As it is, Karolina Muchova was the unseeded, unexpected participant in the French Open semifinals.
And then, dealing with cramping legs nearly three hours into the match, she was just one point from losing to No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who entered Thursday with a 12-0 Grand Slam record in 2023, including an Australian Open title.
Muchova somehow worked her way out of that difficult situation, grabbing the last five games against an error-prone Sabalenka for a 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5 victory at Roland Garros to reach her first major final at the last place she expected.
“A roller coaster,” Muchova said.
In Saturday’s title match, she will meet No. 1 Iga Swiatek, the defending champion, who got past No. 14 Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-2, 7-6 (7) on Thursday night. Swiatek is seeking a third title in Paris and fourth major championship in all and her win in the semifinals assured the 22-year-old from Poland of remaining atop the WTA rankings.
‘I just tried to keep fighting’
At No. 43, Muchova is the fourth-lowest-ranked women’s finalist in French Open history. On the other hand, she is now 5-0 for her career against players ranked in the Top 3.
It was tough to decide which was more stunning: that Sabalenka lost — or the way she lost.
“I just tried to keep fighting and it worked,” Muchova said. “I really don’t know what happened.”
Well, here are the basics: Sabalenka held a match point while ahead 5-2 in the third set, but Muchova erased that with a forehand winner. That began a run in which Muchova collected 20 of the last 24 points.
“After that game, she kind of stepped in and started playing a little bit more aggressive, and I kind of lost my rhythm,” was Sabalenka’s summation. “Yeah, I wasn’t there.”
????️ Coming from 2-5 down in the deciding set<br>????️ Saving match point <br>????️ Reaching her first Slam final after 3h13m<br>????️ Becoming the first player to defeat Sabalenka at a major this year<br><br>Muchova’s Slav EPIC ????️<a href=”https://twitter.com/karomuchova7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@karomuchova7</a> | <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/RolandGarros?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#RolandGarros</a><a href=”https://t.co/sVBDxw3ZpU”>pic.twitter.com/sVBDxw3ZpU</a>
Until Saturday, this trip to Paris was far more complicated off the court for Sabalenka than on it, where all six of her opponents was unseeded.
The subject of Belarus’ role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the attacks began in February 2022 and continue to this day — and Sabalenka’s stance on the matter arose repeatedly, in part because she faced two Ukrainian opponents.
She was asked about the war following each of her first two victories, and Sabalenka refused to participate in standard post-match news conferences after her next two contests, saying she felt unsafe and wanted to protect her mental health and well-being. She returned to speaking to the media after her quarterfinal win.
Swiatek did not begin particularly well on Thursday, getting broken at love in the very first game. But she quickly turned that set around. Then, in the second, the big-swinging, left-handed Haddad Maia took a 3-1 lead, before Swiatek got back on serve.
In the tiebreaker, Haddad Maia held a set point at 6-5, but she slapped a seemingly neutral ball into the net. A few moments later, it was over, allowing Swiatek to improve to 60-13 in Grand Slam play for her career — the same record Serena Williams had after 73 matches at majors.
“It was stressful in some moments, so I’m happy that I was really solid and I was able to close it in the tiebreaker,” Swiatek said. “It wasn’t easy.”
Iga Swiatek of Poland celebrates winning match point against Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil during their semifinal match on Thursday at Roland Garros. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Hours earlier, in the 80-degree warmth of Court Philippe Chatrier, Muchova’s variety and all-court style provided the right mix against one of the game’s biggest hitters.
An oversimplification, granted, but think of it this way: Sabalenka tries to hit the ball past her opponent; Muchova tries to hit the ball away from her opponent.
“It’s kind of a little bit tricky to build points against her,” Sabalenka said.
A magician on the court ????<a href=”https://twitter.com/karomuchova7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@karomuchova7</a> | <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/RolandGarros?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#RolandGarros</a><a href=”https://t.co/DXAVXwkeOK”>pic.twitter.com/DXAVXwkeOK</a>
The third set appeared to tilt toward Sabalenka when her pressure prompted some extra errors. A long forehand by Muchova resulted in a service break and a 4-2 lead for Sabalenka, who held for 5-2.
That’s when it all began to come apart for her.
Sabalenka needed just one more point to end it, but Muchova came up with a big serve and a quick-strike forehand winner to erase that chance.
“Just another point,” Muchova would say later.
Sabalenka couldn’t break there, but then she served for the victory at 5-3 — and again couldn’t come through. Muchova broke to 5-4, then sat down and massaged her right thigh during the ensuing changeover. Soon enough, suddenly, it was 5-all.
Sabalenka continued to miss and, as if blaming it all on her racket, tried to get the attention of her entourage in the stands so she could swap her equipment. She finished with 53 unforced errors, nearly twice as many as Muchova’s 27.
Muchova — who was stretching between points — simply kept hitting big shots.
“I could see,” Muchova said, “that she was struggling a little bit and doing fast mistakes.”
Muchova, a 26-year-old from the Czech Republic, has always found that her game worked best in faster conditions: Her best previous showing at a major was a semifinal run at the 2021 Australian Open on hard courts, her lone WTA title came on a hard court, and she never made it past the third round on the red clay at Roland Garros until now.
“It’s not my favourite surface,” Muchova said earlier in the tournament, “but I think I can play good on it.”
Sure played well enough Thursday.
Andreescu, Michael Venus fall in mixed doubles final
Canada’s Bianca Andreescu and mixed doubles partner Michael Venus of New Zealand came up just short in their quest for a French Open title on Thursday.
The duo fell in the mixed doubles final to Japan’s Miyu Kato and Tim Puetz of Germany 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 after a super tiebreak decided the outcome of the match at Roland Garros in Paris.
Andreescu, of Mississsauaga, Ont., and Venus advanced to the final with a 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) win over Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Nathaniel Lammons of the United States on Wednesday.
Kato left behind the disappointment of her controversial disqualification in doubles by claiming the mixed doubles title at the French Open on Thursday.
WATCH | Andreescu, Venus fall to Kato, Puetz:
Andreescu and Venus fall to Kato and Puetz in French Open mixed doubles final
15 hours ago
Duration 2:48
Japan’s Miya Kato teamed up with Germany’s Tim Puetz to defeat Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., and New Zealand’s Michael Venus (4-6,6-4,10-6) to win the 2023 French Open mixed doubles title.
Kato, 28, and her women’s doubles partner were defaulted during their third-round match last week after Kato accidentally hit a ball girl in the neck after a point.
Kato also forfeited all of her nearly $23,000 US in prize money and rankings points from women’s doubles but was allowed to keep participating in mixed doubles.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
The French league’s legal commission has ordered Paris Saint-Germain to pay Kylian Mbappé the 55 million euros ($61 million) in unpaid wages that he claims he’s entitled to, the league said Thursday.
The league confirmed the decision to The Associated Press without more details, a day after the France superstar rejected a mediation offer by the commission in his dispute with his former club.
