Unwanted history made as Saville joins Australia’s Roland-Garros casualty ward
By Marc McGowan
No Australian woman will feature in the second round at Roland-Garros for the first time in 27 years, with Daria Saville losing at the first hurdle in her return to the claycourt major.
Wildcard Ajla Tomljanovic – who departed on day one after being up a set on Australian Open semi-finalist Dayana Yastremska – and Saville were the country’s only representatives in the women’s main draw, while Olivia Gadecki and Astra Sharma lost in final-round qualifying.
Daria Saville fought hard but was unable to match Italian Jasmine Paolini in her first-round defeat at Roland-Garros.Credit: Getty Images
World No.84 Saville overcame a second ACL rupture and troublesome Achilles issue to regain her top-100 place, but her trademark grit was not enough in a 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Italian 12th seed Jasmine Paolini.
The draw did neither Tomljanovic nor Saville any favours, but this tournament is a low point in the post-Ash Barty era for Australian women’s tennis.
Barty, who retired shortly after winning the 2022 Australian Open title, captured the first of her three grand slams at the French Open five years ago. She was the first Australian woman to achieve that feat in 46 years.
Just like this year, Australia had only two women in the Roland-Garros main draw in 1997 – Rachel McQuillan and Annabel Ellwood, who is now coaching some of the nation’s most promising juniors – and they were unable to make it out of the first round.
Iva Majoli upset Martina Hingis to win that year’s title, with the likes of Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Mary Pierce, Jana Novotná and Conchita Martinez among the seeds, while a 17-year-old Amelie Mauresmo reached the second round.
Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup captain Sam Stosur finished runner-up at the claycourt slam in 2010 and made three other semi-finals, but now has a key role to play to nurture the next wave of talent.
Saville never stopped fighting.Credit: Getty Images
There is great hope for Gadecki and teenagers Taylah Preston, Talia Gibson, Maya Joint and Emerson Jones, but a significant breakthrough from this group cannot come soon enough.
Tomljanovic’s and Saville’s increasing injuries – and most recently Storm Hunter’s Achilles rupture – have laid bare the challenge facing Stosur, Nicole Pratt, Paul Kilderry and co. at Tennis Australia to accelerate development on the women’s side.
Saville is seven years separated from her career-high ranking of No.20, which came months after she advanced to the last 16 for the second straight time at the Australian Open. Those types of results are rare for her these days, with only one trip to the third round of a slam at her past 15 attempts.
There are not many times 166-centimetre Saville has a height advantage on tour, but she narrowly edged out Paolini in that department. However, Saville did not boast the same punch off her racquet.
The Italian, who enjoyed a career-best run to the fourth round at this year’s Australian Open, wreaked havoc with her forehand, in particular, and mostly dictated terms, although both players struggled to hold serve.
There were seven consecutive breaks until Paolini served out the first set, and Saville failed to hold in any of her first seven service games – but she finally did 80 minutes into the contest while trailing by a set and 5-1.
That came during a period Saville launched some rearguard action, including breaking Paolini in the next game, before rain arrived with the Australian veteran holding game point to cut her deficit to 4-5.
Saville needed only one point to hold again once play finally resumed to buoy hopes of a fightback, only for Paolini to serve out the match without dropping a point.
‘Mountain to climb’: Aussie wipeout at Roland-Garros as Tomljanovic, Vukic and Thompson exit
Ajla Tomljanovic has conceded she is not the player she was before the knee injury that ruined her 2023 season, as she comes to terms with letting slip a match-winning lead in her first-round defeat at Roland-Garros.
The 31-year-old needed a wildcard to make the main draw after a torrid run of setbacks across the past two years, but was left to rue a wasted opportunity after losing 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 to Australian Open semi-finalist and No. 30 seed Dayana Yastremska.
Ajla Tomljanovic started strong, winning the first set over No.30 seed Dayana Yastremska.Credit:
Tomljanovic’s exit means Daria Saville is the last Australian hope in the women’s singles. Saville is due to play 12th-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini at 7pm AEST on Monday. The last time Australia did not have a player in the second round of the women’s draw at the claycourt major was in 1997.
