Today we have an on-site report from the Paris Masters by Troy Venechanos, who served as an intern at TENNIS Magazine this summer and who is now on a whirlwind indoor-tennis tour of Europe.
Hi Steve,
Halloween in Europe is not a big deal. While it's still catching on and growing in popularity, if you showed a Frenchman a jack-o-lantern he would just scratch his head and mutter something about useless hollowed-out gourds. Of course, this didn't stop Novak Djokovic from celebrating All Hallow's Eve. The Serb brought a costume to the Paris Masters. In fact, he brought two. His first was a Batman mask he wore while walking onto Center Court, much to the delight of the crowd. The second was a slightly more convincing costume - 'a winning tennis player.' He took off his Batman mask shortly after his entrance and his 'winning player' get-up went right with it.
His match with Fabrice Santoro was a struggle from the start. After a few holds from both players, Santoro soon reached 5-3. By the this point, the crowd lost it. A point could not be played without at least an overture of "FABRI!"'s and a crescendo of "ALLEZZZ!"'s. The 34-year-old, pastel-clad French veteran is a rock star on his home turf. The deafening Francophone crowd may have also blinded Djokovic. Santoro would win not only the first set but the first four games of the second. Djokovic was completely stripped of his costume, and his blatant inability to get to seemingly routine shots was obvious to everyone. You know you're done when the kids start lining up for autographs at 4-0 (even though you're the third seed).
After the match Djokovic admitted he was not anywhere near his best. "Unfortunately I couldn't give 100 percent, not even 30 percent of my abilities," he said.
He attributed his lackluster play to the surgery on his wisdom teeth that he underwent after the Madrid Masters two weeks ago. He said, "I'm not trying to find any excuses, but we have to consider that I had the surgery after Madrid of my wisdom. I put away both of them, so I'm still on these medications."
Against Djokovic, Santoro surprised even himself. "I had doubts until the end. I was not sure. He's Top 3. I was expecting a reaction," he said. But that reaction never came and Djokovic will go into to Shanghai with little momentum .
One would assume he would focus on being match tough for the year-end championship. But gaining back the weight he lost after surgery was at the top of his priority list. "I'm going to try to recover first and have a lot of food because I lost weight even though I don't know what I have to lose, but I lost again. I have to get a couple of kilos more and try to work on my fitness slowly but a bit harder," he expalined. Santoro has more to worry about than just gaining weight.
It was obvious the crowd would pull for the evergreen Frenchman against Djokovic, but I was curious to see who they pulled for in the Gasquet - Tsonga match. My experience attending the Lyon event last week taught me that while Gasquet is the country's top prospect, he's far from the most popular or endearing figure. I believe the exact wording a French tournament volunteer used was 'not very nice at all.' I also learned in Lyon, where Tsonga was semifinalist, that the French love Tsonga's attitude.
This made me expect a pro-Jo Wilifred crowd, or at least at mixed one. But apparently 'being very nice' is not a priority for Parisians. They went absolutely crazy for Gasquet. There was a reprise of "allez!"'s, but the crowd also gasped at every backhand and marveled at every volley the French number one produced. Of course Tsonga wasn't rooted against, but there was no denying who was the favorite son, and who would get second dibs on the Halloween candy.
As of now (before the Blake/Mahut match) there are three Frenchmen left in the draw. But judging by Gasquet's post-match comments, they aren't quite musketeers. In a somewhat cynical evaluation of his compatriot's victory, Gasquet said: "I don't think Djokovic was at his best today. Well, Fabrice is Fabrice. He's a great player. He's going to win many more matches, but it was not the Djokovic we saw at the US Open."
If Halloween is a day of the surreal, of suspended reality, then maybe Europe did celebrate Halloween today. For the first time in years we had the world's top three at this tournament. And we saw a man dressed as an easter egg take down Batman.
Troy