins the next point.
Her first serves hits the tape. Winding up for her second serve, her mouth is wide open like Betty Cuthbert doing another sprint. She needs all the air she can get. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova floats a backhand long. There’s a bit of Cathy Freeman in Krejcikova’s reaction. No cartwheels. No falling to her knees. No flopping on her back. It’s just shock, relief and disbelief. No change in facial expression until after a walk to the net that looks some sleepwalking, and the handshake. Then she beams with a look of je ne peux pas le croire, I won. The glory, the treasure, the carrot, the moment, it was all hers. All of it. Her surname is pronounced Kr-cheek-ova. The cheek of her!
“It is hard to put into words because I cannot believe what just happened. I cannot believe I actually won a grand slam,” Krejcikova said.
“I’m extremely happy. It’s a dream come true, for sure. I’m just really happy that I was able to handle it as I did, that mentally I think that was the biggest key. I spoke with my psychologist again and we spoke about it a lot. I just knew that as soon as I’m going to enter the court, I’m just not going to be panicking anymore.
“Now I was just telling myself, ‘It would be really nice if I can get the grand slam in all three categories’. Now it’s happening. I cannot believe it.”
The cheek of her, winning a major at only her fifth start in singles. Next stop, Wimbledon, where she has never played a match, let alone won one. She’ll be a seeded player with zero experience. The surrealism contrasts with the sorrow for Pavlyuchenkova, who took 52 majors to reach a final, and a very winnable one at that, before falling short once more. Neither of them played especially well. There was some very good and occasionally great stuff but overall, the enormity of the occasion gripped them with tension.
“I want to believe that the best is yet to come, so I think that’s how I should approach the whole situation,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “Watching my friends at the start of the trophy ceremony, of course I was close to crying. It’s always sad to lose.
“But then when I looked at my friends, I think there is much more important stuff in life than sometimes even this trophy. I feel loved. I think that’s the best thing you can have is friends and a life outside tennis, as well, which actually even meant more than the trophy today. Hopefully, next time if I have a chance to be in the final I’ll handle it better and I’ll be more fresh and I’ll play better.”
Suddenly Krejcikova is one of the most accomplished players in the sport. She won five doubles and mixed doubles majors when she was largely consigning singles to the too-hard bin. Rags have become riches.
Nine months ago, she was ranked outside the top 100. Now she’s the champion Covid made. During the pandemic, spare time galore, she played more singles in training. Went all right. Had a proper go at it. Crept up the rankings.
Was thrilled to win her opening match at Roland Garros. Won another. And another. Won seven. Lifted the trophy. She was to feature in the doubles final after the men’s singles final on Monday morning (AEST.) What a wonderful throwback, like Ash Barty, to gifted, multifaceted tennis players winning the singles at a slam and then trying to knock off the doubles as well. Glory, glory.
More Coverage
16-year old Emerson Jones triumphs as Family Connection Takes Center Stage
World number one junior Emerson Jones made her Far North debut on Wednesday, but for the 16-year old with a bright future, it was an acknowledgment of the past shared with her older brother that was at the forefront of her performance.
WADA appeals World No.1’s doping decision, pursues ban
Jannik Sinner is “very disappointed” but confident after the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the decision to clear him in his steroid case, seeking a ban of up to two years.