Kiki Trickery Leads To Roland Garros Romp

[scoop]

Kiki Mladenovic is one of the favorites to win Roland Garros this year but her high status is not why she was able to escape with a dramatic win today over Jennifer Brady 63 36 97.

Mladenovic was clearly not at her best, struggling with the pressure of high expectations and fine, persistent play by the American. Mladenovic was locked in a fierce struggle 3-3 in the third and then used a long argument on a line call against her to break the rhythm of the match. Brady was ready to serve and play but Kiki extended the conversation with the female chair umpire at the ball mark on the far sideline for close to five minutes!

The long delay flustered Brady who was then broken for 4-3 Kiki. But Kiki failed to capitalize. At 15-love Kiki double faulted and then eventually lost the game for 4-4.

Mladenovic then broke again but again blew her own service game and it was 5-5. Then 6-6. 7-7.

At 7-7 Mladenovic once again decided to argue a call of her long forehand which was deep by an inch. The chair umpire again jumped out of the chair, showed the mark and was lured into another lengthy conversation at the net with Kiki which lasted about three minutes. Once again the delay affected Brady who was broken.

This time Kiki was able to hold serve and finish the match for 9-7.

But it was clearly usage of pre-meditated stall tactics which won the match today for Mladenovic. Brady did not protest the “ridiculous” (adjective used by Lindsay Davenport) antics by Kiki and stood by passively on the court waiting for the discussions to conclude.

She was never the same player, clearly rattled and disrupted by the calculated breakages of action.

Mladenovic showed veteran craftiness and guile to register the win today which ranks with some of the other Grand Slam classic subterfuge plays of the past.

Like when Evonne Goolagong was losing 3-5 to Virginia Ruzici at Wimbledon quarterfinals and suffered an apparent ankle injury which provoked her husband to come down to the court to administer a shot to her foot. After a considerable delay, Goolagong got up and decided to play and won the match 7-5 6-3.

Or when Tim Mayotte was beating defending Wimbledon champion Boris Becker and Becker supposedly endured some kind of injury, stopped the match and actually verbally quit. But then decided to change his mind and after a delay, resumed play, came back and won the match.

There are probably a few hundred more of these anecdotes of players manufacturing creative reasons to stop and stall a match they are losing, to then reversing their fortunes after the bluff took its effect.

Winning on a bad day is the mark of a champion, so says one of the age old sports cliches. Mladenovic might not have played to her highest quality level of tennis vs Brady but she certainly showed Grand Slam champion caliber cleverness today. – Scoop Malinowski

 

[10isfan]

This was the fault of the ump. She shouldn't have engaged in a long conversation. Just make the call and return to her seat. Ridiculous they don't use Hawkeye on clay. It is already there. Why not show to the players so they can have closure and move on? I know the ball mark can be seen on clay, but sometimes the ump doesn't know which mark to look at.

 

[scoop]

10isfan; I am pretty sure that rookie chair umpire who lost control of the Kiki match will be corrected by ITF officials and such an error will never happen again. In her defense, the players wield a lot of power today and they call the shots. Look at Verdasco yesterday, he stopped the match with Zverev when they could have played at least another hour. The big players have the power and Kiki is a big player in France and she wielded that power to her advantage yesterday.

 

[scoop]

Halep ankle apparently is perfect. I might have to change my pick to Halep instead of Kiki

 

[TFBlogGuest]

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