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The Team Cornet vs. Team Maria tussle at the French Open is even more dramatic than the tennis
PARIS – Stan Wawrinka and Nick Kyrgios – remember last summer, in Montreal? – have nothing on Team Maria and Team Cornet at this year’s French Open.
But Tatjana Maria, a 28-year-old German pro who took time away to have daughter Charlotte, now 2 1/2, and has reached her best rankings in singles and doubles since her return, may take her issue to the courts.
Maria and Alizé Cornet squared off Thursday in the second round of the women’s singles when Cornet, a Frenchwoman better known for her dramatics than her tennis in many quarters, cramped in her right leg in the middle of the second set. She benefited from multiple treatments on changeovers in the third set for a what she said was a left hip problem, even though she had clearly been cramping in her right leg. By some miracle – she said the energy of the crowd transported her – recovered enough to defeat Maria in three sets.
The German was not happy about any of it.
The match was on Court No. 2, where the support groups for the players sit right next to each other. During the match, According to the French sports newspaper L’Équipe, Cornet’s brother/agent Sébastien Cornet and Maria’s husband/coach Charles Maria (also a Frenchman) reportedly got into it with Cornet accusing Maria of coaching, and Maria complaining about the number of times Cornet went over the prescribed 20 seconds between points as she agonized over the pain on court.
According to the Tennis Channel’s Jon Wertheim, the hostilities continued outside the players’ lounge after the match.
Friday morning, Maria and her husband spoke to a lawyer. “It was the first thing that we did, and now let’s see. Maybe (take action) against the tournament, the ITF or the WTA, I have no idea exactly what is the thing, but there’s a rule,” Maria said after a win in doubles with American Madison Brengle Friday against – and you can’t make this stuff up – Cornet and her partner Paula Kania of Poland. She wanted to emphasize that it wasn't because of the loss of the match, which she accepts.
“The thing was that it was clear in one point, especially at 2-1 (in the third set) for me – for a lot of people – she had a cramp, and she couldn’t move. The rule is you cannot be treated (for) cramps. Maybe it’s hard, but in this moment I didn’t understand why everybody was running on the court to help her. That’s not the rule,” Maria said. “I understand that when you are a physio or outside (the court) and you see the player cramping, and she cannot move any more, it’s hard to stay outside and not do anything. I don’t know who did this rule, but this rule exists. You have to accept it. You cannot run on the court and you cannot help in this moment.”
Maria’s issue, is should be noted, is with the officials and not with Cornet herself – despite her drama – although she’s hardly a dues-paying member of the Alizé Cornet fan club.
“She is like this. For sure we will not be good friends, we will not sit and drink a coffee together. She’s that person,” said Maria, who added she got “so many” messages from other players that said they’d had a similar experience with the dramatic Frenchwoman.
“Everybody, even players – today, I don’t know, more than 100 players came to me and said they are behind me. It was amazing what she did and how she behaved. Even the French people wrote me, they are sorry for the behaviour.”
There are plenty of examples of this. There's this. And this, almost exactly a year ago.
The scene was pretty chaotic; during the injury break, the ballkids were searching for a missing ball – which turned out to be lodged in a ball pocket in Cornet’s shorts. The crowd was booing the German player every time she made any kind of move – especially on the drop shots she tried to test Cornet’s movement. There was so much noise that Cornet said she had trouble communicating with the physio when she tried to explain her multiple injuries.
Maria’s husband went to the referee’s office after the match, and they told him they were going to look into it. “They have to look at the video, ask the referee, ask the physio, I think it takes a little bit of time also,” Maria said, adding that she was trying to focus amid all the chaos during the match and decided not to get into it with chair umpire Tamara Vrhovec, an ITF silver badge umpire who has worked many big matches in her career.
Technically, Cornet would be allowed that many treatments – but only if she had more than one injury. For the same injury, according to the ITF rules, if the initial evaluation determines it to be cramping (or loss of conditioning) the player can be treated twice on changes of ends, but are not allowed to have an official medical timeout.
It must be said, this is an impressive effort from a cramping player.
Check out the Twitter feed of former USTA official Victoria Chiesa, who broke down the rules, the visits and the technicalities and concludes that what Cornet did, and the umpire allowed, fell within the rules even if Vrhovec could have been stricter on enforcing the time between points.
Neither Cornet nor Maria seemed to be 100 per cent sure about the cramping rules; Cornet said after the match that because she “knew” the rule about “not being allowed to have a cramp treated,” she did not have it treated. Instead, she had work on a muscle pull in her left hip.
After the match Thursday, Cornet said her right leg felt like it was made of wood
“When (the physio) came at the end of the set for the cramp, I told her that she also had to look at my left leg because I had pain. But by the time we talked about it, the changeover was over. She told me, “I’ll come back for your left leg in three games,” Cornet recalled. “And during those three games, I cramped like crazy! She came for my left leg even though I wanted only one thing, for her to rub my very painful (right) leg.”
Cornet played the hard-done-by innocent in the aftermath of this. After she pulled out the victory, she fell to the clay as though she had just won the entire tournament, as Maria headed over to her chair to pack her things.
Finally, after pointing to her heart she returned to the net and after a brief handshake, Maria told her she didn’t think she had been “fair play.”
“You, neither,” was the response from Cornet, as Maria recalled it.
It was a little dramatic, to say the least.
It's unclear exactly what Maria hopes will come of this; certainly the result of the match won't be reversed. But it's also true that tennis players tend to do as they're told and whenever there are flagrant mistakes by officials – they're human, just like the rest of us – they typically just sit back and take it. Perhaps she feels it's time to stand up.
It's hardly the first time a cramping situation has been poorly handled. Look at the case of Shuai Peng and Caroline Wozniacki two years ago.
“As players, we have rules on the tennis court, outside of the tennis courts, and we have to accept these rules: to enter tournaments, to behave on the court, certain things. If we are not doing this, we get a fine, we have to pay for this. (But) on the other side, when (the officials) make a mistake, nothing happens,” Maria said of the officials. “Maybe nothing will happen, I don’t know. But on one point we should try. It was on TV, this match, you can check everything, so I think that’s why I would like to do this.”
