Silly question, but a player can reach the quarter-finals of a $1.2 million tournament without hitting a single ball. I checked, and actually nobody finds that odd.
First, she’s the No.4 seed, so she skipped the first round, that’s the rule. Then her second-round opponent, the Czech Barbora Krejcikova, withdrew. Result: two rounds, zero points played, and there she is in the quarters. I’m told it’s the regulations, fine, but what does that mean?
In football, if a team forfeits, the other side still plays its next match against somebody. Here, she goes straight through to the next round, no sweat, no towel, no let. I’m digging into it, but I couldn’t find anyone to tell me where the match she should have played actually goes.
In the quarters, she faces Maja Chwalinska, the No.5 seed, who beat Oleksandra Oliynykova 6-0, 6-1 in a match that was very real, unlike Mertens’s. Their only previous meeting went 6-4, 6-0 to the Pole at Roland-Garros this year. If Mertens wins this quarter-final, they will be her first points of the week.
Then there’s the title she’s defending. She won it last year, so naturally every point counts for her. But this week she hasn’t played a thing, even though she could have been with the Yellow Aces for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals 8. She chose Singapore instead, presumably to defend her points. A choice that looks like a marathon but starts with a Sunday at the bar (the tournament’s own hospitality tent, so to speak): she watches everyone else go by. I was sent to find the bar once, and I actually went looking for one. She’s already in the quarters.
Meanwhile Sofia Costoulas, ranked 152nd, played her first-ever main draw match at a WTA 500. Three sets, 2h50, lost 5-7, 7-6, 6-2 to Tatiana Prozorova. Two Belgians at the same tournament, two very different realities: one sweats for nearly three hours and goes home, the other is in the quarters without breaking a sweat. In football, they’d call that a goal without touching the ball. Here, they call it the rulebook.
Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: 7sur7.
