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An emerging French Open women’s champion. A French Open champion that endures.
That was the last weekend in a nutshell at Roland Garros this year.
But while the October dates for the tournament were unprecedented, the summary was not.
Rafael Nadal has become a landmark in Paris: visit the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, watch Nadal win another title near the Bois de Boulogne.
He claimed his thirteenth place Sunday with an exclamation point, beating Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked player, while giving up just seven games in three sets.
On Saturday, Polish teenager Iga Swiatek became the latest champion in women’s football.
The list grows and grows almost at the same rate as Nadal’s resume. While it is a constant for men, defection is the constant for women, who have had nine new individual Grand Slam champions in the last four seasons and four consecutive winners for the first time in Paris: with Jelena Ostapenko, Simona Halep and Ashleigh Barty. before Swiatek.
The contrast in the sport’s divisions is extreme, but it is still possible to see some commonalities between Swiatek and Nadal, even though Swiatek’s career is just beginning. Both, for example, beat their boards without losing a set in seven games.
Swiatek is 19, the same age Nadal was when he won his first French Open in 2005. She hits with the same topspin and a similar western grip on her right, albeit with her right hand against Nadal’s left.
But the thickest common thread is in your mental focus. Both, using very different methods, drew exquisitely on the moment: touching each point in isolation, with enthusiasm and seemingly little consideration of the broader implications.
In tennis, as in many sports, it is an elusive and charming place, and it has been one of Nadal’s trademarks since he left Spain in the early 2000s.
“What I think Iga can definitely grasp from Rafa is how he is composed between the points and how he always concentrates on this one particular point,” said Daria Abramowicz, a sports psychologist who was part of the Swiatek team in Paris. She added, “She has obviously seen this a lot, but seeing it and understanding it is not always the same as being able to deal with it.”
In Paris, the non-seeded Swiatek clearly did it beautifully: speaking quietly to herself, eyes closed, on changes and hitting winner after winner clean, eyes wide open, on clay.
“We have our own set of exercises that she does in the shifts,” Abramowicz said. “Sometimes those are breathing techniques. Sometimes this is visualization. Sometimes this is just an internal dialogue. But it’s a lot, and he’s choosing what he needs right now, so basically, it requires that he be very aware of what is going on during the game. “
Even in her first Grand Slam final, Swiatek held her ground, defeating fourth-seeded Sofia Kenin, 6-4, 6-1.
“It’s tough with so much pressure, but I did everything I did in the previous rounds,” Swiatek said. “I concentrated on technique and tactics. I tried to get rid of expectations, just play one ball after another. I didn’t really care if I was going to win or lose. “
That’s an acquired trait: Last year, when he lost to Halep at Roland Garros in less than an hour, Swiatek became so worried he could barely put a ball on the court. This year, he defeated Halep on his way to the title.
“I really think the main key was keeping my expectations low,” Swiatek said.
Nadal has never worked with a sports psychologist, but he has done a good job managing expectations. Search your interviews through the years for traces of superiority or fait accompli.
Good luck.
His modesty manifests itself as pessimism, which has at times seemed illogical, even false. But it has worked for him in a sport where every game is a new opportunity for a superstar to make a loser’s day.
Nadal has never been interested in resting on his laurels.
He is, make no mistake, a fabulously talented player, capable of generating power and precision from almost anywhere on the court and finding “solutions”, to use one of his favorite words, to tactical puzzles.
It’s the unlikely combination of all this – supreme athleticism, inner drive and inner calm – which adds up to 13 French Open titles and 20 Grand Slam titles.
For now, Swiatek must learn to deal with just one, which could be quite a challenge considering she is Poland’s first Grand Slam singles champion.
Strolling around Warsaw without anyone noticing will now be more difficult, but she is clearly brilliant and clearly drawn to developing a structure and skills that are designed to last.
Abramowicz, a former competitive sailor who has worked with athletes in many sports, believes that one of the reasons it is so difficult for tennis players to stay “in the moment” is because the moment is interrupted so often.
“You have pauses between points, pauses between sets and then obviously you have pauses between matches,” he said. “Sometimes the biggest and most mentally challenging job is doing the best you can during these breaks.”
Now Swiatek must handle the hiatus before returning to Grand Slam competition at the Australian Open in January.
It is difficult to see the future clearly. Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open shortly after her 20th birthday, but has since dropped from the top 10. Bianca Andreescu won the 2019 US Open at age 19 in just her fourth major appearance, but she has barely played a tournament since then due to injuries and the pandemic hiatus. .
Swiatek seems to have the skills to thrive with a combination of power, touch and court coverage. It has never been a coincidence that someone wins a French Open so dominatingly. She lost just 28 games, which put her in elite company with players like Steffi Graf, Chris Evert, and Serena Williams.
But it would have been instructive to see how Swiatek would have reacted to increased pressure on the scoreboard. Is she the next great player? Or just the last to warm up at the right time, considering Barty and Naomi Osaka were absent and Williams retired after one round?
“It’s so hard to say,” said Sven Groeneveld, who coached two French Open champions: Ana Ivanovic and Maria Sharapova. “When it comes to tennis, Swiatek has a great all-round game, but there will be times when other players will start to get to know her better. She should be a solid top 10 player for the next five years. His advantage is that he has a sports psychologist, which is good at such an important life-changing time. “
Swiatek is just making its way. “The Inner Game of Tennis,” Timothy Gallwey’s classic book on overcoming doubts, was published in 1974. But Swiatek’s desire to hire a sports psychologist so soon and his openness to speak about it in public are part of a generational change.
In a women’s game packed with rising stars, it’s also a way to get an edge.
“I can see the difference when I am mentally prepared, and I am ready to handle the stress, the pressure. I can see the difference where I can’t, ”Swiatek said. “That’s why I’m losing in the first round and sometimes I can win a tournament.”
She and Abramowicz use the same word to describe the goal of their game: “consistency.”
That has been very difficult to achieve for the recent women’s champions at Roland Garros. And inescapable for Nadal.
While Nadal remains in the moment, any newcomer who looks up (and up) at his work is attempting the equivalent of stretching their neck to the sky during the Renaissance and considering the possibility of a moonwalk.
It is not impossible in the long run, but it surely is not possible without some kind of breakthrough in human evolution.
