PARIS—“Come on, Sam.”
The words, conversational rather than emphatic, have floated down from Sam Stosur’s player box in Court Philippe Chatrier. They sound less encouraging than they do concerned, and there’s a good reason why. Stosur is serving at 3-4 in the third set of her semifinal against Sara Errani, and she's just launched a forehand into the backstop on a fly. Aside from the sound of flags snapping in the wind, the arena is silent. Halfway up in the stands, you can feel Stosur's anxiety.
The Australian, a finalist here in 2010, is the heavy favorite against Errani. She’s won all five of their previous matches. She’s been saying all week how, after years of debilitating nerves at the majors, she’s more calm and comfortable now. And, in her quarterfinal with Dominika Cibulkova, Stosur has just shown that she knows how to beat an undersized opponent like Errani. But the story has been different today. The 5-foot-5 Italian, commonly referred to as a “terrier who won’t let go of your leg,” has fought back against Stosur’s big kick serve and heavy topspin forehand. When Errani showed Stosur that she could hit with her in the first set, and that she was going to take the rallies to her when she could, Stosur reacted by getting as tight as a proverbial drum.
At 3-4, Sam tightens up again. She responds to the concerned advice from her camp by hitting an easy ball right back at Errani and losing a point. (Stosur does this often enough that a writer next to me jokingly wonders if her sunglasses are blocking her view of her opponent.) At deuce, she double faults. On break point, she hits a forehand wide, one of her 48 unforced errors on the day.
Asked about her nervousness later, a smiling but pale Stosur says, “I don’t know if [my nerves] beforehand affected me throughout the match. I just didn’t do enough really. I got a little bit on the back foot. I didn’t [play well] at the times when it really obviously mattered.” Too often Stosur went for the quick kill rather than working the point for a better shot, something that, with a little more patience, she should easily have been able to get against her overmatched opponent.
Stosur looked shaken as she walked off the court, but she said she didn’t feel like the loss was a setback, despite how calm she had claimed to be beforehand. For the second time in three years, she was caught off-guard by a spunky Italian underdog—under-terrier?—who brought a fearless, nothing-to-lose energy into Chatrier. Errani had lost to Stosur just a few weeks ago in Rome, but she said today, “The good thing was that the match in Rome was also depending on me. It wasn’t just about her.” She had imposed herself and played her game. (The bad thing, according to Errani? “I play not a good match.”)
Errani played with purpose in the first set—she made the match depend on her—and in the third she fought off her own nerves. As Stosur acknowledged, Errani hid her weaknesses well. When Sam began by ripping her second serve for return winners, Errani stopped hitting second serves. She made 86 percent of her first balls for the day.
This match didn’t give us brilliant play or a vicious battle. It’s interest lay in seeing the two women swing back and forth between confidence and uncertainty. Errani ended on the upside of that pendulum, playing perhaps her most assertive game when she served for the match and held at love.
“I was very nervous,” Errani said of those closing moments, “but at the same time I was really focused on the game. Try to forget everything, forget where I am. Just want to forget and try to do what I want to do, put the ball where I want to put it.”
Errani, who had never reached a Slam semifinal previously, and who before this week had lost 28 straight matches to Top 10 opponents, won’t be able to forget where she is now. She also may not be able to believe it. It’s more than she dared to dream.
Asked if she ever fantasized, before the tournament started, that she could be in the final, Errani’s blue eyes widened.
“No, I didn’t think about that never.”
