Two Rising Players Fail to Get Out of the First Round
Eugenie Bouchard and Grigor Dimitrov failed to impress in the ongoing French Open.
- Ben Rothenberg, The New York Times
- Updated: May 27, 2015 10:10 PM IST
While most favorites have advanced past the first round of the French Open without issue, two of the brightest young lights of last summer could not on Tuesday.
Eugenie Bouchard - a Canadian who made runs to the semifinals of the Australian Open and French Open last year, and then reached the final at Wimbledon - lost to Kristina Mladenovic, 6-4, 6-4. It was Bouchard's first loss in the first round of a Grand Slam event, and she will fall from her current ranking, No. 6, to outside the top 10.
Bouchard's decline has been precipitous: She has lost eight of her last nine matches, with her lone victory since March coming two weeks ago in Rome.
"Honestly, I don't know what to say," Bouchard said. "It's been kind of the same as how I have been feeling recently on the court. Just not like myself."
Grigor Dimitrov, the Bulgarian with the stylish game that has drawn comparisons to Roger Federer's, was also eliminated, by the American Jack Sock, 7-6 (9), 6-2, 6-3. Dimitrov, seeded 10th, has not replicated the hype-justifying run he made to the Wimbledon semifinals last year, and he looked listless at times as the match slipped away.
Sock, the rare American who calls clay his favorite surface, won his first title in April on the clay in Houston. That result was part of a surge of strong results which came after several setbacks, including pelvic surgery to start the season and his brother's being hospitalized with severe pneumonia. When Sock made it back to tour in March, he immediately began playing some of the best tennis of his career.
"I was playing for him, him and my family," Sock said. "Just doing the best I could for them and trying to make them proud. It's kind of carried over every week."
Rafael Nadal, a nine-time champion here, dispatched the 296th-ranked wild card, Quentin Halys, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.
In slow, heavy conditions, Nadal did not overpower the 18-year-old Halys but instead beat him with rigid consistency. Nadal hit just 13 unforced errors in the match, a quarter of the 52 made by Halys.
After the match, Nadal confirmed a report in The Daily Telegraph last week saying that he had demanded that Carlos Bernardes, a top-level chair umpire, no longer officiate his matches.
"I consider him a great umpire and a good person, but I think when you have some troubles with the same umpire, sometimes it's easy to stay for a while away, no?" Nadal said. "I think that's the real thing. I think it's better for both of us if we are not in court at the same time for a while after what happened in Rio de Janeiro."
The incident Nadal referred to occurred in February during a quarterfinal match at the Rio Open. After leaving the court to change clothes, Nadal accidentally returned with his shorts on backward. When he asked if he could change, Bernardes told the deliberate Nadal that he could, but that he would receive a time violation.
"I think it, you know, shows not respect, because I cannot play a full game with the shorts the other way," Nadal said. "So it's better. It's better to be away for a while."
Novak Djokovic, whose year started with a championship at the Australian Open and has continued with four Masters titles, cruised past the Finnish veteran Jarkko Nieminen, 6-2, 7-5, 6-2.
Another Grand Slam champion, Marin Cilic, won his first Grand Slam match since his triumph at last year's U.S. Open, beating Robin Haase, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. The easy victory brought his streak of sets won at major tournaments to 13.
Cilic missed the Australian Open in January with a shoulder injury that kept him out for most of the first three months of the season. He came into Paris with a 4-5 record this year, which he attributes to the rust from his layoff showing at the biggest moments.
"Sometimes things don't set up themselves like when you are confident," he said. "For example, like when you have a lot of matches, wins, things like that, you're going to bring the best shots on some crucial moments. I think that's what helps you the most."
Winners were not in such short supply in the last match of the day on Philippe Chatrier Court, with top-seeded Serena Williams ripping 25 in a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Andrea Hlavackova, a free-swinging Czech doubles specialist who hit 16.
Williams crashed out in the second round last year to Garbine Muguruza, and expressed some mock relief at having at least equaled that effort again.
"Defended my points, so I'm excited about that," she said before breaking into laughter. "That's always exciting."
Williams said that the right elbow injury that forced her to withdraw in Rome two weeks ago was "not 100 percent" and still affected her serve, but she added, "The good thing is it gets better every day."
The triumph by Williams was part of a turnaround by Americans to what had been a dismal start to the tournament. After the U.S. contingent had won only two of its first 15 matches, Williams, Sock, John Isner, Madison Keys and Irina Falconi ensured more than just a token presence in the second round. In the end, only four of 17 American women in the tournament won their first match, and three of seven men advanced.
© 2015 New York Times News Service