Freeze frames from the French Open

Sergiy Stakhovsky walks over to his chair, whips out a mobile phone, and proceeds to photograph a ball mark close to the lines, as dispassionately as a forensics expert at a crime scene.

This summed up the French Open for me, from an officiating perspective. From disgraceful howlers to too-close-to-call marks, from vigorous pleas for removing particular linesmen to impassioned debates on a ruling’s validity, the tournament had it all. The performances of the linesmen were consistently sub-par throughout, and only served to bring the Hawkeye clay debate firmly into the spotlight. For his personal contribution, Stakhovsky was fined $2000.

Serena Williams accepts her trophy with a speech in French. Halfway through, she turns to her family and support staff, and acknowledges them in her monologue. As the French crowd cheers, a confused Oracene Williams gestures a hilarious ‘Huh?’ at Serena.

Serena Williams won the title as she had always threatened to, and proceeded to give an acceptance speech entirely in French as she had always threatened to. She has a home in Paris and had been diligently learning the language, and you could see that by speaking to the crowd in their tongue, she was intent on proving a point to herself. As she brazened her way through the speech, I could feel the same aspect of her personality coming through as when she winds up on a ferocious forehand with the pressure on her in a rally. The Williams streak consists of an unshakeable, to the extent of unnerving, belief that she can achieve absolutely whatever she puts her mind to.

Richard Gasquet sends a backhand crosscourt return directed at an impossible angle across the lengthening shadows of Court Suzanne Lenglen. It seems for all accounts to be a winner till Stan Wawrinka hustles around to it, and sends a backhand down-the-line scorcher, leaving Gasquet stranded.

This wasn’t as much about the savage beauty of the particular rally, as it was about the entire series of enthralling exchanges from two stroke-making geniuses, fighting tooth-and-nail. For that brief period in the fourth set, the level of play reached ridiculously high levels, with both players going for broke on every single shot they played, and almost all of them coming off as well. It didn’t hurt that the primary weapon of choice for both of them was the delightful single-handed backhand.