Sloane Stephens crashed out of the US Open, early on Wednesday, to the 96th ranked Johanna Larsson, 7-5, 4-6 2-6. For the first time in her career she failed to make at least the 3rd round at the US Open.

Her 2014 record in the slams has been poor for her standards, she has made two fourth round appearances, a second round loss here and a first round loss at Wimbledon. Compare this to 2013 where she made semis at the Australian Open, quarters at Wimbledon and two fourth rounds. As a player who is known to perform at the slams, she simply hasn’t performed.

Her opponent, Johanna Larsson is a decent player, reminiscent of Caroline Wozniacki, she played with a defensive mindset and had the ability to track down a lot of balls on court. She possesses a good slice backhand for a double-hander, which gives her excellent variation and allows her to change the ball that her opponent has to hit. However, this blog post will not focus on Johanna Larsson: Sloane Stephens lost this match as opposed to Larsson winning it.

Error after Error

Stephens managed to make 63 unforced errors in this match, an extremely high number, even for a three set match: this directly led to her loss. As an aggressive player who hits the ball hard, a fairly high number of unforced errors in a match would not be catastrophic, Serena Williams often hits a lot of unforced errors. However, these errors came consecutively, Stephens couldn’t string points together which meant that Larsson was un-pressured. They also came on key points, Stephens often made errors on break points or failed to make routine returns which would have allowed her opportunities to break.

Furthermore, the errors were caused by tightness in her arm. Tightness affects Stephens’ strokes (particularly her forehand) because she has long swings. If her arm is tight, she won’t maintain her form and as her swing is long, the opportunity for kinks to affect her swing are maximised. Moreover, because she has an extreme Western grip which she uses to generate huge topspin when she tightens up, she is much more likely to mishit because the Western grip requires impeccable timing.

Mental Instability

In a way, Stephens did well to even win the first set. She broke Larsson as she served for the first set at 5-4 and consequently took the set 7-5. Furthermore, she broke Larsson early in the 2nd set and held twice to give herself a 3-0 lead. Having come through the tight first set and stormed into the lead, one would have expected her to drive home her advantage, it was likely that Larsson would have lost her will to fight.

However, Stephens failed to drive home her advantage, in her own words, she got a little ‘shaky’ and started to spray errors all over the court. She went from being three games away from the third round to winning just one more game in the set. She had done the same in her first round match but had managed to re-group and take the set. In this case, Larsson was just too solid, forcing Stephens to win the points and never giving her free points. This meant that it was on Stephens to turn the set around and she couldn’t.

She even led in the third set, she took a 2-0 lead but lost six games in a row to lose the set and match. It’s difficult to understand how such a talented player who has proven success at grand slam level can play such a poor match, particularly in the mental stakes.

Empty Rhetoric

If you have time, take a look at her press conference (found here). A disinterested and aloof Stephens fails to comment on the match other than saying that ‘I had many opportunities, but just couldn’t convert’ and that her opponent ‘played a good match today, she played really solid.’

She continually repeats the phrase ‘just keep working hard’ and says ‘I’m not going to dwell on this, I’m just going to keep on improving and keep getting better.’ When a reporter asks her how exactly she’s going to keep getting better, she flounders and repeats the same phrases.

Clearly Stephens believes that if she keeps working in practice, she’ll perform better in matches. I imagine that because her partnership with Thomas Hogstedt is still in the early stages, the changes they’ve made to her practices haven’t made themselves evident in matches.

She made two statements which were fairly revealing, saying that she was focusing on trying to ‘just have fun out there on the court’ and  ‘mostly just enjoying myself out there.’ Does this suggest that she hasn’t been enjoying herself recently? Perhaps performing so well in the slams last year has exerted a pressure on Stephens this year, which has lessened her enjoyment of the sport?

It’s also important to note that it’s not just about working hard and the results will happen. Stephens hasn’t been performing in smaller tournaments for many years and now she isn’t performing in the slams. Her performance in slams often redeemed her less than stellar play in small tournaments.

Stephens has to question what’s going on. She’s an immensely talented player, the pop she gets on the ball is incredible and when she plays well, she plays a brand of tennis which is exciting to watch. Her performance on Wednesday raises all sorts of questions about her state of mind and where her game is. Hopefully her optimism for the rest of the season will translate into solid results.