Nine years ago, Caroline Garcia was a 17-year-old upstart, ranked just 188th in the world and playing in her native Grand Slam, the French Open, for the first time.
The wild card entry took the court against the former No. 1 player in the world, Maria Sharapova, in the second round.
The unheralded French teen radiated confidence and rocketed winners from all parts of the court. She raced to a blistering 6–3, 4–1 lead, leaving Sharapova shell-shocked.
Watching on television, one man in particular was hugely impressed. The Scot Andy Murray, a three-time major winner, famously tweeted: “The girl Sharapova is playing is going to be number one in the world one day. caroline garcia, what a player u heard it here first."
I remember watching that French Open match in 2011. I had never heard of Garcia. But I concurred with Murray: It seemed we were witnessing the emergence of a supernova.
Sharapova would eventually turn things around in the match, winning 11 straight games to defeat the French teen. But Garcia had made an indelible impression. She obviously had talent to burn. And it seemed only a matter of time—maybe very little time—before she would become a household name like Sharapova.
That hasn’t exactly panned out.
Garcia has alternately made good on her promise and disappointed. She rose as high as No. 4 in the world in 2018, but now, in what ought to be the prime of her career, she is down to No. 50. Garcia has reached just one Grand Slam quarterfinal, at the 2016 French Open.
Though she initially looked like she was made for the big stage, too often Garcia has succumbed to nerves under the glare of the sport’s brightest lights and biggest tournaments.
On Wednesday afternoon at the 2020 US Open, Garcia toppled the tournament’s top seed, Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, in resounding fashion: 6-1, 7-6. It was the French woman’s first defeat of a Top 10 player in a major.
Garcia has the athletic ability and arsenal of shots to contend for majors. She wallops her topspin forehand. She cracks her two-fisted backhand and takes risks with her high-kicking serve. Garcia has the touch, the confident volleys of an accomplished doubles player, and excellent movement around the court.
In fact, it’s shocking that the offensive-minded Garcia, now 26 years old, had never triumphed over a Top 10 player in a Slam before Wednesday’s upset of Pliskova (and she was only 1-14, previously, against the Top 20).
Garcia has admitted that she felt the pressure of Murray’s prediction, which has perhaps unfairly followed her all these years. It came to feel like a huge weight: the burden of outsize expectations.
“Oh yes, it was terrible. I was only 17. I played a couple of amazing games against Sharapova, but my game and my mind were not ready for such a level,” Garcia told Tennishead.
“After that, I was struggling to get my tennis all together. I was trying to copy the match I played against Sharapova, but it was not a good way. I suddenly had the attention of everyone. It wasn’t as if this was a small thing that he had said.
“It was really too much for me. I just needed some time to work quietly in my corner and do my thing. It was difficult, but it also helped me to learn about some things and maybe it helped me also to manage better the attention I get now.”
It’s not like Garcia has been a complete underachiever. She has won seven singles and six doubles titles—including one major, in doubles, at the French Open in 2016—on the WTA tour. Garcia rose to a ranking of No. 2 in doubles with countrywoman Kristina Mladenovic, but in 2017 she decided to abandon doubles to concentrate on singles.
That year, Garcia had to deal with both back problems—diagnosed as sciatica—and discord with her French Federation teammates and former doubles partner.
“I always felt like Caroline would be a late bloomer because she has an all-court game,” said Chris Evert, the former No. 1, in The New York Times. “But I always saw fear in her eyes. Mentally, she didn’t deal with pressure, I think, as well as the other players.”
In her match against the top-seeded Pliskova, Garcia seemed to feel no pressure. She played boldly, with no hesitation. After streaking to a 6-1 first-set lead, the Frenchwoman served at 4-5 in the second, hoping to avoid going to a decisive third set. Garcia notched the score at 5-all with a wickedly angled, high-kicking ace on the second ball on break point.
Down 0-30 in her next service game, at 5-6 Garcia again found herself in a hole. But once more, two big serves got her out of trouble. Garcia then confidently ran away with the tiebreak to complete the upset.
Perhaps the empty stands of this year’s US Open—Pandemic Edition—suit her. There’s no one to worry about, except herself.
