Weekend Tennis Roundup

Ashleigh Barty won her first Grand Slam title over the weekend, beating Marketa Vondrousova 6-1, 6-3 to become first Aussie champ at Roland Garros since 1973. (She'll now rise to No. 2 in the WTA ranking.)

That she mouthed "what the f**k" after match point was pretty tacky -- does everyone under 30 only speak in text-message abbreviations and emojis? -- but that she joined Evonne Goolagong on the list of Aboriginal tennis champions helped me get over it! As for Vondrousova, it was exactly what should have happened -- she had a Cinderella run to a major final! -- and is what should have happened two years ago when Simona Halep refused to put Jelena Ostapenko away. In a strange way, it almost feels like Latvian's career was sidetracked by reaching the pinnacle so quickly.

And then in a surprise to no one, Rafael Nadal captured his record 12th title in Paris. Perhaps the only upside to the butt-picking OCD poster boy's win is that while Serena Williams did not catch up to Margaret Court's all-time majors feat, Nadal now surpassed Court's 11 of any one major record. Hers, of course, being the Aussie Open, which wasn't even a full-fledged tournament many of the years she won it, but still. No one can ever say she was "the greatest" at any one major again.

Poor Dominic Thiem joins a long list of players unfortunate enough to have competed during the era of  Nadal, Djokovic and Federer, who is now in very serious danger of losing his majors record as the Spaniard is now just two away but five years younger than the Swiss.

Movers ...

(With wire services)

Weekend Tennis Roundup

I don't know about you, but I sure found myself more interested in what was going on off the court than on these past two weeks in Miami. As you know, Roger Federer beat John Isner 6-1, 6-4 to take his fourth tournament title and No. 101 in his storied career. (I'm never sad to see Roger win knowing how much it would make my brother Bill happy.) 

And rising star Ash Barty was nearly flawless in her 7-6(1), 6-3 dismantling of Karolina Pliskova. But while the lack of dominance on both sides of the game this year should spice it up a bit, it's kind of having the opposite effect on me ... like no one can build any actual momentum. No sooner did Dominic Thiem win his first Masters 1000 in Indian Wells did he turn around and lose to Hubert Hurkacz in the Austrian's first match here.

And Novak Djokovic is either having another extramarital affair, or has officially turned into Serena "I only care about the majors" Williams, losing in the round of 16 to his new nemesis(!) Roberto Bautista Agut. True, Felix Auger-Aliassime started to capitalize on his great promise, knocking out Fucsovics, Basilashvili and Coric en route to the semis. But how much do you want to bet he'll lose in the first round of his next event? 

And don't even get me started about the women, where 14 different women have won the tour's first 14 events this year. 

Notice four of the Top 10 -- Halep, Kerber, Svtiolina and Stephens -- are not even on this list, and Barty only entered it after winning Miami, which makes it 50%. And the person who was closest to becoming a repeat winner (albeit in less-competitive events) was Kenin. But no sooner did she have her breakthrough in Hobart did she collapse to a wild card in the final of Acapulco. Sigh. (Fittingly, Kenin lost to upstart Bianca Andreescu in her first match. Then Andreescu -- who positively isn't a drama queen -- had to retire against Kontaveit after knocking out Kerber for the second time in as many weeks. Sigh again.

So my eyes wandered ...

Halep came up short once again -- but made up for it in her box here.

 I wasn't positive, but I think this hunk was cheering on the very tall Riley Opelka, who came up a little short against Medvedev.

Damian doesn't like Janko Tipsarevic because he's a homophobic misogynist. I'm a little more forgiving ...

Tipso was there to cheer on fellow Yugoslavian Filip Krajinovic, who had a nice run before coming up short versus Federer.

Krajinovic upset Wawrinka for the Swiss's 34 birthday -- thanks!

Borna didn't seem that upset about losing to an 18-year-old ...

Sexy John Millman found time to head home to Australia before coming back to compete in Miami.

But a third-set tiebreak loss to Federico Delbonis probably has him wishing he'd stayed put.

Russians may be horrible people. But their magazine editors are smart enough to put Karen Khachanov out front ...

Here's Roger with tournament director James Blake, who Pam Shriver astutely pointed out had followed Tommy Haas into the role with zero experience. Will we be seeing former WTA players running events soon, too?