The players in Bad Homburg had an extra opponent this year – the heat. As Europe sweltered, temperatures in the spa town, 14 kilometres north of central Frankfurt, were in the 30s all week, often at the high end.
The conditions made predicting the likely winners of matches more difficult. Former champions Kateřina Siniaková (2023) and Diana Shnaider (2024) both went out in the first round. Siniaková was defeated by Liudmila Samsonova, 6-3, 7-5, while 7th seed Shnaider lost to unseeded Clara Tauson, 4 and 4.
Having received a bye into the second round, the top two seeds lost their first matches, appearing heat-affected. No. 1 seed Iga Świątek was beaten by Emma Navarro, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, while No. 2 and reigning Roland-Garros champion Mirra Andreeva was ousted 6-4, 6-3, by Ekaterina Alexandrova. Both the victorious players were unseeded.
So the field opened up for whichever player could best survive the heat.
Despite the temperature challenges, the tournament presented some outstanding matches.
Eighth seed Elina Svitolina suffered in her match against Liudmila Samsonova, who was running her back and forth across the baseline and dropshotting whenever possible. Somehow, with heat exhaustion and a sore hip, Svitolina recovered from 0-2 down in the second set to win the next six games and the match. Unfortunately, her hip injury worsened the following day and she was forced to give Wang Xinyu a walkover for their quarterfinal.
Wild card Venus Williams battled for three minutes shy of three hours against Romanian qualifier Irina-Camelia Begu. The 46 year old American tired towards the end of the demanding match, and was unable to convert a match point in the tiebreak. Between them, the players contested 26 break points. Their suspenseful tussle ended 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(6) in favour of Begu.
But the longest match this year, and indeed in the tournament’s history, was Katie Boulter versus Leylah Fernandez. During the three hours and 12 minutes of their first round meeting, there were 34 deuces (though none in the second set). The third game of the third set alone had 14 deuces before Boulter broke to go ahead 2-1. In total there were 13 breaks of serve in a scoreline of 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3 to Fernandez.
One player who coped well with the heat was 6th seed Naomi Osaka. As she said, “I grew up in Florida so I’m kind of used to it.”
For the Bad Homburg Open, she wore the same clay brown and glimmering gold dress that Nike had designed for her Roland-Garros campaign.
Some fans jested that perhaps she could have worn a sparkly green dress to honour Bad Homburg’s grass courts. But her outfit turned out to be less than suitable for another reason.
“It’s kind of funny,” Osaka said, “Like, I’ve had to go get the towels more than normal because my dress, it doesn’t absorb a lot of sweat. I find myself to be, like, pretty damp.”
Any wardrobe discomfort did not affect her play as she raced out of the blocks in her early matches. Playing Magdalena Fręch she sprinted to 5-0 before leading 5-4 when the match was suspended due to lightning in the region.
At the resumption of play the next day, Osaka won the first six games, taking the first set 6-4, then stretching her lead to 5-0 in the second and finishing at 6-1.
Elise Mertens also watched as Osaka went out to 5-0 before settling the first set 6-3. The next set also ended at 6-3 as Osaka won the last eight points of the match.
Against Alexandrova, Osaka made a more modest 3-0 start. But she was Precision Plus and it was all over in 59 minutes at 6-2, 6-2.
Having skipped the quarterfinals, it was a fresh Wang Xinyu who put applied the brakes to Osaka’s runaway starts. Their semi was on serve at 3-2 when Osaka made her move and broke, before stretching her lead to 6-3. The second set had the same result and the match concluded in 69 minutes.
To this point of the tournament, Osaka was averaging over seven aces in straight set matches, and also returning so well that her opponents had little influence over the play.
“When I think of grass, it’s very important, the first ball. I try to put a lot of emphasis on my serves and my returns because, other than that, there’s not much that I can control.”
So Osaka arrived in her first grass court final to face 4th seed Karolína Muchová, also in her first grass court final. For Osaka, a win would mean her first title in five years.
By the time of the quarter finals, they were the only seeded players remaining.
After a first round bye, Muchová breezed past Begu for the loss of just two games before a tougher match against Tauson, who started brilliantly but faded from the heat to go down 6-1, 2-6, 4-6.
In a rare year free of serious injury for her, Bad Homburg became Muchová’s fifth semi final appearance, after Brisbane, Miami, Stuttgart, and the WTA 1000 in Doha, which she went on to win.
The heat was so stifling during the contest between her and surprise semi finalist Elena-Gabriela Ruse, that play was suspended for over 90 minutes.
It was the hottest day on record in Germany at 41.3°C and reached 39° in Bad Homburg.
When the match eventually restarted after its siesta, Muchová won 6-4, 6-4.
Afterwards, she remarked, “I don’t know what is happening here in Bad Homburg, this weather’s crazy.” She revealed that during the suspension, “Me and my team, we went to the village and had an Aperol Spritz”.
The final the following day was brought forward two and a half hours to 11.00 am – the temperature was already 33°C – decreasing Muchová’s recovery time after having played the second semi, which also finished late due to the suspension of play.
But she came out in the morning and played a blinder. In the eight games of the truncated final, she hit seven clean forehand winners, six of them down the line, and five on the backhand side.
When Muchová led 3-0, Osaka requested a medical time out and was treated by the tournament doctor for several minutes on the sole of her right foot.
The delay seemed to affect Muchová’s focus and rhythm as she committed two unforced errors into the net when play resumed. But she gathered herself to clinch the game for 4-0.
Osaka then won her first and only game, from 0-30 down, to stall the inevitable. Muchová served out a love game before Osaka lost from deuce on her own serve.
After Muchová won the first game of the next set with yet another forehand winner down the line, Osaka spoke with her box and made the call to retire.
Since she hadn’t seemed particularly hampered by the injury during the match, and had hit five outright winners of her own plus three aces, it seemed to be a mostly precautionary move.
As the winner reminded Osaka during her trophy speech, “We both play on Monday in Wimbledon, so you have exactly one day to recover”.
Later, at her press conference, Osaka was asked when she first noticed the foot injury. She replied, “A couple of days ago but it never got that bad, so it was [up and down]. Today it just kind of kept getting worse and then it got to the point that I didn’t think I could keep playing and obviously she plays really uniquely, so….”
In her speech, Muchová had also acknowledged the extra contribution of her coach. “Thank you, Sven, for keeping me hydrated, keeping me very positive and for saving me steps in the morning to walk in the heat for a coffee, always did a good job and bring it to me…
“For me, it couldn’t have been a better week at here at Bad Homburg. Maybe if it was ten degrees less it could have been better. But I’m so happy to win my first 500 title, first title on the grass…
“I feel like everyone who comes [to watch] this week deserves a medal because it’s been hot like hell. I don’t see any seats empty.”
At the champion’s press conference, Muchová explained her match plan for the final. “I came out today, I wanted to play freely, wanted to hit my shots, not just wait for Naomi, what she’s going to do, because that’s dangerous.
“I didn’t recover much from yesterday so I felt as though I wanted to play fast. I wanted to just focus on myself. Overall today, I think I did that pretty well. I felt good from the first ball to the last one.”
While acknowledging that it may be more satisfying to win a final with a match point, Muchová said, “I’m still very happy with the win”.
Title photo by Bad Homburg Open
Update – Wimbledon
Karolína Muchová and Naomi Osaka played each other again ten days later in the quarter finals of Wimbledon.
Muchová backed up her win in Bad Homburg with a 7-6(4), 6-4 scoreline against Osaka at Wimbledon. She served consecutive aces to seal the victory.