Clement and Grosjean Battle Into the Evening
by Prip
Once again, the Australian Open shares its limelight in Melbourne
with Australia Day, this time, its centenary. The junior players
weren't so thrilled, though, having to play with F/A-18 Hornets
booming overhead, circling low around Melbourne Park. To make matters
worse, 20 seconds after the loud display ended, the rain started to
fall for the day, and once again, matches on Show Court 1 would be
moved to the Vodafone Arena while the juniors simply had to wait the
weather out.
When they finally came out on court for the women's doubles final,
the Williams sisters must have had their slow starts against Martina
Hingis at the back of their minds -- they weren't going to make the
same mistake and miss out on a doubles title as well. Both Lindsay
Davenport and Corina Morariu weren't doing so well, and let their
opponents easily overpower them. It must have crossed Corina's mind
that at 5'8 ¼", she was the smallest player on court, but she
certainly didn't show it. After losing the first set 2-6, Corina
suddenly picked up her game, and was making bold moves at the net.
Picking the right times to cross and anticipating well where either
Williams was going to hit the ball, she started winning the points
for her team, and tried to pick Lindsay's game up. She succeeded,
even playing the "I" formation on Lindsay's serve, and played so
aggressively she managed to do something no one had yet: hit Venus
Williams with the tennis ball. She and Lindsay turned the match
around, got the break back and took the second set 6-4.
Venus didn't take getting hit too lightly, though. Corina started to
become cannon fodder on the court, and both sisters came close to
possibly ending the birthday girl's career by slamming huge overheads
right at her. With Lindsay's serve failing miserably and Corina
playing a little less than superhuman tennis, the sisters once again
got the edge and took the third set 6-4 to capture the title to
complete their Grand Slam collection. Gracious as ever, Lindsay
congratulated her opponents in her acceptance speech, with no
visible reaction whatsoever from the sisters. On the other hand, the
sisters' acceptance speech was as self-centred as it could get, and
perhaps they had their reasons, considering the crowd was less than
supportive of them when it came down to crunch time. The Williamses
remain unpopular in Australia, where the fans have almost always
backed their opponents.
In the second big match of the day, Arnaud Clement's escape act would
humble even the great Houdini. Sebastien Grosjean, despite being
seeded lower, had been favoured coming into the match, and had
certainly shown more solid tennis in humbling Carlos Moya than had
Arnaud against Yevgeny Kafelnikov. After the first two sets, it looked
like the all-French affair would be as disappointing as the second
men's semifinal's ending, with Sebastien up 2 sets to none and Arnaud
making a whole slew of unforced errors. Things looked even more
hopeless for the shorter (by one whole inch) of the two, when
Sebastien went up 4-2 and held 3 break points for a 5-2 lead.
That's when Sebastien started missing big time, and Arnaud started to
play less reckless tennis. Blowing a total of 6 break points,
Sebastien found himself up 4-3 instead of 5-2, and very slowly,
Arnaud felt that he had a chance albeit a small one, to just hang in
there and at least push the match further. With Sebastien still
moving a lot quicker around the court and running around backhands to
blast forehand winners, Arnaud went down 0-30 on his serve at 3-5.
Two points away from the match, Sebastien just couldn't hold it
together, and came up with the first error in the next three rallies
to bring it to 40-30. Here was Arnaud's chance if he ever had one,
but he blew an attempt at a drop volley to bring it to deuce.
The next point would characterize the rest of the match. Both players
traded backhands, trying to either get the easy error or to open up
the court and go for the forehand. Arnaud found himself at the
receiving end, though, and was fighting at the brink of death when
he went for a huge cross-court forehand winner on the full run, which
landed a fraction of an inch wide. Match point for Sebastien. Arnaud
knew he had to attack Sebastien's backhand, and he tried to, but
Sebastien kept running around it and drilling forehands. But as long
as he had a chance, Arnaud went back to the same side, gradually
opening the court up enough to go for a winner down the other side,
and must have felt ten feet tall when the ball landed in for a
winner, to a huge roar from the crowd. Arnaud got an inside-out
forehand winner, and then a backhand unforced error from Sebastien to
take the game and keep himself in the match.
