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Sunday, June 1, 2014
Roland Garros 2014: Middle Weekend
Every player has a story. With 128 players in each singles draw, that's 256 stories waiting to be told at the beginning of each Major tennis tournament. The eventual champions get the most celebrated stories but for many others, just making the main draw once is the highlight of a career. Sometimes, the story is a breakthrough performance.
21-year-old Croatian Ajla Tomljanović had never made it to the main draw at the French Open before this year. She had never even made it past the second round of a Slam before. This past week, she caught fire. Not only has she reached the fourth round in Paris, she's taken out two seeded players en route: Agnieska Radwanska (3rd seed, Poland) and Elena Vesnina (32nd, Russia). She has yet to lose a set. Next up for her is Carla Suarez Navarro (14th, Spain), a former quarterfinalist.
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It's so nice to see young players coming up the ranks and going deep into a two week tournament.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. Breakthroughs are hard to come by these days. For one thing, the top players are staying healthy longer than in years past. The sport is long overdue for a genuine youth movement.
DeleteI love these individual stories. That's the most interesting thing about any sport to me--the personal accomplishments!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. It's all too easy to forget how hard all of the players who get to this level have to work.
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