It was an inauspicious start to the 2024 event for Australia, with Aleks Vukic and Jordan Thompson following Tomljanovic out of the tournament on day one.
Tomljanovic failed to convert three break points in a row in the fourth game of the second set before the match took a vicious turn. Yastremska not only escaped that situation but broke the Australian’s serve from 40-0 three games later to snatch control.
The Ukrainian ball-basher, who had never made the second round at the French Open in four previous attempts, offered one last chance for Tomljanovic to regain a foothold in the next game.
Yastremska’s serve was shaky for much of the contest, and she nervously delivered lets either side of a first-serve fault with Tomljanovic holding break-back point. But she boldly sent down a big second serve that did not come back over the net, on her way to a seven-game surge that swung the clash for good.
“I should not leave this place having any negative thoughts because it is only up from here, and my body so far has pulled up well, so that is a great thing,” Tomljanovic said.
“But it feels like I have a mountain to climb right now. I’m still here; I’m eager. I still have that fire inside me to keep going, but it definitely has been very challenging. It’s just I feel like I have to almost reprogram my mind and not think about the past because I’m not the player I was.
Jordan Thompson bowed out of the French Open in straight sets.Credit: Getty Images
“I have to build everything up from the ground again, and that’s not easy to accept mentally because you come back straight away, and you’re like, ‘I want to get back [to] where I was’ – but that’s gone. A lot of time has passed, and I’m here now. It’s a process, for sure.”
Vukic went down 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to China’s world No.44 Zhizhen Zhang while dealing with an existing adductor issue, while hard-hitting German left-hander Maximilian Marterer demolished an out-of-sorts Thompson 6-3, 6-2, 6-0 in a rain-interrupted match.
Vukic, who will have an MRI scan, said he expected to be fit for Wimbledon: “I’ve no doubt that I’ll be fine by then. It feels like it’s on the verge of being a bad one. There was a chance to make it worse [by playing], but we took the risk, and I don’t think it has got any worse, so I think it’s still all very manageable.”
Thompson, who has failed to advance from the first round for five straight years, won the first two games but only three of the last 21 as Marterer crushed 34 winners to the anguished Aussie’s 19.
Seven other Australians, led by 11th-seeded Alex de Minaur, are still to begin their Roland-Garros campaign. Thanasi Kokkinakis was the sole Australian to advance to the third round last year, and he plays countryman Alexei Popyrin in his 2024 opener on Tuesday.
Sydneysider Chris O’Connell withdrew from the tournament because of an injury, replaced by lucky loser Otto Virtanen, while Max Purcell joins Saville in playing on Monday against German qualifier Henri Squire.
It was not the first time Yastremska reversed her fortunes mid-match against Tomljanovic, having rallied from 5-2 down in the final set to beat the Australian in the Thailand Open final five years ago.
Tomljanovic started well against Dayana Yastremska before losing in three sets.Credit: Getty Images
The positives were Tomljanovic’s ball striking and movement were at a good level despite entering the Paris slam – which she reached the last 16 at in 2014 – with barely one match under her belt since undergoing uterine surgery in February.
The world No. 202 retired three games into her second match with a stiff neck before withdrawing from a lead-in tournament. The early exit will buy her more time to prepare for the grasscourt season, where she has enjoyed some of her best results.
Tomljanovic was poised to challenge for a top-20 ranking entering last year, and believed she was ready to be a major title contender after reaching two of her three grand slam quarter-finals in 2022, only for a serious knee setback to derail her momentum and kickstart a challenging period for her.
The knee injury lingered longer than expected and effectively wiped out her season last year, although she managed to score a first-round win at the US Open.
Tomljanovic used her special ranking of No.33 to enter this year’s Wimbledon draw, where she is a good chance to be seeded and made the last eight in 2021 and 2022.
Among the other players to progress were Naomi Osaka, Andrey Rublev, Grigor Dimitrov, Hubert Hurkacz and past champions Carlos Alcaraz and Jelena Ostapenko. However, 17th-seeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert bowed out 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.
– with AAP
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