Only the Brits have the language for what happened in today's second-round French Open match between Sara Errani and No. 5 seed Kiki Bertens: absolute scenes. Any rubbernecker of jacked-up, broken sporting events will find something to gawk at here.
For long stretches, Errani seemed unable to toss the ball into the air to serve it.
When she got over the ball tosses, her first serves were beautiful but errant:
This is what Errani was working with on the second serve later in the match:
Overall, Errani won just six of 34 points on her second serve. She had three opportunities to serve for the match in the third set and squandered all of them. The two players collectively lost 10 straight service games.
Bertens appeared to be suffering out there too—after the match she described waves of cramps in her leg, foot, and hands—but Errani wasn't too sympathetic.
After the victory, Bertens sat in her chair and wept for several minutes, then was removed from the court in a wheelchair. She said she continued to cramp for 45 minutes afterward.
Errani remained a skeptic to the end. "I don't like when somebody is joking on you. She played an amazing match, but I don't like the situation. For one hour she's injured, then she run like never. I don't like that," she said via Sky Sports, though she was more succinct in her native language on her way off the court: Vaffanculo!
