!Pic2by Pete Bodo
Well, another French Open has come and gone at Roland Garros.
What? You say we're just getting to the good bits? Clearly you misunderstand. Another "French" Open is over, as all the home-grown, warm bodies that started the tournament now lie cold, strewn throughout the draw. But at least it ended with a bang in the men's quarterfinals, with that painful five-set loss by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to top-seeded Novak Djokovic.
The interest in when the French are finally going to make the biggest statement of all at their home tournament is not exclusively a Gallic or chauvinistic inquiry. Heck, I'm about as French as a haggis, and even I care. Sort of. I'm curious because the French have produced so many fine players in recent years, yet their performance at Roland Garros has remained, with a few exceptions, anywhere between disappointing and dismal.
The last Frenchman to win the tournament was Yannick Noah. He pulled that one off shortly before he built his ark, in 1983. He later became a pop star, but there's been little "pop" in the French game since then. The last Frenchman to make the French Open final was Henri Leconte, in 1988. He was a crazy dude with a crazy game that went off like a bottle rocket. Leconte got exactly eight games off conservative Mats Wilander, so by some measure Tsonga—who had four match points against the superb Djokovic and could only really be blamed for choking on one of them—represents a significant evolutionary step for France.
But let's forget about Tsonga for now.
The women haven't fared much better than the men in recent years, although Marion Bartoli kindled some hopes with that entertaining run to the semifinals last year. I'm thinking that she awoke the morning of her second-round match this year with Petra Martic, remembered that she was the No. 8 seed and also French, and down she went.
The last French woman to win Roland Garros was Mary Pierce, although you could probably find a lot more "Frenchness" in Belgium's Justine Henin than in Pierce, whose father was American and who was born and raised in Montreal. Think of her as the Greg Rusdeski of the French Open. It isn't just smoked cod that our friendly neighbors north of Buffalo, N.Y. import to Europe.
The French woman who best represents the nation's dilemma has been Amelie Mauresmo. She's like the Pieta of the French lost cause. She's a former No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion heading for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, yet her two best performances were quarterfinal appearances in 2003 and '04—well before she really hit her stride as a top player.
If Mauresmo were, say, a Scottish lass who fared so poorly at Wimbledon, she'd be ground up and turned into. . . haggis (there's that word again!). But in France, I suspect, she's celebrated for her "complicated Frenchness," or something like that. In any event, only Australia's Sam Stosur is on track to match Mauresmo for futility at one's home Grand Slam.
As has sometimes happened in years past, the French came roaring out of the gates this year. Virginie Razzano fanned the flames of hope with that stunning, courageous, three-set upset of Serena Williams—the only first-round loss at a Grand Slam in the American's career thus far. But Razzano was gone by the end of the next round, losing to Arantxa Rus.
The French had women named Pavlovic, Johannson, Mladenovic, and Garcia in the draw. I know that players known as "ringers" (in the playground patois) have become a common fixture in every tennis-rich nation, including my own, but only one (Johannson) got as far as the third round. Clearly, these women are being assimilated a little too successfully. And you know the French are really in deep trouble when even the American women do better in Paris, as was the case this year.
Getting back to the men. Isn't it almost eerie how consistently Richard Gasquet can build up his fans' hopes, only to crush them in a performance that can often be characterized by the unpleasant noun, "gutless?" I knew Gasquet was in trouble when he came off after a routine, four-set, second-round win over Grigor Dimitrov complaining about how "tired" he felt. You would have thought he'd just gone 18-16 in the fifth with John Isner, as would his countryman Paul-Henri Mathieu. Did I mention that one of the reasons Gasquet won was because Dimitrov was cramping during the key moment in the match?
Anyway. . . Gasquet left the tournament kvetching about how "lucky" Andy Murray was in his demolition of Gasquet in the fouth round. All you can do is shake your head. It's tough to be French.
At least this year, Gael Monfils ducked the scythe of fate; he missed the tournament with injury. This deprived the event of one of the few French players who seems able to handle the identity politics of the tournament, even if his basic game plan (stay 20 feet behind the baseline and look great sprinting for drop shots or spectacular, sliding off-the-TV-screen retrieves) is dazzlingly contrary to everything that winning tennis is about these days.
The fourth member of France's Big Four—Tsonga, Monfils, Gasquet, and last but not least, Gilles Simon—also disappointed. Seeded 11th, Simon knocked out a pair of Americans, Ryan Harrison and Brian Baker, but he ran afoul of Stan Wawrinka, who was seeded considerably lower (No. 18) and collapsed beneath various pressures in the third round.
