Roland Garros Round 1 Recap 🐌 Nadal's Exit, Smooth Sailing for Top Seeds

Was that the last we ever saw Rafael Nadal play at Roland-Garros?

May 29, 2024

As usual, the first 3 days of Roland Garros provided plenty of story lines, but one outshone them all: 14-time Rafael Nadal may have played his last match ever at the tournament which became synonymous with his name in the past two decades.

Is the new ‘refcam’ in any way linked to the Challengers movie? I like it.

RESULTS SUMMARY

TOP 4 SEEDS

UPSETS (eliminated seeds)

Full draws here.

Adios o no?

An unseeded Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros was recipe for chaos coming — but that it would happen this early at the tournament, I wouldn’t have guessed that.

As he promised, Nadal played much better tennis than he did in Barcelona, Madrid or Rome. He was moving much better, returning big serves well and fighting from start to finish as he tirelessly did throughout his career. But this was too brutal of a first round draw for him. Zverev made a very healthy 77% of his first serves which would cause trouble against even a healthy Nadal. The Spaniard still showed outstanding fighting spirit and broke the German’s serve twice. He served for the set in the second and was up a break in the third. Maybe if this match had taken in a later round…

Specifically that last thought and later Nadal’s interviews are making me think that we will watch Nadal again on this court, and not just for the Olympics. For that reason, I am avoiding a farewell feeling on this post.

Like he said on court, if this was in fact his last match, it was a good way to bow out. He fought until the end, just like in the other 115 matches he played here.

Top 4 did not drop a set

In both the women’s and the men’s draw, top 4 seeds won in straight sets. The quartet of Swiatek-Sabalenka-Rybakina-Gauff have been so dominant in early rounds that I got curious about the last time a top 4 seed lost in the opening round of a Grand Slam. Answer to that is at the end of this section — can you guess the player?

Swiatek (1) and Sabalenka (2) both won their matches 6-1 6-2, beating Jeanjean and Erika Andreeva respectively. Gauff (3) lost even a game less against the 21 year-old qualifier Julia Avdeeva. Rybakina (4) was about to finish her match in similar fashion before Minnen had a late surge and broke 2 of her opponents service games.

I don’t know what Rybakina dreaded more: The end of that match or the press conference that followed? She was visibly and vocally unimpressed about the questions asked. To be fair to the journalists, I thought there were interesting questions. I would have loved to get her thought process on how she changes her game for a last-minute indoor clay match. But you know, you one be motivated 100% of the time for obligations — they are “obligations” after all.

Jannik Sinner (2) and Carlos Alcaraz (3) also won their matches comfortably. Alcaraz is taking it easy with his forehand and looping the ball much more than hitting atrocious winners. We might see that forearm loosen with each round.

Sinner beat another American, Chris Eubanks, who must be feeling relieved that his clay season is over. The Italian had had to skip Rome due to a discomfort in his hip, but he reiterated in his post-match press conference that he wouldn’t have come if his hip wasn’t ready. The movement sure looked good to me. Look at these 2 open stance sliding backhands (the shot I’m guessing that would cause maximum stress on the hip):

Adductors working extra time (Eurosport)

(Answer: Krejcikova (2) had lost her opener to Parry at Roland Garros 2022.)

Djokovic is pumping his fist

Djokovic had such a season so far that him making any gesture of motivation is newsworthy. So, breaking news: He’s looking pumped again!

He even referenced this himself after the match: “I’m glad about the way I felt on the court. I’m moving on a positive direction. It’s just the beginning. […] It was good. I was fist pumping. I was focused, I was present. I’m pleased with the way I had a mindset on the court. That was something I was looking for.”

Herbert caused all types of service trouble for Djokovic, especially with his kick serve, but the no. 1 seed closed it out in 3 close sets: 6-4 7-6 6-4.

He is accompanied by Boris Bosnjakovic as his tennis coach in Paris — just for this tournament though. He clarified that this was not yet a long term solution. Bosnjakovic was working with Djokovic around data analysis.

A Greek tragedy

Maria Sakkari is the highest seed on either draw to have lost in the opening round at Roland Garros. And what a disappointment for her too.

After underwhelming results in majors for years and a rollercoaster of a year in 2023, she parted ways with her long-time coach Tom Hill this February. She immediately started working with David Witt (former coach of Jessica Pegula and Venus Williams) and results started coming. She looked mentally fresh and calm on court after that coaching change and went 14-5. This was her first Grand Slam with Witt and she was finally playing someone not named Karolina Muchova, however… An inspired performance from Varvara Gracheva (she said: “I told myself ‘you became French, so appreciate the atmosphere’”), coupled with 39 unforced errors from Sakkari, finished the 6th seed’s Paris sojourn much earlier than expected.

Two things caught my eye: Sakkari’s return just didn’t click the whole match - she made 33 errors in short points. Also, she seemed to have switched her heavy-loopy forehand with a flatter one which landed short a lot of the time. She remains the only player to have beaten Swiatek at Roland Garros this decade.