Those Tiny Margins Made a Classic French Open

The French Open ended in the customary 21st-century fashion Sunday, with Rafael Nadal wearing down Roger Federer. But the tournament that preceded it was full of surprises and reminders that tiny margins can make a huge difference.

Consider the craziest carnival ride of all: the fourth-round men’s match between Fabio Fognini and Albert Montañés. Fognini injured himself in the fifth set but still managed to hit enough outrageous shots on one leg to save five match points, the last with a backhand drop shot that clipped the net and dropped over for a winner.

Fognini won the match but was then unable to play against Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, giving Djokovic a long, unusual break from competition in the middle of the tournament that certainly looked like it played a role in popping the Serb’s bubble.

Perhaps Federer, clearly inspired, would have beaten Djokovic anyway in their semifinal, which ranks as the match of the year (so far). And perhaps Federer would have given his clay-court master Nadal much more than usual to worry about if he had converted his own backhand drop shot on set point in the opening set. Instead, it landed just wide and Nadal, so uptight in Paris this year, could breathe quite a bit easier.

Tiny margins indeed: like the call that came late in the second set of the women’s final between Li Na and Francesca Schiavone. Li was showing the first structural signs of cracking, and her shot at deuce and 5-6 was called out but then overruled by the chair umpire, Louise Engzell. Schiavone argued that Engzell was pointing to the wrong ball mark on the clay and television replays relying on electronic line calling technology appeared to indicate that Schiavone was correct.

But unlike the three other Grand Slam tournaments, Roland Garros continues to rely uniquely on human judgment. The call stood. There would be no set point for Schiavone, and the flustered Italian failed to win so much as another point as Li closed out her victory in straight sets.

Of such details are watershed tennis events made, and Li’s unexpected triumph was unquestionably a watershed.

The first modern-day Chinese player to emerge at a high level was Hu Na, who defected to the United States in 1982. She eventually played in all the Grand Slam events and caused a minor sensation by reaching the third round at Wimbledon in 1985.

But tennis’s reintegration into the Olympics in 1988 increased official interest in the sport in China, and the tennis world has been bracing in earnest for China’s rise since Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won a surprise gold medal in women’s doubles at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Li had just returned to the circuit at that stage after a two-year break to attend university. Seven years later, “Madame Li” — as the chair umpires referred to her in Paris — became China’s first Grand Slam singles champion and the latest example of sporting globalization.

“I like her maturity, I like her independence, her personality,” said Stacey Allaster, the Canadian who is head of the Women’s Tennis Association. “She’s a great person to now be front and center as the Chinese face for women’s tennis. What I really see today is the inspiration and the confidence that this will give the current generation who are training to play on these stages. They are going to be out hitting the courts, dreaming that they can be the next Li Na.”

The W.T.A. has its primary Asian office in Beijing, as well as one of its four highest-level mandatory tournaments. That event, staged at the 2008 Olympic complex, will open a new, 15,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof later this year. For now, the only other W.T.A. event in China is a low-level tournament in Guangzhou, but Allaster said the W.T.A. was in negotiations to stage another event in the southern resort city of Sanya. She is also optimistic about the prospect of the large Chinese diaspora raising attendance at W.T.A. events worldwide as a strain of Li-mania takes hold.
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