Bill Simons
It’s odd, but in a way today’s French Open triumph began at Wimbledon’s greatest moment of loss. In 1993, the sublime Czech Jana Novotna had Steffi Graf on the ropes. Her moment of triumph awaited. Up 4-1 in the third, she collapsed, and soon, in sorrow, tears and humiliation, dropped her head on the compassionate shoulder of the Duchess of Kent.
Her sad, almost torturous choke would begin an extraordinary narrative. Columnist Simon Barnes soon wrote one of the most moving commentaries sports journalism has seen: “Novotna played a game of tennis for everyone who has ever made an absolutely ghastly mistake. Or, to put it another way, for the entire human race.”
But the brave Novotna didn’t crumble. Three years later, she avenged her loss with a Wimbledon win over Nathalie Tauziat. Few triumphs have felt more sweet.
Soon she would depart to the quiet pleasures of retirement. But a brave young neighbor, teen Barbora Krejcikova, had the audacity to walk right up to the great international icon in her garden, asking her, “Can you help me with my game?”
The Czech Republic has long had a love affair with tennis: Jan Kodes, Martina Navratilova, Ivan Lendl, Hana Mandlikova, Petra Kvitova – the list is long. And mentoring has been a big part of their game. Jana told Barbora that she had a court booked on Thursday and invited the girl to come out for a hit. Soon she would be Barbora’s guide. The two traveled together, bonding deep. Then fate had its say. In 2017, the 49-year-old Jana lost her battle with cancer.
Just four years later, as Krejcikova was making a stunning run to the French Open final, Novotna’s presence hovered at every turn. Like Jana before her, the sensitive Czech admitted she suffered from nerves. The unseeded 25-year old admitted she’d had a panic attack before her fourth-round match with Sloane Stephens, thinking, “I can’t play with these girls. What if I lose 0, 0 – it will be a disaster!”
But unlike her beloved mentor, Krejcikova has a new sports psychologist, who told her to think of her big matches as practice sessions. Barbora, who had lost in the qualifying for majors 15 times and was only playing in her fifth major, put her anxiety aside and crushed Stephens 6-2, 6-0. The win was all part of an unlikely run that saw her down Elina Svitolina and Coco Gauff, and save a match point against Maria Sakkari in an epic 3:18 marathon semi.
Barbora said Jana was with her the whole way. When asked what Novotna would think, Barbora said, “She would tell me that she’s very proud…‘Just enjoy, keep going. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you just have to do your best every single time…just focus on tennis, just play…Just have fun, appreciate that you can be here and you can do what you love.’…She would be just extremely happy. She would just be jumping and screaming. That’s what she did when I played ITFs and I won.”
And after No. 33 Krejcikova, who long had been dismissed as “just a doubles specialist,” and who until just nine months ago had a triple-digit ranking, won the French Open, she stepped up and gave the most moving speech in tennis since Andre Agassi’s “I stand on your shoulders” farewell speech at Ashe Stadium in 2006.
Fighting tears and in a daze of disbelief, Krejcikova recalled the mentor whom she seemed to have been channeling on the red clay. “I can’t believe,” she began. “I can’t believe I actually won a Grand Slam. It was really a hard time when Jana was passing away. Most of the time I was with her and wanted to experience it because it was going to really make me strong. Pretty much her last words were, ‘Enjoy. And try to win a Grand Slam.’”
Raising her hand to the sky, Barbora continued, “From somewhere she’s looking after me, and all of this that happened these two weeks is pretty much because she’s looking after me from up there. It was amazing that I had a chance to meet her. She was just such an inspiration and I just really miss her, but I hope she’s happy now and I’m extremely happy.” There was barely a dry eye on Courte Philippe-Chatrier.
Years from now, the details of Krejcikova’s journey to victory will be forgotten. No one will point to her five doubles Slam victories and say she had a nice doubles career. Few will recall that she used her fluid game to rush to a 6-1 first set victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. They won’t note the Russian’s gritty comeback, and how she used her power and experience to seemingly turn the match around. Nor will many remember that in a flash, at 3-3 in the third set, Barbora upped her game, moving the Russian left to right with her aggressive strokes to get to match point. Few will note that she became the sixth straight first-time women’s French Open champ, that none other than Martina Navratilova presented her with the trophy and that Barbora gave an appreciative shoutout to four-time French champion Justine Henin.
Of course the story wouldn’t be complete without noting that, like her beloved Jana, she too felt the excruciating pressure of closing out a Grand Slam match for the first time. Krejcikova faltered badly today, with errant shots and a double fault on her first three match points. But finally she prevailed 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 and a former Wimbledon champ up in heaven shouted in delight. The circle was now unbroken.
The legacy of Novotna, the lady who “played a game of tennis for everyone who’s ever made an absolutely ghastly mistake,” was now complete. Tennis had a new French Open champion, and we all had another poignant story of triumph and redemption.
