Serena wills herself to victory
PARIS — After playing so infrequently, it’s as if Serena Williams is starting from scratch.
Sure looked that way for a bit more than a half-hour in the French Open’s second round Thursday, when she dealt with muscle soreness, a lack of verve and a bunch of mistakes. So many mistakes.
And then, suddenly, after unleashing one particularly powerful backhand return winner that she punctuated with a shout, Williams was back. She was animated. Determined. Dominant, even. Shaking off some rust in her first Grand Slam tournament since giving birth nine months ago, Williams recalibrated her shots and erased a deficit of a set and a break to beat 17th-seeded Ashleigh Barty of Australia 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a match that ended shortly before dusk.
“I lost the first set, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to try harder. I’ve got to just try harder,’ ” she told the crowd afterward. “And Serena came out.”
Williams started yelling and pumping her fist after pretty much every point that went her way. It woke up Williams’ game.
Williams arrived in Paris having played only four matches all season — none on the red clay used at Roland Garros, and none at a major tournament since she won her 23rd such title at the Australian Open in January 2017 while pregnant.
“I felt like it’s been a long way and a long journey, and I’m still getting there, you know. But I have been working really hard, for a really long time,” said Williams, who is ranked 451st, 450 spots below her career high. “I just am hoping that every day I’m out there, every match I’m out there ... it will come together.”
Next for Williams is a thirdround match against 11th-seeded Julia Goerges of Germany.
Also, top-seeded Simona Halep dispatched wild-card American entry Taylor Townsend 6-3, 6-1 to reach the third round; two-time champion Maria Sharapova improved to 13-0 in second-round matches at Roland Garros by beating 50thranked Donna Vekic of Croatia 7-5, 6-4; and Karolina Pliskova, the runner-up at the 2016 U.S. Open and a semifinalist in Paris a year ago, prevailed 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 over 2015 French Open runnerup Lucie Safarova.
On the men’s side, No. 1 Rafael Nadal completed another straight-sets win to reach the third round. Nadal is once again the big favorite in Paris following a tremendous clay-court season, and the 10-time champion lived up to the status by easily dispatching Guido Pella of Argentina 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
Nadal saved all four break points he faced and hit 37 winners. Still, he believed there is room for improvement.
“To be honest, I always try to improve the important things,” he said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to practice, for example, with the idea that today my backhand didn’t open the court sufficiently.”
Next up is Richard Gasquet, who defeated Malek Jaziri 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Nadal and Gasquet are the same age — 31 — and have known each other since their pre-teen years.
“I have a great relationship with him, always,” Nadal said. “Since we were kids. We met each other first time when we were 12.”