Coming down from high of Sunday’s French Open final …
• Here’s the 50 thoughts from the 2025 French Open (doing business as Roland Garros) column.
• Here’s the latest Served podcast. Andy and I will be back to regular episodes and then we’ll do our Wimbledon draw show in two weeks. In the meantime, another thanks—periodically offered; but always felt—for your listenership/viewership.
Onward …
Jon, what was your favorite part of Sunday’s wild and wonderful men’s final?
Angela, NYC
• Can I give you five?
1) Simply the level. Not only did it seldom drop, but often both players were at their peaks simultaneously—just a breathtaking display of tennis. Go back and watch that tiebreak—the last eight or so minutes of the match. Five hours in and there was no drop-off in play.
2) Carlos Alcaraz’s mental recovery. He had already lost the first set in multiple matches. But to lose the first two? Against the No. 1 player? Numerous hours later he served for the title at 5–4. He played a loose game. Jannik Sinner recovered. And five minutes after standing on the threshold of victory, he was serving simply to stay in the match? Then Alcaraz won that game and (shoutout to Martina Navratilova for this observation in real time) he then felt unburdened and dominated the match tiebreak.
3) Sinner actually won more points—befitting a match this close—193 to 192.
4) Sinner did not double-fault. In fact, he doubled only twice the entire tournament! (A discussion point—and I will ask Darren Cahill this—does that mean Sinner is eerily accurate? Or that he perhaps should go for more on his serves?)
5) The absence of controversy. The cliché is that when officials go unrecognized, they have done the job well. But chapeau tip to Eva Asderaki, the chair umpire. The players not only didn’t complain, but they both conceded points and spared her trips down from the chair. There were no dubious bathroom breaks. No dubious time violations. This was breathtaking tennis married with impeccable sportsmanship.
Excellent, as always, kind sir.
On the topic of pet peeves, is it possible to resurrect the correct term “runner-up”? Sinner was the runner-up today.
Both he and Alcaraz were the finalists. Then after an all-time classic, we had a winner and a runner-up.
• I’m down. And what do you say we put “lucky loser” out of its misery while we’re here?
Hola Jon!!
Thank you for your wonderful French Open coverage.
2025: Novak Djokovic, 38 years old, getting to the FO semis (very expected). 1991: Jimmy Connors, 39 years old, getting to the US Open semis (a total surprise run)…both at almost the same age. In your opinion, what changed? Between these two eras.
Best regards.
Carlos Acosta
• Good week for Team Carlos A!
Great question. Connors made that run to the semifinals at 39 years old in 1991 and it’s a national story, prompting anti-aging jokes etc. Djokovic makes a run to the semis in 2025 and we ask: Can he win Wimbledon?
There’s a book to be written or documentary to be made on this question. Staccato answers: Sports science. Sports technology. The infusion of wealth that enables players to hire teams and fly private. Schedule management. It stands to reason that each generation will play longer than the one before it, learning from their missteps, availing themselves of greater technology, etc. (Notice that Djokovic needed weeks, not months—never mind years—to return from knee surgery last summer.)
But, also, let’s not sell Djokovic short. His professionalism, commitment and will is perhaps singular.
Jon,
Is it just me, or are tennis fans around the world disappointed at [Aryna] Sabalenka’s remarks after losing to [Coco] Gauff at the French Open? To say that Coco lost because she made so many unforced errors and not because Coco played well, and to add insult to injury say that Coco would have lost to [Iga] Świątek had Świątek defeated Sabalenka in the semifinal match, notwithstanding the fact that Coco defeated Świątek 6–1, 6–1 in their last clay court match, was not only in poor taste, it says a lot about Sabalenka as a person. I think Coco handled the remarks well in her response. …These are my perceptions.
D.H., Tennessee
• Here’s where I stand on Sabalenka:
A) She’s great. A generational player. Generous of spirit. Her return from the yips to winning majors is one of the great sports accomplishments. She has gone from see-ball, hit-ball erratic to a reliable late-round habitue. Love the lack of inhibition. This was not her finest moment/day but cut her slack.
B) We—and I am as guilty as anyone here—want it both ways. If we like the unfiltered personality and the absence of talking points—and we do—we must consider that sometimes there’s a flipside to brutal, unmediated candor.
C) When athletes speak or act immediately after competition, it calls for grace. They’ve been exposed. Their stress hormones are bubbling. Roger Federer crying on Rafael Nadal’s shoulder. Players forget to thank spouses. Intemperate remarks. In 1995, Steffi Graf won the title, stood before the crowd, smiled … and then forgot her French and said, “Mon chapeau est bien.” (My hat is good.) We need to extend grace here.
When Sabalenka stood with the runner-up, er, finalist, trophy and declared her play “terrible,” it might not have been the epitome of grace. But she gets a pass. (And she did have all those errors. No one is arguing her level dropped in the final, though one would also think the opponent had a causal connection in that drop.)
