Roland Media Day 12: The Symptoms of Celebration

Roland Garros is your French Open recap with all most interesting, entertaining and fun moments of the day.

Serena Williams’ Big Struggle

The top seed has had a pretty rough couple of days and earlier this morning she was coughing heavily — clearly under the weather already in practice.

Croft’s impression of Williams’ practice was certainly confirmed during large swaths of her semifinal, where a clearly unwell World No. 1 dragged herself about between points and descended into coughing fits on change-overs. Timea Bacsinszky made life particularly difficult for the American in the first set and a half, as well. It wasn’t just the Swiss’ signature backhands and drop shots that did the damage but her forehand was pretty dialled in, as well.

Bacsinszky broke to lead 3-2 in the second set but from there, started to fade. Somehow, from somewhere, Williams found another gear even in sickness — which led to a number of very suspicious and cagey comments.

After reeling off the final 10 games of the match, Williams headed back into a corridor and hugged her coach Patrick Mouratoglou — her exhaustion entirely evident.

Lucie Safarova’s Big Success

The Czech soon-to-be Top10er fought her way through two tight sets against 2008 Roland Garros Champion Ana Ivanovic. The Serb lead 5-2 in the opening set, but Safarova came storming back to take final five games and wrest the lead.

In the second set, Safarova had a chance to serve for the match at 5-4, but nerves started to creep into her game, with her serve letting her down a number of times. Ultimately, Ivanovic wasn’t able to exploit her opponent’s blinks — she’ll be ruing the middle stretch of the match when the lefty won 10 of 13 games as the Serb’s racquet continued leaking errors.

After another forehand winner on match point, Safarova laid down on the Parisian clay that has  yielded so much success for her this fortnight.

And the celebrations continued in the corridors with her coach Rob Steckley and doubles partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands:

Bethanie Mattek-Sands Mixes it Up

Speaking of Mattek-Sands: The 30-year-old had even reason to celebrate mere hours later alongside Mike Bryan. The two Americans signed for mixed doubles ten minutes before the deadline — and now they’ve lifted the trophy, beating Lucie Hradecka and Marcin Matkowski, 7-6, 6-1.

The title makes it Bryans’ 20th Grand Slam title and Mattek-Sands’ third, her second this year.

What was your favorite media moment of Day 12? Sound off in the comments!