There is a woman in professional tennis who has long caused a melancholy among her fellow players, past and present.
They rave about her buttery-smooth strokes, deceptive power, sublime balance, sculpted physique, and seemingly effortless movement that make it so easy to imagine her leading the charge on her country’s basketball team, or playing center field. in the football team.
She’s like that great indie singer whose occasional sets after midnight at the venue in the cool part of town have been caught on by connoisseurs for years.
If Karolina Muchova can ever stay sane, they say, watch out.
Noted.
Muchova, a 26-year-old from the Czech Republic, will face world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in a tempting French Open final on Saturday after upset Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in Thursday’s match tournament, 7-6 (5), 6-7(5), 7-5.
Every bit of Muchova’s repertoire was present on a steamy afternoon at Roland Garros. Lunging returns that floated down just inside the baseline. Pounding forehand followed by dying drop shots. The ability to file Sabalenka’s hardest forehand, which comes off her racket as hard as any shot in women’s tennis, with cutting volleys that showcased the unlearnable touch of a billiard shark.
She needed it all – and some guts, too.
Down a match point while serving at 2-5 in the deciding set, Muchova saved her tournament with a sharp forehand down the line and won 20 of the last 24 points to reach her first career Grand Slam final, as Sabalenka’s old errors reappeared. the piece off.
“A bit off the radar, but she always plays great tennis,” said Sabalenka, who said she lost her rhythm after the match point eluded her. “It’s a bit tricky to build a point against her.”
A grand finale is where so many thought Muchova should have been for so long. A late bloomer by the standards of the Czech Republic, who seems to spawn a new collection of teen phenom every year despite the population of only 10.5 million, Muchova began battling injuries in her late teens, when a growth spurt pushed her height to 5 -foot-11 but also caused back and knee problems.
She overcame those to make it to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2019 and the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2021, stunning world No. 1 and local favorite, Ashleigh Barty – a huge fan of Muchova, by the way. But a string of nagging injuries, including a sprained ankle just as she caught fire in the third round of last year’s French Open, saw Muchova rise to 235th in the world rankings, a far cry from her peak of 19th in 2021.
“Lots of lows, I would say, from one injury to another,” she said after her win on Thursday. “Some doctors told me, you know, maybe you don’t exercise anymore.”
She tried to stay positive, though, as she struggled through one rehab after another, as she struggled through minor tournaments in places like Concord, Massachusetts; Shrewsbury, England; and Angers, France.
Things move fast in tennis. She entered the French Open ranked 43rd, the kind of dreaded unseeded opponent no one wants to tie. She defeated eighth-seeded Maria Sakkari from Greece in the first round, dropping just one set in her first five matches. She played the tightest third set in front of 15,000 people in a Grand Slam semifinal. She heard the trumpets and the crowd chanting her name as she tried to stay calm.
“Here and there I had to vent and scream a little bit,” she said, adding, “It was crazy out there.”
It can get crazy again on Saturday against Swiatek, who won this tournament in 2020 and 2022 and won 13 games in a row at Roland Garros.
Swiatek, who turned 22 last week, has had a career the opposite of Muchova’s. She won her first Grand Slam singles title when she was 19 years old, and she became the world No. 1 on April 20, 2022, after Barty suddenly retired at the age of 25.
And while Swiatek initially played the kind of varied all-court style that has earned Muchova the lecherous praise of tennis aesthetes, she largely abandoned it early last year in favor of a simpler, more aggressive approach built around seizing every opportunity. to pop her forehand. and knocking opponents off the field.
It functions. Swiatek can be downright deadly, finishing so many sets with scores of 6-0 (a “bagel” in tennis terms) or 6-1 (a “breadstick”) that Twitter often lights up with chatter about “Iga’s Bakery” when she’s on court . She doesn’t like that very much, she says it’s disrespectful to her opponents.
Swiatek was less than clinical on Thursday against Beatriz Haddad Maia, a tough and determined lefty from Brazil who, especially in the second set, moved Swiatek back and forth across the baseline and knocked Swiatek out of her rhythm. Unusually, Swiatek had more unforced errors than winners – 26 to 25.
Haddad Maia, the 14th seed, played for a small but throaty cohort of singing Brazilians and got Swiatek on the ropes. She had a break of service early in the second set and came within one point in the tiebreak of forcing a third.
Then Swiatek went back to being the Swiatek the world has become accustomed to, especially on Roland Garros red clay. She curled a magical backhand into the tightest of corners to stay in the tiebreak and finished the match with a big forehand well out of Haddad Maia’s reach.
“Pretty excited for Saturday,” Swiatek said a little later.
If contrasts in styles are the not-so-secret sauce of great tennis matches, then the final between Muchova and Swiatek has the potential to be special. Swiatek will look to dig in and blast away. Muchova will try to use every weapon she has, leaving Swiatek guessing at what will come of her racket next – slices, great topspin, floating moonballs that fall inches from the baseline.
For a while last year, conventional wisdom was that the only player who could beat Swiatek was Swiatek himself. She has talked about struggling with her nerves and having to force herself to play to win rather than not lose.
Earlier this week, after her quarterfinal victory over 19-year-old American Coco Gauff, Swiatek said she often calms down as a Grand Slam tournament moves into the later rounds. The early tightness disappears and she can take a moment to enjoy what she has achieved.
However, a Grand Slam final is another matter, and so is Muchova. The two only played once, four years ago, before either was the person or player she is today. For what it’s worth, Muchova won that match in three sets, on clay, in front of a home crowd in Prague as Swiatek finished ranked 95th in the world.
The two have since practiced together many times, said Swiatek, who, like Barty, counts herself among the Muchova believers. She often finds herself watching Muchova’s matches.
“She can do anything,” Swiatek said.
Their one game may be too small a sample to draw conclusions, but this statistic is perhaps more telling: Muchova has played five games against top three players and she has won every time.
“It just shows me I can play against them,” she said on Thursday. “I can compete.”
Indeed she can. Its competitors have known this for some time.
