TENNIS:SO, VICTORIA Azarenka was asked, what went wrong? "Pretty much everything," replied the world number one in that lonely longueur between defeat and departure, yet she managed to lighten the gloom with a slice of self-deprecation.
Crushed in two sets in the fourth round of the French Open yesterday by the diminutive 15th seed, Dominika Cibulkova, the 6ft 1in big hitter from Minsk was diminished in every way. Still, she took her disappointment with a smile, not a response one might have predicted during a match of carping by both players.
Cibulkova played superbly, hitting the ball flat and hard and treating the net as if it were made of poison ivy. She won 6-2, 7-6 in one hour 47 minutes, although there were passages when she was so dominant it appeared the match might be over much sooner.
It spoke to the fight in Azarenka that she extended her own suffering. “I don’t know how to describe my performance really,” she said. “It wasn’t satisfying at all being out there playing that way. But I guess it happens. I don’t even know what positives to find in it. No excuses. Just a bad performance.”
Azarenka was fit, ready, keen for the fight – and just could not do it. Cibulkova, on the other hand, found every part of her limited but solid armoury in good working order, and all syncing at the right time. She won 84 points to 68, saved nine break points and put three aces past Azarenka at moments when it mattered.
Cibulkova had a monkey on her back to shift and recalled how she had been in similar positions against Azarenka and blown it.
“This year in Miami I was 6-1, 5-2 up against her,” she said, “And last year in Miami it was the same. I think I was 6-2, 4-2 up, and again I lost. So today I was 4-2 up [in the second set] and that’s why I got a little bit . . . not nervous, but not going for my shots any more. But it was a great thing I managed to get through these emotions. She was 6-5 up and I said, ‘Hey, come on, you have to play your game again and just make it’.”
Meanwhile, 21-year-old Belgian David Goffin played his idol Roger Federer in the fourth round of the French Open – his first, but probably not last, grand slam tournament. Though Goffin acquitted himself well, Federer took the match – 5-7, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 – in just under three hours.
Elsewhere, there was more serious embarrassment for Novak Djokovic, when Andreas Seppi went two sets up against the world number one on Court Philippe Chatrier.
The disbelief was palpable as the Serb’s renowned balance and poise in chasing down wide shots, and the power of his lethal backhand, deserted him. His serve lacked snap and he struggled for rhythm and, it seemed, oxygen. He does suffer badly from hay fever, but did not mention it afterwards.
It took him five sets – 4-6, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 – to establish his dominance, something that was taken for granted a year ago at this stage of any tournament, when his unbroken run was snapped at 43, here in the semi-finals by Federer.
