Roland Garros aka The French Open

[stroke]

Great stat by journey BastienFachan

Lorenzo Musetti reaching the 2025 Roland-Garros semifinals ensures this incredible stat is still alive:

Someone with a one-handed backhand has reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam every single year since tennis began!

P.S. I have no idea if this is true. But if it's not, it should be

Jim Courier actually gave his ranking of the best one handers out there. His take, Musetti at 1, 2 Altmaier, 3 Grigor, 4 Shapovolov. I completely agree with that. Musetti is very close to the very best on that, Fed, Gasquet, and Stan. Altmaier a great call. Not nearly as high profile as the others, but just a superb 1 hander in all respects.

[jimlosaltos]

Bill Simmons' on Inside Tennis elegantly describes the clashing styles of Musetti and Tiafo

"“It’s amazing how one player can be so effort-full and the other is so effortless,” said Eleanor Preston. “We saw that for years with Rafa and Roger.”

Also this on Madison Key's resurgence under her husband-coach:

"it’s been said that Keys won this year’s Aussie Open in part due to the coaching of her new husband, Bjorn Fratangelo. Madison she told TNT that, “He’s definitely ‘unfireable’ and I think he toes the line…There are definitely times where he’ll say something and I just glare at him, and he just laughs because he knows [he can’t be fired]…He doesn’t really hold back…[or] have much of a filter…Sometimes when you’re down in the third (set), it’s not really what you want to hear. But, sometimes, it’s what you need to hear.”

https://www.insidetennis.com/2025/06/oh-no-big-foe/

[stotty]

Musetti is getting his game together, going from "too many clubs in the bag" to "look at all the clubs he has in his bag".

Came in having lost his last 2 matches to Tiafoe and 2/3 to Rune and beat both of them.

Played the windy conditions well overall. Has, it appears, much better endurance than Rune.

The Rune was particularly interesting, because of the contrast in styles. Musetti was near Medvedevian, returning second serves from 18 feet back, while Holger tried ( with a lot of early success) coming 3 feet inside the baseline to intercept Musetti's kick second -- with a lot of early success. A, perhaps sublet example of Musetti's variety, he simply changed his second serves -- wide winner, hard flat jammer, slice winner.

The net difference in 2nd return position was 21 feet by my back of envelope math

RunevsMusetti Return.jpg

Seems to be catching. The key to Iga coming back from down a set and a break to Rybakina, hiking way back to return. Did it in the second set and a lot more in the third. Looks lonely back there.

x

Musetti has looked well within himself whoever he’s played…room to spare.

I watched the Iga/Rybakina match. Iga was outstanding. It looked for all the world like she was on her way out but showed incredible resolve and spirit to come back; a tough cookie. I don’t watch many women’s matches but if that match is anything to go by, the women are noticeably more focused and much more driven than the men.

[jimlosaltos]

Craig O'Shannessy of BrainGame has some revealing stats on men's groundstrokes.

As Craig put it "One way I like to evaluate groundstrokes is to subtract errors (forced & unforced combined) from winners. It’s almost always going to give you a “negative” result. For example, Carlos Alcaraz has hit 78 forehand winners while committing 166 forehand errors to the quarter-finals. 78 minus 177 = -88. ....

{But } Sinner has hit 65 forehand winners and only committed 69 forehand errors to be -4.

In all honesty, that’s a joke... His forehand has 65 winners to the quarters. Very solid. His forehead has also yielded 69 errors. That’s absurd. His ability to limit forehand errors while still maintaining forehand winners is extremely impressive.

filedata/fetch?id=107424&d=1748979418&type=thumb

Then there's backhands. Remember, Bublik and Paul have played two 5 setters each.

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More at his blog here.

https://braingametennis.com/roland-garros-2025-sinners-forehand-has-gone-berserk/?mc_cid=f7d215c6f3&mc_eid=56c87aa1fa

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I think the "shot quality" numbers are very revealing. There is a reason we see no shot quality rankings in WTA.

[stotty]

Carlos completely pummels Tommy. Carlos is serving and returning so well, the two biggest branches of the game. He’ll take some beating if he keeps this up throughout the tournament.

[jimlosaltos]

Musetti has looked well within himself whoever he’s played…room to spare.

I watched the Iga/Rybakina match. Iga was outstanding. It looked for all the world like she was on her way out but showed incredible resolve and spirit to come back; a tough cookie. I don’t watch many women’s matches but if that match is anything to go by, the women are noticeably more focused and much more driven than the men.

Interesting take. The men do seem to have more up-and-down matches than the women. But perhaps the women know they don't have to maintain focus for up to 5 sets? Makes it easier to bear down?

[stotty]

Interesting take. The men do seem to have more up-and-down matches than the women. But perhaps the women know they don't have to maintain focus for up to 5 sets? Makes it easier to bear down?

And you’re right about the pace of the women’s game. It’s dramatically increased in recent times.

[jimlosaltos]

Cinderella of this year's Roland Garros steals the carriage from this year's IT Girl.
Match was one 18 year old against a good player and 15,000 soccer hooligans { OK, only a subset of crowd but the vocal ones.}

Boisson is the lowest ranked French Open semifinalist in the past 40 years and beat 10 players in a row to get there. Game's sort of a French Maria Sakkari. Mirra went up in both sets then collapsed under the booing of French soccer hooligans as Boisson ran away with the last 6 games.

Boisson was in a hospital bed recovering from knee surgery during last year's Roland Garros. She had won only one (1) sole main tour match in her life before the French. People criticized the FFT for yet another "wasted wild card", now here she is.
.
Will go up a few hundred ranking slots and earn 4X what she has in her entire career.

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[stroke]

Zverev and Novak at 1 set each. Novak looking very comfortable out there. If I had bet on this, I would feel better right now if my money was on Novak. Novak is hurting him with the in vogue drop shot. Zverev just does not have that in his repertoire

[stotty]

Novak coasting at 3-1 up in the fourth set. The only danger now is if he falls asleep.

[stotty]

Novak a little fortunate to creep through in that fourth. Zverev had finally relaxed and was striking the ball well. Had it gone to 5-5 it might have been tide turning. It wasn’t to be, though, and Novak marches on to yet another semi-final (his umpteenth, who’s even counting at this point?).

[jeffreycounts]

Sadly I'd say his chances against Sinner aren't great. It's amazing he's able to beat pretty much anyone else on tour, but being at the end of his career, combined with Sinner being at his peak and absolutely on fire, I think it's the one barrier he can't overcome at this point. I'd love to see him do it though.

[stroke]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YkN21JV2SzPkrVbRA

Novak with an implied probability of winning at about 20% vs Sinner.

[stotty]

Novak did well to beat Zverev and get to where he is in the draw. Sinner, it should be noted, has hardly played a seed yet. Nonetheless, Novak was far from his best and is now likely to be exposed by Sinner whose hitting pace is blistering. Tend to agree with Jeff. Sinner is at his peak (or maybe there’s more to come!) and Novak is now definitely a step slower and in his twilight. Spot serving is less effective on clay so Novak can’t rely so easily on that as a source of refuge. I just cannot see Novak winning.