FRENCH OPEN WOMEN'S FINAL:EVEN IN the warm glow of her greatest triumph, the new French Open women's champion Francesca Schiavone hinted that, having climbed her Olympus, she was perfectly happy, at 29, to return quickly to where she felt most comfortable.
She didn’t want 50,000 people waiting to acclaim her in Rome not that she expected that to happen anyway. “I want to go home to mommy and daddy,” she said.
About 25 of her family and friends made special T-shirts inscribed with the words “Scavio, Nothing Is Impossible” at the last minute and drove overnight for 10 hours from Milan to be with her, and she longed to enjoy her victory with them, at home. “Because sually we do good dinner.”
Scavio is their childhood nickname for her. But the little imp familiar only to hardcore tennis fans until even a week ago, all 5ft 5½in of her, belongs to a wider audience now. Hers is a story every bit as heartwarming for who she is and the values she represents as for what she achieved here on Saturday.
In the manner of her victory over the muscled young Australian favourite Samantha Stosur in a final some hard-bitten observers predicted would be an irrelevance because it lacked a headliner, the Italian ensured that her name will endure long after the cynics have been forgotten.
That name is inscribed on Coupe Suzanne Lenglen in perpetuity – the first Italian to be so honoured – and the image of her celebration after her 6-4 7-6 (7/2) victory will be impossible to erase for those fortunate enough to be there as she rolled around in the red clay, eyes blazing, then, as she had done twice on the way to the final, put her lips to the dirt. “To kiss the ground for me is to thank this clay,” she said later, “this beautiful tournament and this arena.”
Yesterday, the Italian media showered their new sweetheart in praise that has not exactly drowned her in the past. "Historic victory," Gazzetta Sportivasaid across its front page. "Mythical," said Corriere dello Sport.
No doubt this will gladden Schiavone without changing her. She is unfazed by celebrity or the attention it brings. She had a court-side phone conversation with Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, as if ordering a pizza.
Schiavone said before the final that intelligence would be the key, and it was. She calculated that she could unsettle Stosur if she rushed her at the net, selectively, and worked her over on the backhand, her weakest wing.
This also quietened the Australian’s biggest gun, a wicked forehand that had accounted for Justine Henin, Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic. None of those players had an answer to Stosur’s power. Schiavone, who had crept through on the less demanding side of the draw, did, however.
It took courage, with a little desperation, perhaps, for Schiavone to implement her battle plan on Saturday afternoon. She has waited so long, but she knew this would almost certainly be her only chance to win the tournament that had been the stuff of her dreams since she was very young.
With the win comes not only €1,060,000 in prize-money (some of which she said she would use to build a bigger house for her extended family), a jump in the world rankings from 17 to six and increased expectations.
- Guardian Service
