SERENA BIDS FOR FRENCH CONNECTION
BY NEXT Saturday, the plumage and dress sported so elegantly by Serena Williams at the royal wedding will have long been put in a closet, the matching pink shoes replaced by clay-covered sneakers. It will be the day before the French Open starts and the legendary champion will be preparing to tackle whatever Thursday’s draw has thrown at her in her unseeded position.
That, at least, is the plan, assuming everything goes well once she returns from her brief trip to the UK to fine tune herself for what can be described as her proper comeback to the tour.
Williams will not find the landscape much changed, but while she found herself in proximity to comedian James Corden yesterday, her forthcoming rivals were battling it out for a place in the Italian Open final.
Today, world No 4 Elina Svitolina will take on Simona Halep to battle for the main pre-Roland Garros title. Following the birth of her first child on September 1, Williams tried to rush back to play at Indian Wells and Miami in March — but was clearly not ready.
In an interview this week her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, was explicit about that, and few would argue.
More surprising was his firm assertion that, having skipped Rome and Madrid, his player would be present in Paris.
Mouratoglou is French, so it is hard to imagine he wants to build up false expectations.
Clay is Williams’ least natural surface and the most physically demanding.
With her current ranking a nominal 454, she will be at the draw’s mercy. She has a protected ranking to enter the tournament, but that does not apply to her seeding.
So it is an ambitious comeback plan, the prospect of a potential seven matches in a fortnight for a rusty 36-year-old, even though she arrived at Mouratoglou’s academy in Nice at the start of this month to begin preparations.
It looks a long shot that Williams can win in Paris but there may be two elements in play here.
The first is that she wants to make a statement that she still fears no-one. The second is that there is nothing like a prolonged spell on the clay to build fitness.
The reality is that Williams is probably looking more medium term, to Wimbledon. She will want to make sure that when she arrives at there, she is absolutely ready to mount a challenge for an eighth title at SW19.
Sixteen months on from her last Grand Slam, nobody has really stepped up to assert themselves as indisputably the best player in the world.
The present No 1, Halep, has yet to win a Major.