PARIS — For more than a decade as a professional tennis player, and nearly 30 years as a person, Francesca Schiavone waited and worked to reach this particular moment on this particular court, and there was no way she was going to conceal her excitement about arriving.
As Schiavone moved closer, point by important point in the second-set tiebreakafter, to winning the French Open title over Samantha Stosur of Australia and to giving Italy its first female champion at a Grand Slam tournament, she let everyone watching share in the sheer joy.
Finally, delivering a spin-laden backhand from the baseline, Schiavone watched the ball glance off Stosur’s racket frame and deflect harmlessly in the wrong direction. The 17th-seeded Schiavone covered her face with both hands, then dropped to the ground and stayed on her back for a few moments, smearing her white outfit with rust-colored clay, relishing the 6-4, 7-6 (2) win over the No. 7-seeded Stosur.
Schiavone curled over and kissed the court, giving thanks to “this clay, this beautiful tournament and this arena,” as she put it later, for giving her “this opportunity and all the emotion that I am living.”
She turns 30 this month, making her the oldest woman since 1969 to win her first Grand Slam championship. Tomorrow, Schiavone will rise to a career-best No. 6 in the WTA rankings, making her the oldest woman since 1998 to make her top-10 debut.
“When you achieve goals with self-awareness, by working on who you are and what you do every day of your life, you’re able to appreciate it much more,” she said in Italian. “I finally was ready to win this trophy.”
Stosur had upset current No. 1 Serena Williams and past No. 1s Justine Henin and Jelena Jankovic en route to yesterday’s final.
“You want the full fairy tale,” Stosur said, her voice cracking, “but it didn’t quite happen.”
Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia and Daniel Nestor of Canada won the men’s doubles final, 7-5, 6-2, over defending champions Leander Paes of India and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic.
Rafael Nadal takes on Robin Soderling in today’s men’s final (9 a.m., NBC).
Nadal owns six Grand Slam titles, including four at Roland Garros. Soderling owns none.
Nadal is 37-1 in the French Open, while Soderling is 15-6 — and was only 3-5 before 2009.
But Soderling is responsible for Nadal’s lone loss at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament, stunning the Spaniard in the fourth round last year en route to reaching the final. That one result changes the whole complexion of today’s rematch.
