All seven former Grand Slam champions in this year’s French Open draw, and seven of the 10 Major finalists had all fallen by the wayside by the quarter-finals.
It meant that Roland Garros would, come the weekend, crown a brand new women’s Major champion, but who it would be remained wide open: Ask eight people, and the chances were they would each name a different woman.
But that did not mean there was no form among the remaining quarter-finalists. Take the four who competed first, on a stormy Tuesday.
Caroline Wozniacki was a former world No1, twice a runner-up at the US open, but playing her first French Open quarter-final since she was a teenager in 2010. Indeed her returning form this year had also been on hard courts, with final runs to Doha, Dubai, and Miami. From No20 at the start of the year, she was already guaranteed a rise to No7, and up to No4 with the title.
She was, though, up against a teenager for the third time this tournament, and she had needed three sets to come through the previous two, Jaimee Fourlis and Catherine Bellis. But Jelena Ostapenko was a different kettle of fish.
The young Latvian was already a semi-finalist in Prague and runner-up in Charleston, and here she had beaten Sam Stosur to reach her first Major quarters. She aimed to celebrate her 20th birthday come Thursday by making the semi-final, the first unseeded woman to reach any Major semi since 2001.
And against the odds—a 5-0 deficit in the first set, wind and rain, and two breaks in play—the least experienced woman left in the tournament powered, losing the first set 4-6 but racing to a 6-2 second set, and then coming from 2-1 down in the third to take the match, 6-2.
Centre stage, however, belonged to Paris’s darling, the tall, elegant Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic, an emotional doubles champion at Roland Garros and a former girls champion here, but halted at the third round in the singles draw for the last three years.
She put out no less a player than the defending champion, Garbine Muguruza to earn her best ever run—and Roland Garros could barely contain its excitement.
She faced in Timea Bacsinszky, however, another woman with an emotional back story, the kind of artistic game beloved of the French crowds, and from the French-speaking region of Switzerland. Dating back to 2007, she made the second round at Roland Garros four times, but then missed much of two years with foot and ankle injuries and came close to retiring from the sport.
A return in 2014 changed her mind: having started the season at No237, she finished No48, owner of a WTA doubles title and two singles titles on ITF circuit.
The next year, she made a big breakthrough, a semi run at Roland Garros, followed by the quarters last year, and this year was proving to be another spirit-lifting visit for the Swiss. She came back from a set down against No10 seed Venus Williams with her stunning brand of all-court flair, slice, drop-shots and more. She would, in the end, do the same to Mladenovic.
But there were twists and turns aplenty as the stormy skies over Paris took centre stage. Gale-force winds buffeted the two women early on, and they exchanged breaks as the red dust hurtled around the court. With only four games on the board, Bacsinszky already had 10 errors to her name, but she would begin to manage the conditions better than Mladenovic to go on a tear of five points for the break, 3-2, and she held with a superb drop shot and a volley winner.
But the elements were not done, and she suffered a cruel time violation warning as she caught another errant ball-toss, and the French woman broke.
Next came perhaps the game of the match, a 12-minute triumph of quality and touch over adversity. The Swiss won a 22-stroke rally with a backhand smash, Mladenovic came back from two break points with another wonderful rally, and would battle though four deuces and another break point before Bacsinszky fired a cracking backhand winner to edge the break. She served out the set, fending off a break chance, with an ace, 6-4: It had taken a riveting 65 minutes.
In the second set, one disruption—a medical emergency in the crowd—was followed by more. With the third game balanced at break point to Bacsinszky, the rains arrived, and play was halted for three hours. And when they returned, it was Mladenovic who regained the momentum with considerable poise.
She held onto serve with a glorious drop winner and broke for 3-1, but that was the prelude to another exchange of breaks as Bacsinszky found her range and confidence again. With the match in the balance, rain halted play again, this time for just 20 minutes or so, and the Swiss carried on where she had left off.
Even the thinning crowd, beaten by the weather, could not lift Mladenovic’s spirits: She looked mentally and emotionally exhausted, and it took the Swiss just a couple of games to seal the victory, 6-4.
Bacsinszky, close to tears herself, afterwards admitted how tough the conditions had been:
“It was really difficult because we had all the seasons rolled into one today. We had a sand storm, a hurricane and we almost had snow too. It was really tough to keep my concentration, but I’m really happy and proud.”
By a remarkable coincidence, she too will celebrate her birthday on Thursday when she takes on an Ostapenko who turns from teenager to 20 on the same day. The Swiss spoke warmly of her opponent and the battle ahead.
“I know because we played doubles together last year in Wuhan… Yeah, it’s pretty funny. I think it’s pretty cool, though. I saw her in the gym just right after our matches today, and we both said mutually to each other, ‘Well done.’ We hugged each other, because she’s a really nice girl. I was happy for her that she was in the semi-final, as well—and that we are sharing the same birthday. But lucky her, she’s way younger than I am. [Smiling] But maybe lucky me, experience-wise, I don’t know!”
One of them, though, will enjoy a particularly wonderful birthday gift: a place in their first Major final.