PARIS—Roland Garros is nothing if not unique. Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Aussie Open are all, despite their many obvious differences, Anglo derived. As recently as 1974, all three were played on grass. That leaves the French to represent the Mediterranean world, the clay world—the rest of the world—in the Grand Slam universe.
With that in mind, here’s the first of a series, which I'll call Mise En Scene, to be run every few days while the tournament is going on, which will depict a characteristic scene or two from the French Open.
The match inside Court 1—better known as the Bullring—between Fernando Verdasco and Steve Darcis has reached a point that many, many first-round matches have reached before: the point of deflation. Verdasco is up a set and has just broken Darcis to lead 3-0 in the second. Along with his grunts and blasted winners, any tension that remained after the first set has flown straight up and out of the arena. When Verdasco starts his next service game by shredding another forehand as if he’s taking the tennis version of batting practice, there’s not much left to clap for. The audience stares passively; there are at least nine games left to play, but this one feels like it's over.
Still, the crowd, which has bought a specific ticket for this arena, stays put and takes what enjoyment it can out of a bright Sunday afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne. Darcis, of Belgium, even has his own, surprisingly vociferous cheering section. From my seat in the front row, he looks, like virtually every tennis player looks when you seen them from the front row, bulkier and more athletic than he does on TV. Whether they’re striding around in front of a sea of spectators, or signing autographs with fans hanging off their arms, the pros generally appear to be some kind of super-species, slightly beyond human.
The French Open mixes extremes, and you can see them clearly here. On the one hand, it’s a high-toned, colorful, fashionable, crisply attired social event. On the other, it showcases tennis at its most physically taxing. On the one hand, it’s played in Paris; on the other, it’s played on dirt.
It’s hard to find a better illustration of this split than the scene directly in front of me, as Verdasco sets up to return serve in the ad court at the south end of the Bullring. In that corner, along the wall, sits a linesman. He’s wearing a blue Roland Garros cap, a red shirt tucked into pressed pants, and his eyes are shaded by sunglasses. He’s clean shaven, and his hands are folded together in front of him. He’s the picture of calm. Even the way he gives the safe sign, when a ball is good, is done with refinement.
A kick serve from Darcis bounces toward him. As the linesman (calmly) leans back and out of the way, Verdasco comes into the picture behind him. He takes a leap forward, does a scissor kick, begins a long, low, growling grunt, whirls his racquet from behind his head, and makes the ball sound as if it's been fired from a rifle.
Natty linesman and Verdasco in full bash, a few feet from each other: That’s the French Open.
A few minutes later, a full house has gathered for Frenchman Nicolas Mahut’s match in Suzanne Lenglen with Andy Roddick. “Nee-co!” is the chant of the day, though one rogue far up in the stands tries out an experimental, “Allez Roddique!” He’s immediately drowned in a sea of boos and “Non!”s and “Allez Nee-co!”s and other expressions of outrage.
Things get rowdy again a few minutes later when chair umpire Carlos Ramos comes down and overrules a call against Mahut. A few people in the audience call Ramos by name when they heckle him, which he seems to find amusing. Does the average French tennis fan really know the names of the chair umpires? I guess it beats New Yorkers at the U.S. Open, one of whom once called out to Ramos in the Grandstand, “Hey you, Ref, time to get some glasses!”
Roddick, who has been injured recently and slumping for most of the year, didn’t put up much resistance against the lower-ranked Mahut, a man who was, home crowds aside, 1-9 at Roland Garros coming into this match. You could sense there might be trouble in the first game. Mahut began indecisively, not sure whether to rush forward or rally, and went down 0-40. But Roddick couldn’t make any more inroads with his return, and Mahut came back to get a confidence-boosting hold to open the match.
The American is now 9-10 at Roland Garros for his career, and he lost yet another match on this, his most hated court, the site of many infuriating defeats past. It may seem inevitable now that an American failed to do much on clay in his career, but it didn’t always seem like it was going to end up that way for Andy. This match made me think of Roddick’s first big Grand Slam win, which came here in 2001 over Michael Chang. See it below, and realize again how good tennis is at showing us how quickly we age and change: