PARIS—This morning, I took a walk out to Court 17, and not for purely professional reasons. Sixteen year-old Stefan Kozlov, the last American male left in any draw, was playing the boy seeded two spots above him at No. 4 in the quarterfinals of the junior event, Andrey Rublev.
But I was also going out to the Court 17 because, while it may be the court furthest from the mythic Court Philippe Chatrier, it’s also one of the prettiest at Roland Garros.
Kozlov and Rublev, who are also doubles partners in big junior events, were deep into the first set by the time I got there. Court 17 has a pastoral atmosphere. The west side and north end are surrounded and, in the case of the wall behind the baseline, overwhelmed by flora.
Between the Austrian pines, birches, and various dense shrubs, I counted seven different shades of green. The best part, though, is the way the electronic scoreboard is placed catty corner in the northwest corner, where it’s utterly surrounded and infringed upon by brush that ripples and undulates in the breeze, creating a somewhat surreal landscape—a Magritte painting, or something like that.
But I also was there to take in some junior tennis, which I enjoy doing at these big events.
It’s not like junior matches on other back courts are packed to the gills with fans. The reality is that it’s a good day (or match) when more than a hundred fans watch even a bit of any given junior tussle. And in most cases, half the spectators aren’t fans at all, but somehow associated with either of the two players. They are family members and coaches, agents, clothing company reps, fellow juniors, or secret spies from other camps. Once you pick out this one as the coach and that one as the mom, you feel kind of like an insider even if you’re not a journalist.