The French Open came to an end on Monday with Rafael Nadal winning his 7th French Open title in another great match against Novak Djokovic. On the women’s side Maria Sharapova won her 1st French Open title and with that completed a career Grand Slam.
In this post I want to analyze what happened in the men’s and the women’s draw and also take a closer look at the implications for the next couple of months!
The Men’s Draw
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are clearly dominating men’s Tennis right now. They have competed against each other in the last 4 Grand Slam finals and with Rafa winning the last 3 big matches their rivalry is more interesting than ever before!
Rafa’s attitude and mental strength are simply phenomenal. Have a look at his press conference after the victory!
Nadal Press Conference
Roger Federer is also still in the mix and he certainly won a lot of matches and tournaments over the last 6 months. Nevertheless, he does not perform his best in the Grand Slams and it appears as if he is loosing more and more ground in those big Grand Slam matches!
Andy Murray‘s performance at the French was a bit disappointing. I had my hopes up for him to become mentally tougher and stop the whining on the court since he started working with Ivan Lendl and there were certainly signs of improvement.
At the French we saw the old Murray though with lots of negative body language and it will be interesting to see how long Ivan Lendl will continue to work with him under those circumstances.
Tsonga is also capable of competing with the Top3 and he was only one point away from beating Djokovic. His game is huge and with a bit more belief in himself and mental toughness in general he probably has the best chance to get to a Grand Slam final apart from Nadal and Djokovic!
Let’s have a look at the Top 3 Players in detail
Novak Djokovic
Djokovic didn’t play his best Tennis in this clay court season and also during the French Open. He wasn’t quite as aggressive with his backhand and we saw more unforced errors from him!
Nevertheless, Djokovic showed that he is a lot tougher mentally these days and he ended up winning close matches against Seppi and Tsonga when he wasn’t playing very well, which is a real sign of mental strength and being a champion!
Djokovic Tsonga Quarterfinal Highlights
Even in the finals match against Rafa, Novak found a way to get back into the match after being down 2 sets to 0. There is a good chance that he would have been able to take it to 5 sets without that rain delay in my opinion!
It is pretty much impossible to continuously play at the level he did last year but I expect him to come back to that level at some point over the next couple of months!
Rafael Nadal
Nadal played another phenomenal clay court season and generally showed up in much better form than in the 6 months before the clay court season.
Rafa is always looking to improve and I think he realized that he needed to work on his backhand in order to have a chance against Djokovic. In all of those matches that he lost last year, he hit a lot of slice backhands and never really played the topspin backhand in an aggressive manner over a long period of time.
During the French Rafa hit a much better backhand and as a result didn’t run around his backhand as much as he did last year! This gives him much better court positioning and changes the dynamic in those long baseline rallies against Novak
Overall I expect Rafa to continue to play really well and very aggressive over the next couple of months!
Roger Federer
He has an unbelievable record but he does not perform his best in the Grand Slams. Right now I don’t really see how he could win another slam.
Looking at his last 4 Grand Slam losses he lost close matches but it appears to me as though he never really has a chance when it gets close against Nadal or Djokovic. It’s almost as if he knows that he is going to struggle mentally when the match gets close and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
He had chances to win all of those matches but he was not able to pull it off mentally
I believe that he is still capable of playing at a phenomenal level that would give him a good chance to win against Nadal or Djokovic in those Grand Slam matches but I think it’s unlikely that he is going to get tougher mentally, which is what he needs to beat those guys.
As a result I think it is unlikely but of course not impossible that Roger wins another Grand Slam!
djokovic didn’t play his best Tennis throughout the tournament. tsonga had match points
Djokovic Nadal: Keys To The Rivalry
This rivalry is shaping up to be one of the best of all-time and there are a lot of interesting dynamics going on here!
Djokovic really found the key to beating Nadal last year when he started taking Rafa’s topspin shots on the rise with his backhand and going for big shots from that situation on a regular basis!
That is something that very few players have been able to do against Rafa but it really is the key against him! Some other big hitters like Tsonga, Soderling and Berdych have had success with that strategy but to play with that much risk for an entire match is extremely difficult!
Nadal realized that he needs to get on offense more often against Novak but he did not have the confidence in his backhand to do so on a regular basis last year.
The key for Nadal in this rivalry is to hit his backhand as an aggressive topspin shot, which allows him to run around it less often and therefore have better court positioning. Now that he is doing just that this rivalry should become even more interesting!
Nadal also started serving more to Djokovic’s forehand with his first serves. His usual play is to serve a lot to the backhand and then control the rally with his forehand. This is quite difficult against Djokovic though because Novak’s backhand return is extremely good and Novak oftentimes nails that backhand return deep to the baseline to put Nadal on defense right away!
Overall I expect this rivalry to be extremely close over the next year or so because Nadal has adjusted his game and Novak will probably find his best form again soon. That being said I do expect Novak to win a bit more than Rafa because I think it is simply more natural for him to play super aggressive!
Click this link for a more detailed look at the Djokovic Nadal Rivalry
The Women’s Draw
Maria Sharapova completed a career Grand Slam with an impressive French Open performance. She beat Petra Kvitova 6-2 3-6 6-4 in the semi-finals and Sara Errani 6-3 6-2 in the finals. With these victories she also regained the number 1 world ranking!
Sharapova Kvitova Highlights
I was very surprised to see Serena loose so early after those strong performances that she displayed earlier in the clay court season.
Overall, I think the quality of women’s Tennis is going up and it gets a lot tougher for someone like Serena to win Grand Slams without playing a full schedule!
Victoria Azarenka was not able to show the same form that she did earlier in the year. The clay does not suit her game as well and she does not appear to be super comfortable on it. She lost to Cibulkova in the Round of 16 with a 6-2 7-6 score.
It will be interesting to see how well she plays on the grass at Wimbledon and then during the hard court season. I do expect her to play much better than on the clay and on on the hard courts she will certainly be one of the big favorites again!
Maria Sharapova
Sharapova has achieved something extraordinary. She has come back from a shoulder surgery and a long time off from the game to win a Grand Slam and regain the number 1 ranking in the world.
This of course takes extreme dedication and a strong love for the game. Maria has a dedication to improvement and a love for the game that is simply a level above the rest of the field in my opinion!
Have A Look At This Interview
Her tennis game has evolved a bit as well recently. She seems to be more consistent with the serve, which is a big key for her game. Additionally, she appears to play with more spin at times and generally plays a bit smarter than a few years ago!
Looking Ahead
I expect Maria to remain number 1 in the world for the next couple of months.
Even though players like Petra Kvitova probably have a slight edge over her in regards to how well they can play when they are at their absolute best, I don’t see Kvitova performing to that level on a day to day basis.
Azarenka will probably return to her best form over the next couple of months and if she does I think we will see a great rivalry between Azarenka and Sharapova with a slight edge for Maria!
Maria will most likely continue to improve one step at a time as long as she stays healthy and therefore I expect her to play at a very high level on a consistent basis!
Allright. So much for this analysis. I hope you guys are excited about the next couple of months as well and let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!