Both players should know each other's games as well as his own, and
why Arnaud didn't attack Sebastien's backhand before this, I will
probably never know. And probably neither will he. Instead of being
aggressive in that way, Arnaud had tried to be aggressive in coming
into net, but with his small size and without his prescription
glasses, Arnaud had neither the reach nor the reaction speed
necessary to get the job done, and got only a 64% winning percentage
on his net approaches. Late is certainly better than never, and Arnaud
will probably stick by this age-old adage for the rest of his life.
With Sebastien really drilling his forehands and merely pushing the
ball back on the backhands, Arnaud started to put the pressure on,
and managed to take Sebastien to 30-all on his service game. However,
he found himself facing another match point, and sticking to what
worked for him, he carried on the attack on his opponent's backhand,
getting the short ball and running in for a beautiful volley winner
down the line. From there, Arnaud's confidence soared, and his body
language told a different story altogether. He held serve to go up
for the first time in the set, and with the way he was carrying
himself, anyone would have thought that he would break to take the
third set. Three aces and one service winner from Sebastien put a
stop to this, though, and the third set would culminate in a
tie-breaker.
- Service return error from Arnaud. 1-0 Clement
- Big serve from Sebastien to get the easy putaway. 1-1
- Slight mishit from Arnaud results in Sebastien having to hit an overhead from behind the baseline, which lands long and gives away the break. 2-1 Clement
- 2 service winners in a row from Arnaud. 4-1 Clement
- Wide second serve from Sebastien to open up the court. 4-2 Clement
- Forced forehand error from Arnaud. 4-3 Clement
- Yet another backhand unforced error from Sebastien. 5-3 Clement
- Big serve, followed in to the net. Excellent passing shot down the line from Sebastien to get the break back. 5-4 Clement
- Going for a winner, Sebastien's forehand lands just wide to give the break away again. 6-4 Clement
- Sebastien slams an easy backhand from inside the service line into the net. 7-4
And so, from a seemingly hopeless situation, Arnaud Clement takes the
third set and turns the momentum around. Both players absolutely
refused to give up their serves in the fourth set. Sebastien was
still quicker than his buddy and managed to run around plenty of
backhands, but Arnaud started playing very smart and attacked
Sebastien's weaker wing to open up the court. When Sebastien became
very wary of his Achilles' heel being under attack and looked to
move to his left, Arnaud started to hit to his forehand, and opened
up the other side of the court.
From there, the match evened up, with the same long rallies and
tactics used, but the difference came in the number of unforced
errors both players made. From a whopping 27 unforced errors in the
first set and 17 in the third, Arnaud cut it down to just 10 in the
fourth and 4 in the fifth. On the other hand, from only 3 unforced
errors from Sebastien in the second set, he had 22 and 24 in the
third and fourth sets. With Sebastien's mind perhaps lingering at his
lost opportunities and confidence dropping with every game that the
match went on with, Arnaud's grew, and before anyone could believe
it, Arnaud Clement was serving for the match at 5-2 in the final set.
Sebastien managed to stay ahead on points, bringing the game to deuce,
but Arnaud got the advantage to hold match point. In fact, he would
get the advantage a total of five times and save one break point
before Sebastien made the final error to give everything away after
coming so close.
In no other match would you probably see no reaction or emotion
whatsoever from the victor after such a physically and emotionally
exhausting match. And yet, Arnaud had hardly a smile or fist pump as
the realization that he had won the longest match of the tournament
set in. Instead, he felt the sorrow and disappointment of his friend
more than his own joy of winning, and the moment the two had at the
net was more somber than when Venus beat Serena for the very first
time right in this very venue back in 1998. Even at his press
conference, Arnaud displayed very few emotions, although a lot of
that could be attributed to the fact that the fatigue was really
starting to take hold of the Frenchman.
And so it is set, the men's singles final in the first Grand Slam in
the new millennium. Andre Agassi, a familiar face and name, against
Arnaud Clement, a fresh new face who had no expectations of himself
coming into the tournament and who posted his best Grand Slam showing
only recently by reaching the quarters of the U.S Open. Holding a
2-2 record against Andre, with Arnaud winning their last proper
encounter (Agassi retired against Arnaud in Lyon last year) in
straight sets and at Flushing Meadows, no less, the Frenchman will
certainly have confidence going into the final. And if it's one thing
that Arnaud has taught us all, it's to never count him out.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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