Tennis: French Open
PARIS (AP) 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 on 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, Ive got to try harder. Ive got to just try harder, she told the crowd afterward. And Serena came out.
Well put.
Williams had all sorts of trouble in the opening set, compiling 12 unforced errors. By the time the second set was merely one game old, she had been broken twice in the match, each time at love, a rather surprising development for the owner of one of her sports most dangerous serves.
Her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, attributed much of the poor start to this outing coming about 48 hours after the first match of her comeback following a two-month break. She 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.
She had no energy. She was struggling to move, Mouratoglou said, adding that he had hoped for rain to postpone the match against Barty until Thursday. She was struggling to use her legs on the serve and she was making much too many mistakes.
And then?
This ability to turn a match around and suddenly be like a superhero, basically shes normal and suddenly, Poom! he said, snapping fingers on both hands. Something happens, and she transforms into someone whos almost unreachable at the level she gets to. This is something shes always had. Its really special, but thats also why she is who she is.
Williams started yelling and pumping her fist after pretty much every point that went her way. It woke up Williams game. Might have startled Barty, too. As big a hitter as Barty is in her own right, she is hardly in Williams class who is? and never has been past the third round at a major tournament.
The 36-year-old American, who became a mother on Sept. 1, grabbed four consecutive games over a span of less than 15 minutes to lead 4-1 in the second set, which soon enough would be hers. She gained control of the third almost immediately, breaking to go ahead 2-1, then holding for 3-1.
After only three winners in the first set, she had 25 the rest of the way.
When push came to shove, the real Serena came out. And thats one of her best assets: When her back is against the wall, the best comes out, Barty said. And that happened early in the second, and early in the third again.
When Williams served out the victory with a backhand winner down the line, she raised both arms. In the stands, Mouratoglou, shook his fist.
