Crockery in short supply as ‘Spartans’ invade

ONE would be forgiven for thinking that Roland Garros was hosting Euro 2020 on Friday night, such was the extent of the bipartisan howls, emanating from the raucous crowd glued to the riveting semi-final, between reigning “King of Clay”, Rafael Nadal and World No 1 Novak Djokovic, the victor, in a match he described as “the most beautiful I have ever played in Paris”.

Nadal has been finally and convincingly dethroned and I think that it is not good for any king to rule for over a decade. A fourteenth coronation would be verging on ‘nepotism'.

It is only the second time in the Open era, all four female contenders reached a Grand Slam semi-final for the first time in their collective careers. Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (who hopefully will never be named after a racehorse, because the commentator would be beaten in pronunciation, before the horse would), prevailed against Slovenian Tamara Sidansek. And Greek Maria Sakkari was beaten by Czech Barbora Krejcikova, in the second longest women's match ever. All three hours and 18 minutes produced some of the best and most varied women’s tennis I have witnessed since watching Venus Williams winning her first Wimbledon title, beating Lindsay Davenport.

Crockery will be in short supply in Greece this weekend, because it is the first time a Greek male and female have advanced to a final and a semi final of a Grand Slam, unless one factors in American, Pete Sampras’ Greek origins. (He and Tsitsipas coincidently share the same birthday). Yes, those plates will be piled high in every Greek taverna from Crete to the Acropolis, in anticipation of the young pretender to the throne, the World No 5, taking on the World No 1, in today’s mouth watering singles showdown

Meanwhile, the lady who epitomises ‘never say die’, over and above any other player in this scintillating final furlong, is Krejcikova, who came from a 4-1 deficit in the 3rd set to win and to reach a Grand Slam final, after no less than 52 attempts. The Czech declared in her post match interview that the most important thing in life is to fight for whatever you believe

As for the men's trophy, I salute Tsitsipas style of play. Remember this is the man who vowed “to bring back the volley”, when he beat Federer, the ultimate volleyer, in the quarter-finals of the 2019 Australian Open and he has subsequently beaten Nadal at the same venue, also in the quarters, with the same ploy. And that is what he is going to have to do today: Slice and dice, mix it up and throw proverbial plates at top seeded Djokovic preferably from the net. You cannot beat the Marathon Man hotfooting it from side to side, on or behind the baseline - especially in the wake of a tough five setter. Yet if anyone can recognise the threat posed by a Marathon Man, a Greek can.