The Open French!
No Serena, no Maria, so a real Major opportunity... can Brit No1 Konta step up, even on her worst surface?
JO KONTA spent a day last week at Buckingham Palace, helping to hand out some Duke of Edinburgh awards with Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
If the British No1’s rise continues to such an extent that she wins a Grand Slam, she would surely be back there to receive an award or an honour more substantial.
That is almost certainly not going to happen this fortnight at Roland Garros, although you would need several fortifying glasses of pastis to make any cast-iron predictions about the outcome of the women’s singles.
Not for nothing has this been identified as the most open major field in modern times, ever since Serena Williams announced last month that she is expecting her first child.
Konta will be the seventh seed but is about 10th in most betting markets.
The case is very flimsy for her to win on clay but will be stronger when it comes to the grass of Wimbledon or hard courts of New York.
Since claiming the Miami Open title she has played three events on clay, winning two matches. It is a mark of the 26-year-old’s late blooming that she has played in the main draw here only twice and gone out in the first round on both occasions. Konta has actually had some success in lower tier events on the surface but, like many others of both sexes, mastering the movement required has not been an easy task. Comparing it with playing on hard courts, she said: ‘The way you’re able to take the ball early and just your general movement around the ball is slightly more straightforward than it is on the clay.
‘So I just need to keep adapting well movement-wise around the ball and then be patient enough to build the points. They are a bit longer here.’
Her ambitions this fortnight do not sound that extensive. ‘As long as I feel that I keep growing and improving within the matches, I think that’s what’s most important to me right now.’
What is for sure is that she has never been further ahead of the British pack, which has fallen away to the point that this is an unusual Slam in having only one GB woman in the singles.
While the Maria Sharapova wild-card award for Birmingham understandably gained much of the attention, there are some interesting debates around which of the domestic players will get them in the forthcoming grass-court events.
There are concerns at the Lawn Tennis Association, who hand them out pre-Wimbledon, about GB No 2 Heather Watson’s level of application, while Naomi Broady has had a poor run since February. The only signs of optimism on the British women’s front has been a tantalising glimpse of what Laura Robson may yet be capable of, plus decent performances at a lower level from younger players such as Katie Boulter and Gabi Taylor.
None of that is relevant to how events will unfold over the next fortnight in Paris, with the threeday first round starting today.
The betting market resembles that of the Grand National, although Romania’s Simona Halep has emerged as the favourite. That despite the fact that she has been battling an ankle injury and is not among the seven players in the draw who have actually got major titles to their name.
The locker room will have a different feel without the presence of the younger Williams sister although 36-year-old Venus, who beat Konta in Rome, is among those who should not be entirely discounted.
‘It’s a bit different,’ said Halep of Serena’s absence. ‘Of course we feel that she’s missing. It’s changing but it has to change because young players are coming. The old ones are going. So it’s just a cycle of life;of the tour. We take it like it is.’
Prior knowledge of how to win a Grand Slam ought to be an advantage. Of the three former Roland Garros winners here, however, Francesca Schiavone is soon to retire, Svetlana Kuznetsova is coming up to 32 and defending champion Garbine Muguruza has carried that status around like a huge weight on her back.
Petra Kvitova, who makes her comeback today, happily admits that she is playing here as more of a warm-up experiment than anything.
Somebody looks sure to emerge from obscurity and make a name for themself by reaching the latter stages.
One to keep an eye on is Holland’s Kiki Bertens, the 18th seed who won Nuremberg’s WTA clay-court tournament for the second year in a row with her 6-2, 6-1 victory over Barbora Krejcikova in yesterday’s final.
Another is Marketa Vondrousova, a little-known 17 year-old from the Czech Republic who is getting some rave reviews from the game’s cognoscenti.
The days of monopoly or duopoly may have gone from women’s tennis for now and, although there is a lack of stardust around, it could be argued that it is the more interesting for it.