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ROLAND GARROS 2014 - MONDAY 2 JUNE IP: 46.255.183.159 Posted on June 2, 2014 at 11:29:34 PM by David Barnes
ROLAND GARROS 2014
MONDAY 2 JUNE (DAY 9)
Our own Katie Boulter played the 15-year old American Raveena Kingsley on an outside court this morning, and quickly raced to a 5-1 lead, survived a 0-40 scare on her next service game, and took the first set 6-1 with relative ease. Things did not go so well in the second, which went to the American 6-3. However Boulter regrouped to win the third 6-3, serving a total of twelve aces and winning a creditable 73% of points on her first serve. A satisfactory start to the week at Roland Garros for the Britsh girl, who bears a passing resemblance to Maria Sharapova and indeed describes the Russian as her favourite player in the most recent ITF Junior Circuit Media Guide. Unlike the Russian, however (who was warned for it in her match yesterday against Sam Stosur), she managed not to shriek. At all. Just play adequately well, and win. Bravo.
I was watching the match with John Inverdale, who did a piece this morning on ITV about the strength of the junior game in Britain, and the relationship that the British players have with the LTA. It remains a mystery why the latter, with the embarrassingly vast amounts of money thrown its way over the last decade or so, has achieved so little in terms of producing British players who move up the junior rankings and go on to achieve something on the ATP/WTA Tours proper. This is a subject to which Neil Harman in The Times returns from time to time, and no doubt with Wimbledon approaching, will do so again. Who knows, maybe in Katie Boulter (aged 17) we are looking at a future WTA main tour champion. Mind you, when Maria Sharapova was the British girl’s age, she had already won Wimbledon, so we must not get carried away.
In many ways one would have preferred to be on Philippe Chatrier this afternoon watching the oft-hidden American treasure Sloane Stephens battling away (unsuccessfully) against Simona Halep, or Gael Monfils raising the roof (as it were) in his straight sets demolition of outsider Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, rather than enduring the potential drudgery of another Murray performance (in more than one sense of the word) on Suzanne Lenglen. Rather like the choice, in domestic terms, between making macaroons and doing the ironing. Sadly the ironing won.
In the event it was an extremely competent, if not wildly compelling, performance from Murray, who slugged it out with Verdasco, pushing the latter to make unforced errors by over-hitting in an attempt to get round the Scot’s intelligent serving and superb defensive game in the rallies. An especially impressive Mexican wave from the crowd after Murray had broken for 6-5 in the second set (before taking it 7-5 on his third set point) conveyed a growing appreciation from the ensemble of spectators that the Spaniard was on a losing wicket. Verdasco had a furious argument with umpire Maria Pascal midway through the third set about an overrule in his favour, and it did him some good in that he then clawed back a break of serve in the next game to level the score at 4-4 and eventually to force a tie-break.
Murray's match this afternoon reminded me of something that Dominic Thiem’s coach, Gunther Bresnik, said to L’Equipe newspaper the other day, explaining that he thought his charge was just too nice a guy; “In tennis, the only way to succeed is to be an animal”. Murray resisted the taurine antics of the Spaniard, wrapped the match up 6-4, 7-5, 7-6(3) in just under three hours, and signed the on-court camera ‘Merci beaucoup’. The Parisian charm offensive continues, and he meets Gael Monfils in the quarterfinal on Wednesday, where he will really need to turn it on.
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David Barnes/Topspin, 2014
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