D) Here’s where she lost the room and plot. After a cooldown period—when she had time to gather her thoughts and emotions—she went to the press conference and doubled down, continuing not only to denigrate her performance and offer scant praise to the winner, and even take these potshots. “I think she won the match not because she played incredible, just because I made all of those mistakes.”
Then there was this: “I mean, honestly, sometimes it felt like she was hitting the ball from the frame. Somehow, magically, the ball lands in the court, and you’re kind of on the back foot. It felt like a joke, honestly, like somebody from above was just staying there laughing, like, ‘Let’s see if you can handle this.’”
Calling an opponent “lucky” is weak. Especially when said opponent won 119 points. How many of those were frame jobs or lobs that, unexpectedly, landed in? Six, maybe? Then, weirdly, she volunteered that Iga Świątek would have beaten Gauff.
E) Never mind that fans were upset. The opponent was upset. Here was a crowning achievement of Gauff’s career and she was visibly taken aback. Choosing her words cautiously, Gauff said: “I mean, I don’t agree with that. I’m here sitting here [as the champion]. No shade to Iga or anything, but last time I played her I won in straight sets. I don’t think that’s a fair thing to say, because anything can really happen.”
F) Let Sabalenka live. None of us should be judged by our worst day. People tie themselves in knots; they can also untangle themselves. Her postmatch postmortem Saturday was unsporting and ungracious. She deserved to be called out. She was called out. She effectively apologized. Let’s move on. One hopes she doesn’t lose her cork-popping personality. And when she wins Wimbledon next month, we’ll all look at this, chuckling, the way we looked at her tossing rackets in the dustbin in the 2023 U.S. Open cooldown room.
At the risk of being canceled … Sabalenka made 70 unforced errors—70!—in three sets and was still in a position to win. Dare I say if a male player made that many errors in three sets he would have been dusted in straight sets. Would love for you to prove me wrong with stats if you can.
Thank you,
Dominic C. NY
• No cancellation. But I don’t know about that. First, there’s something circular here. If you’re dusted in a best-of-three match, you’re not in a position to commit 70 errors. And if a male player faced a persistent, No. 2–ranked opponent … who played with a singular ability to prolong points … forcing the opponent to go for smaller margins … in a high-stakes match which amplified pressure … with lots of games going to deuce … with some ungenerous stats-keeping … strictly as a hypothetical, I can see it happening.
I was watching the French Open final today with [well-regarded former NBA player] and his family—good thing too because they never would have figured out the fifth set super tiebreaker. Not that anyone knew.
JB, PDX
• A) Anyone else notice the rapturous roar followed by whaaaa when Alcaraz won his seventh point. This is not a conventional tiebreaker. Gradually we’ll get accustomed to that.
B) Kudos to the four majors. The uniform first-to-10 shootout in the decisive set is the way to go, a brilliant way to end a match. It’s not a crapshoot and the sample size is up from best-of-seven. But it spares us the absurdity of winning by a two-game margin.
Hi Jon,
I have been a long-time reader of your excellent mailbag (since approximately 1998). I also listen to the Served podcast. I am a Canadian who emigrated from Russia back in 1995. I know that in both mailbag and podcast settings, you are now staying quite apolitical. However, your suggestion that USTA should pursue Victoria Mboko representing the US is remarkably tone-deaf, at least to your Canadian readers. Threats to Canadian sovereignty from your current leader have significantly altered the political landscape in Canada, resulting in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in political history. At some point, the ongoing political climate in the US is bound to catch up with what you and Andy are covering.
Best regards, Vladimir Ivanov
• Point taken. I’d take that back if given a second serve. To be clear, I am anti-jingoist. The tennis world is flat. Players change countries. Federations subsidize players on the condition they switch nationality. Fans root for players, not the flags next to their names. This is to the benefit of the sport, though it erodes the meaning/esteem/value of Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup.
My point: As long as we are now in a world where countries and federations pick off players and nationality are fungible, the USTA might as well get in the game. (Imagine a Billie Jean King Cup composed of all the players with a base in Florida and California.)
But, taking a radical political stance, I’m documented Team Sovereignty. Hands Off Canada. Congrats on Mboko. She is a gem.
Random mailbag Q, inspired by [Andre] Agassi and [Jim] Courier on the TNT desk and which you might be able to learn given your access: Do ex-players ever get on the court and compete in private, ala the end of "Rocky 3" when Rocky and Apollo get into a ring at an empty gym?
@nickcurious2
• If it ain’t pickleball, Agassi isn’t playing.
HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE!
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tennis Mailbag: Recapping the Men’s Final, Aryna Sabalenka’s Comments and More From Roland Garros.
