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by Pete Bodo
After Francesca Schiavone advanced to the final of Roland Garros via a 7-6, retirement win over Elena Dementieva, she was asked why her star in the game had risen so "late." As is her style, she waited to answer, a dreamy, faraway expression on her face, as if she were trying to hold onto the moment, savoring it. She eventually replied:
"Why late?" She paused. "I think everybody are different. Could be late for you, could be good for you. I think it's my time now. Maybe before I wasn't ready. Maybe before I had the chance I didn't catch, so I think now I have just to live and to keep going to work like I did for many years."
It was a philosophical assessment, and a valid one for both of the women who will walk out on the Court Chatrier to play the women's singles final, after which one of them will walk off the winner, probably thinking: I thought this kind of thing was supposed to happen to somebody else!
That other woman is Samantha Stosur, and quite a pair of finalists they make. Neither has ever been ranked in the WTA Top 5. They have a grand total of five career titles between them. Stosur is 26, and Schiavone 29. Somebody is going to feel good - over-the-moon good - come Saturday night.
It was an odd day at Roland Garros. The semifinals combined lasted for a mere 2:10, the amount of time it usually takes for someone like Rafael Nadal to get unlimbered and into the flow of things. Of course, that was partly because the first semifinal ended after just one set. But that set, at 1:10, was ten minutes longer than the entire second match.
However, the lingering effect of that 1:10 has been considerably longer; I'm probably not the only person who's spent more time thinking about what happened in Schiavone's victory than it took the Milanese woman to produce it. She won when Elena Dementieva, another woman looking to become a Grand Slam champion for the first time, quit the match after Schiavone won that first-set tiebreaker.
Dementieva gave up the hunt when the pain of a left-calf injury (a tear) that she's been nursing for the better part of this tournament suddenly became too much to bear. This was the first time I can recall a player defaulting a match with a leg injury of which there was very little indication, visually. And the scoreboard didn't exactly hint at it, either.
When I asked Schiavone if she herself had any inkling that Dementieva was sufficiently hurt to quit, she said: "No. The truth is that I didn't see her do something special, but was not easy for me to watch to the other side. It was already a lot to try to look at me to do my best. So I don't know really what's happened, but it was a very tough set. I think both of us, we play good. But I was a little bit more consistent than her. When I had the chance I tried to push, but was not easy."
That Dementieva could push Schiavone to a tiebreaker - and one in which she led, 2-0, before Schiavone won 7 of the last 8 points - and then abruptly stop was no more puzzling to anyone than Schiavone herself, who looked stunned when Dementieva went to her chair to tell Schiavone that she couldn't continue. Was Schiavone disappointed by how it ended? "A little bit, yes, because I was not ready to finish like this. But I'm not upset, eh? I know her, I respect. If she decide to finish, she has for sure some good reason."
Still, the circumstances were bizarre. Dementieva had been tending to her torn calf muscle for the entire tournament. She said she'd thought about quitting in her third-round match against Alexsandra Wozniak. But, as Dementieva said, "I was very close to stop the match in my third round with Aleksandra, but I was able to win this one. Then I had a day off, so it was a little. . .it was getting a little bit better on the day off because I didn't practice at all. But, I mean, by playing, especially moving on clay court, it's just getting, you know, worse. You just aggravate it during your movement because it's very hard to control yourself on the court."
Fair enough. But Dementieva had played a solid first set; she led by a break at 4-3, but made errors (including two double faults) to surrender the advantage. Rino Tomassi asked perhaps the most pertinent question: Had you won the first set, would you have been able to continue? Dementieva replied, "I have been asked already (if so, it wasn't in the press conference). I don't think that I would be able to continue because of the pain."
Well, if nothing else, we've put another entry into the "Bizarre Grand Slam Moments" record book. When it comes to the shock value of the moment, I couldn't help but think of Justine Henin's default (with a bad stomach) to Amelie Mauresmo in the Australian Open final of 2006. When Schiavone was asked if she had ever experienced anything quite so shocking on a tennis court, she said - with grin and laugh: "Yeah, there are many things that the woman do that can shock you."
As she spoke those words, Jelena Jankovic was underscoring them on Chatrier in the second semi. She caved against Stosur, and in a way that could also be called "shocking," given that she's a former No. 1 player, had been to a major final before (unlike Stosur), and was the highest seed left in the tournament (No. 4). Granted, Stosur has been playing fine tennis, but Jankovic managed just one game in the first set. She won the first two games of the next one and built a 40-15 lead in the third game with an ace - then utterly collapsed. She never won another game, and she knew what she'd done. Afterward, she said:
!101587849 Samantha played really well. She served well. Overall, you know, she played quite solid. But, you know, I felt heavy on my feet. I didn't really move out there. . .When I had chances, I made, you know, bad mistakes. I just you know, it wasn't me. It wasn't my game out there. Unfortunately, I lost. . ."
I had to wonder, with a maiden Grand Slam title up for grabs among four women who had never won one, and only two of whom (Dementieva and Jankovic) had even been in a final, was she angry at herself for so egregiously flubbing the opportunity?
"Yeah, I'm angry. You know, it's not easy not to lose like this, but it's the way the game goes. I just have to stay positive, and I will have another chance."
I suppose she needs to look at it that way; it's certainly better than beating herself up. Yet there comes a point when some great players - Martina Navratilova, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras - have turned on themselves and acknowledged that they needed to dig deeper, to make changes. That they had to be accountable to themselves, first and foremost. Can Jankovic see herself at that sort of Rubicon?
"I don't know. You know, in this moment it's tough to say all this. But, you know, in this particular match today, I just . . don't know what happened, but I just you know, she was the better player. When we played at Indian Wells . . ."
It doesn't make much sense quoting the rest of her reply, about how well she had played at Indian Wells, and how today she wasn't even at 20 percent of her ability. This is a woman who needs to have a good long talk with herself.
But that shouldn't diminish the poise, dedication, and focus Stosur showed today. Jankovic had good reason to be unnerved, but she also has the experience to steel herself against the threat represented by the way Stosur has played here. The resurgent Aussie knows that you don't get to the Roland Garros final by playing at 20 percent, and she's acted on that information over three daunting rounds of play. She's only the second woman to beat both Justine Henin and Serena Williams at a major.
It's hard to imagine that she will backslide at this point, which means that Schiavone has her work cut out for her. Not that Schiavone isn't capable of playing the match of her life Saturday, which is what it might take for her to land a Grand Slam title for Italy.
As both finalists can tell you, better late than never.