When the line judge’s shout sounds on match point, Jesper de Jong falls to his knees, with his hands in front of his face. His Russian opponent, Karen Khachanov, wants the umpire to be sure that the ball is really out of bounds, but the line judge agrees. It’s true: lucky loser Jesper de Jong has eliminated the number fifteen in the world in a thriller of five sets and more than four hours and advances to the fourth round of Roland Garros. Never before has he advanced beyond the second round at a Grand Slam tournament.
De Jong starts the match with an ace. It is immediately clear that he is playing with confidence. There is variation in his game, he makes few mistakes and serves strongly. He does the latter for most of the match. He hits seventeen aces – two more than his opponent, who is usually known as a good server – and wins 81 percent of his first serves.
The first set goes evenly, but at 6-5 De Jong strikes in Khachanov’s service game. He is helped by the Russian, who makes three errors in a row. De Jong loses the first set point, with an easily missed return. But instead of it discouraging him, he’s back at it the next point. He will get the point himself, the set win is fully deserved.
‘To breathe’
He soon finds it difficult at the beginning of the second set, but his coaches pull him through. “Class, boy!” sounds from the players’ box. And: “Breathe!” In the press conference, De Jong says that he hired a breathing coach and a mental coach earlier this season. “Sometimes my breathing was inexplicably high. We found out what we can do about it, and, for example, how I can not get annoyed by the audience.”
He survives the game, but at the end of the set things go wrong. The service runs a bit slower, partly thanks to a double fault, he eventually loses the game, and a little later also the set.
It says a lot about the mental resilience of the 26-year-old man from Alkmaar that he continues to play at a high level the following set and does not immediately get into trouble on his own serve. In fact, halfway through the set he breaks the Russian’s serve again. Two games later he does it again. Khachanov no longer looks very fresh at that moment.
Naturally, there are mainly Dutch encouragements for De Jong, but every now and then an ‘Alleeez, Zjespèèr’ goes up from the audience. The atmosphere is good, the fans sympathize with every point.
De Jong looks set to finish the match in four sets. He is clearly the fitter of the two and again quickly takes a break lead. But when he has to serve for the set, things go wrong. “I was a bit nervous then,” he says in his press conference. “But that’s part of it, I’ve tried to embrace it.”
At 6-5, on Khachanov’s serve, he gets two chances to finish the match, but if he doesn’t take them, the momentum shifts to the Russian, who wins the tiebreak.
To the toilet
De Jong leaves the track for a few minutes to go to the toilet. “I finally won the match in that dressing room,” he says later. He is proud of how he has remained mentally strong and calm. “In the dressing room you have a booth where you can just sit for a while. I shout to myself a few times, and then it’s over.”
No way am I going to lose this match
You really have to pee, he explains, otherwise you will get a warning. “But the main thing is that you just have to yourself for a while. You have to use the rules that are there.”
“There’s no way I’m going to lose this match,” he says to himself, before he goes back on the track. And that’s how he plays: as if he won’t let this slip out of his hands. De Jong soon takes a 4-0 lead.
The public is becoming more and more sympathetic. “Bam!” sounds from the stands when De Jong wins a point with a volley. A sigh of horror when a double fault follows not much later. The man from Alkmaar will also play more with the audience. With a finger behind his ear he asks for even more cheering. The fans obey; they enjoy this.
It becomes exciting again for a moment when Khachanov comes back to 4-2, but De Jong is now in control of the nerves. Once again he breaks through the serve of the tall Russian, and he no longer gives away this double break lead. He wins the marathon match 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, 6-7, 6-2. He celebrates extensively and exuberantly, the stands cheer with him. They were treated to four hours and nineteen minutes of fantastic tennis.
“I told my coach: I can still play a set,” he said afterwards, to reassure the journalists in the conference room about his physical condition. But the next sets he plays will be on Sunday. “I love this big stage and the battle.”
On Sunday, De Jong can fight again in the fourth round of the tournament. It is not yet certain against whom: world number three Alexander Zverev, or his opponent Quentin Halys.