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It was almost another French Open to forget for Serena Williams, but the world No. 1 rallied from a set and a break down to Victoria Azarenka and kept alive her longshot hopes of the sport’s first Grand Slam in more than a quarter-century.
After getting a tennis clinic from former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the first hour of the match, Williams stormed back — with the aid of a controversial call — to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. This keeps alive the possibility of a Serena Slam (with a Wimbledon win, she’d hold all four majors), the Grand Slam (which hasn’t been done since Steffi Graf in 1988) and the possibility of tying Graf’s record 22 majors in the process (Serena’s at 19 now and would be at 22 if she wins out in majors this year.)
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The match itself provided tremendous drama, if not always sublime play. On key break points at different times in the match, both women hit the ball at least eight feet past the line. Serena’s serve, perhaps the most powerful weapon the sport of tennis has ever seen, disappeared for long stretches. And Azarenka played a loose point at 3-1, 30-30 in the second set that could have set her up for a double break.
It all fell apart for the Belarusian star in the final game of the second set, when chair umpire Kader Nouni incorrectly ruled that an incorrect “out” call on an Azarenka shot had hindered Serena’s shot, which hit the net. Instead of giving Azarenka the point and getting back to deuce, the point was replayed. After a brief verbal altercation between the players, Serena capitalized to take the set. Azarenka looked like she’d put it past her by breaking Serena in the opening game of the third, but Serena won six of the next seven games to get the comeback win.
Serena was on the verge of another early exit in Paris, seemingly a few points from exiting Roland Garros before the second week for the third time in four years. Like Serena’s other recent Slam losses, this one would have come to a player with a middling ranking, but, in this case, hardly a middling resume. Azarenka is a former No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion who has the No. 27 seed because of a 2014 injury and a run of bad draws and inability to close matches in 2015. While talk of the potential Novak Djokovic-Rafael Nadal quarterfinal has been sucking up most of oxygen in Paris, this one was just as big and even earlier.
Nothing against Azarenka, but had she won, the 16 women remaining in the tournament would have had all the star-power of a straight-to-video sequel. But now Serena remains the favorite, mainly due to her dominance over reigning champion Maria Sharapova, who she could face in the final. The rest of the field, with the exception of two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and one-time French Open winner Ana Ivanovic or mostly anonymous. Of the 16 women left, 10 are seeded No. 17 or below and five are completely unseeded.
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Serena will face one of those unseeded players in the fourth round. But American Sloane Stephens will hardly be a walkover; she defeated Williams in the 2013 Australian Open and snapped Serena’s 20-match winning streak at Slams. This time, Serena comes in on a 17-match winning streak in Slams, thanks to that helpful line call, the mini-collapse of a longtime rival and tenaciousness that’s made her the greatest player in history.
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