By Cheryl Jones
It’s the final Sunday of May and the day before Memorial Day is celebrated in the United States. The Indianapolis 500 has its permanent place in the US television listings to celebrate the occasion in style. At the end of all those laps, there will be a winner and cheers and so they say, milk will flow in celebration.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, halfway across France actually, Roland Garros has begun. Throngs of people from all over the world anxiously await the appearance of the first dusty-red service from their favourite player, or at least the pro in residence on court today. (Sunday is the kickoff for a fortnight of activities that will culminate in winners in all the categories. Men’s and Women’s singles, doubles as well as mixed doubles will have winners before the gates lock and the hustle and bustle of literally hundreds of thousands of visitors are stilled as they head home to either celebrate or commiserate.) As a journalist, I am not supposed to have a favourite player, but there are a few players who have more than piqued my interest over the years.
Junior players are allowed to strut their stuff during the second week of each of the majors, and many of them have looked strong, only to fade away when the experienced competition has a more “well founded” game. That’s nothing new. Every year, one hundred twenty-eight players make up the list of competitors, yet only one will take home the prize. Two women have withstood that test of time, and they had a meeting today.
Sloane Stephens and Arantxa Rus slid into the tennis world as junior players. They were both good. They have taken similar routes to their meeting today. One has been extremely successful and the other has had a ho-hum career that has paid the bills, but not much else. Stephens has won nearly $10 million dollars on the tour, and Rus has languished in the rankings, settling precariously at 106 before today’s match. Stephens has been up and down in the rankings and even though she is nearly two years younger than Rus, is ranked 10 today. (Last September she stood in Arthur Ashe Stadium and raised the winner’s trophy at the US Open, surprising everyone, and apparently even herself.)
Ten years or so ago, just steps away from the Roland Garros grounds, a couple from The Netherlands who just happened to speak English struck up a conversation. Their daughter was set to begin play in the junior tournament. She was sixteen. Their pride was visible and after watching the youngster play, I had to agree that she seemed to have promise. She won the Australian Open Junior Girls’ Championship in 2008. Now she’s twenty-seven and still struggling to make a name for herself on the tour.
She lost in the final round of qualifying for this year’s Roland Garros, but made it into the draw as a Lucky Loser when Monica Niculescu had to withdraw due to a left leg injury. It was her first appearance in a Main Draw at a Grand Slam since 2013 Wimbledon, where she fell to Olga Puchkova in the first round. Today, she lost to Stephens, 6-2, 6-0, in ten minutes less than an hour. That was after Rus managed to have over 80 per cent of her first serves appropriately in play. The problem seemed to be that she couldn’t build on that foundation to win games.
Rus was ranked as high as number 61 in August of 2012. Over the years, she has won a few tournaments and lost a few more. This was her fifth main draw appearance at Roland Garros. She actually made it to the Round of 16 in 2012. In 2011, she took charge of a match at Roland Garros and defeated Kim Clijsters. The following year, in a second round match, she defeated Samantha Stosur at Wimbledon. Since then, she has come out on top in a myriad of small tournaments, but has had virtually no luck with the majors.
Stephens on the other hand has shown more than promise. In 2017, she walked away with the top women’s prize at the US Open, defeating another American player, Madison Keyes. That feat was accomplished after she spent the better part of a year recovering from foot surgery. Deservedly, she was voted the 2017 Comeback Player of the Year. (Her ranking had dropped to 957 and her diligent play between Wimbledon and the Open had upped that ranking to 83 when the tournament began.) A few months later, she finished 2017 ranked 13.
After that triumph, Stephens competed, but often appeared as if she wasn’t here. It was confusing to spectators and evidently Stephens, too. In her after match interview today, she spoke at length about that time in her life. “I had to take care of myself. I tried to do way more than I should have after the U.S. Open, and I should have just shut it down. But like I’ve said before, my heart was there but my body wasn’t. So when the two things aren’t connected, it’s never a good thing.” Not only is she a great tennis player, but a smart human being.
Time will provide the answers to both women. Rus at twenty-seven may have opportunities to make a better showing at major tournaments. After all, there are twenty-four women who are thirty or older in the Women’s Main Draw today. Several of them have had astonishingly long careers. Venus Williams, who is 37, comes to mind, but alas, she lost today to a twenty-six year old from China by the name of Qiang Wang, ranked 91. Williams’ ranking of 9 in the world will likely go away before long. She has been a phenomenal competitor for twenty-four years. (Williams’ main draw debut was in Oakland in 1994 as an unranked Wild Card. She defeated Shaun Stafford in the first round, but lost to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in three sets. Sanchez Vicario was at that point, number two in the world.)
Stephens will play at Roland Garros another day. Rus won’t. Life in the tennis world is like that. And the beat goes on. Tomorrow is another day.
