Will the summer hit also be the fall one?
The record has scratched a bit in recent weeks.
Entry exit curtly in the first round of the WTA 500 tournament in San Diego by the finalist of the last Australian Open Danielle Collins 6-2, 7-6 (7-4), the French number one had also lost entered Tokyo in September against the Chinese Shuai Zhang, in three sets 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5).
The most successful player on the circuit this summer with no less than three titles (Bad Hombourg, Warsaw and Cincinnati) and 31 victories in 36 matches between her coronation in Germany and her defeat in the semi-finals of the US Open, nevertheless remains very well. placed in the final sprint to win her sesame for a second participation in the Masters after the 2017 edition where she had reached the semi-finals.
It is the Guadalajara tournament, disputed from Monday which acts as justice of the peace.
17 players from the Top 20 will be in Mexico where the stakes will be high in this Masters 1000 which distributes many points.
And according to the WTA website, they are no less than… 17 players who can mathematically still hope to qualify.
17 players for five places to distribute for a tournament which will pit the eight best players of the year against each other.
Three of them are already secured their place.
The undisputed world number one Iga Swiatek, his runner-up Ons Jabeur, double Grand Slam finalist this season (Wimbledon and US Open) and Jessica Pegula who validated her ticket this week in San Diego.
Coco Gauff is almost there.
Caroline Garcia too.
The Lyonnaise, who celebrated her 29th birthday on Sunday, is currently in 6th place in the Race standings, which takes into account points over the course of the year and not compared to the previous year as does the WTA ranking.
In San Diego, she was overtaken by Aryna Sabalenka but still has a 290-point lead over Russian Veronika Kudermetova, who recently injured her shoulder and was the last player to qualify virtually.
The most threatening player for the French remains the Greek Maria Sakkari who is 359 points behind her.
Simona Halep, 8th, who ended her season, is out of the race.
In short, barring a very unfortunate combination of circumstances, Garcia has a foot and a half in Texas.
It remains to find the way to victory, at least in one match, to definitively validate its qualification and end in the best possible way a 2022 season so badly started.
The 10th in the world found this flamboyant tennis that suits her so well in the middle of the summer.
She's come a long way.
Falling back in the spring to 75th place, she was still walking with crutches in March due to a foot injury (tear of the aponeurosis).
“
We had to rebuild ourselves little by little.
Every time I entered the court, I started to jump, I was still in pain.
I couldn't accept it anymore.
After ten minutes, I started to cry,
she confided to the Team.
I couldn't take this permanent pain any longer.
The worst is the pain.
It's living with that exhausts.
You tell yourself that you are not going to make it, which was not obvious from the outside because I managed to make matches, like in Lyon,
My relatives saw my distress and that's when they decided to treat me to come back when I would be able to do something.
“Good foot, good eye, she has since proven that she has become a top player again.
Confirmation expected at the end of the season.
