Serena wins with style in Open return
PARIS — In her first Grand Slam match in nearly 16 months, Serena Williams defeated Kristyna Pliskova, 7-6 (4), 6-4, in the first round of the French Open on Tuesday.
Much has changed in Williams’ life since she last played on one of the game’s biggest stages, winning the 2017 Australian Open.
She is now married and the mother of an infant daughter. Ranked No. 1 when she left the game, she arrived at Roland Garros as an unseeded player after playing only four singles matches on tour this season.
But her desire for more tennis success was palpable Tuesday, as was her desire to make a strong sartorial impression. She took to the red clay on the Philippe Chatrier Court in a form-fitting black bodysuit that was reminiscent of the black catsuit she wore at the 2002 U.S. Open, which she won en route to four major singles titles in a row.
After losing to her sister Venus Williams in the third round at the BNP Paribas Open and to Naomi Osaka in the first round of the Miami Open earlier this year, Williams chose to focus on training instead of playing more tournaments. She traveled to southern France in April with her daughter, Olympia, in tow to train at the academy operated by her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.
Despite initially planning to play clay-court events in
Madrid and Rome, Williams withdrew from those tournaments and arrived in Paris having not played a competitive clay-court match since the final of the 2016 French Open.
But she showed flashes of fine form in her straight-set but hardly straightforward victory over Pliskova, the unseeded and left-handed twin sister of Karolina Pliskova, the No. 6 seed here.
“Two years has been a really long time,” Williams, 36, said in her on-court interview Tuesday. “But I trained really hard on the clay, and I feel good, and I’m just happy to have won a match here. And I just take it a day at a time.”
Williams will face Ash Barty of Australia, the No. 17 seed, in the second round, which will be scheduled for Thursday.
“Just what an opportunity,” said Barty, who lost, 6-2, 6-1, to Williams in their only previous meeting, in the first round of the 2014 Australian Open. “She’s a genuine champion, and what she’s done to be able to get back along with Vika Azarenka and a lot of the other girls coming back from pregnancy is a pretty amazing thing.”
Recovery will be paramount for Williams, who has played so little competitive tennis of late.
“I imagine she’s going to be quite sore with all the changes of direction and getting used to the surface,” said Sarah PitkowskiMalcor, a former French professional, who was watching from courtside Tuesday.
The duel with Barty, a stocky and gifted shotmaker with quick feet and hands, will be a different challenge than facing Pliskova, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall and, like her better-known sister, has one of the best and biggest first serves on tour.
Pliskova served 15 aces, the most hit against Williams since the WTA began keeping statistics in 2008. Williams had 13 of her own along with seven double faults, three of which came in a single game in the second set.
If this had been Williams at her peak, that would have been cause for concern, but Tuesday’s victory was much more reassuring than unsettling in light of her performances earlier this year. She looked stronger, fitter and quicker to defend in the corners than she did in Indian Wells or Miami.
“She was moving quite OK,” Pliskova said. “I expected a little bit she would be worse, and we both served pretty well, so there was no rhythm in the match, which was also tough. I had some chances in the match I didn’t use.”
Williams is clearly a dangerous floater in the women’s draw.
Asked whether Williams should have been seeded, Barty said that was “an extremely tough question.”
“Probably in certain ways yes, and I agree with those arguments, and I also agree with the argument that it’s no,” she said. “It’s a tough decision. I know the WTA is going through the right process.”