2023-06-03 07:02:00
It is almost 11 p.m. on this Thursday, June 1st. Night has fallen on Roland-Garros and the Suzanne-Lenglen court is now lit by spotlights. On the Parisian ocher, the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech faces Taylor Fritz, seeded number 9, in an electric atmosphere. The spectators do everything to distract the American, talking or singing during his service. The referee, overwhelmed, keeps asking for silence. In the audience, a man responds by shouting: “It’s our last Frenchman, leave us!”
11:04 p.m., match point for Fritz. Rinderknech attempts a lob that lands just behind the baseline. The American exults under the whistles of an audience who manhandled him for nearly three hours. Five days after the start of the competition, there are no more French people in the running at Roland-Garros. Sunday, May 28, they were however 28, men and women combined, to be registered in the first round.
For the third consecutive year, no tricolor will therefore participate in the round of 16. It had never happened between 2000 and 2020. Worse, it is the second time in three years that France has no representative in the third round, when it had never happened between the start of the Open era. (1968) and 2020. Far, very far, from the goals set, certainly in the long term, by the Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, former coach of Federer and now responsible for supervising the high level for the French Tennis Federation (FFT). Before the tournament, he said to Freed to have “three main objectives : the place of world number 1, winning Grand Slams and the Olympic Games”.
“The logic was respected”
However, it is difficult to speak of this 2023 edition of Roland as a bad surprise. “The assessment that we make today, it’s kinda the same as last year et than the year before, analysis for Release Arnaud Clément, former world number 10 and ex-vice president of the French Tennis Federation, now a consultant for Prime Video. But it is not illogical. When you don’t have a seeded player in men’s [les 32 mieux classés au classement ATP le sont, ndlr], and only one for women, it’s hard to imagine going even to the second week since it involves beating two, at least one strong and one very strong. So the logic has generally been respected.
At the start of the tournament, France was the second nation with the most representatives in the top 100 for men (11), behind the Americans (13). But only two were in the top 50 (Ugo Humbert 40th and Adrian Mannarino 47th). Benoît Paire and Constant Lestienne came close to achieving a feat against Cameron Norrie (13th) and Karen Khachanov (11th), Lucas Pouille and Gaël Monfils managed to outperform and make the Porte d’Auteuil vibrate by passing a lap after falling to the bottom of the ATP rankings. But their epic stopped there. Once again, we had to be satisfied with little.
Among the women, all hopes rested on the shoulders of Caroline Garcia, seeded n° 5 despite a bad first part of the season. Like last year, she unfortunately lost in the second round, this time against Anna Blinkova, 56th in the WTA rankings, an opponent yet largely within her reach. For the others, they did neither really better nor really worse than what was expected of them: no other French woman was in the top 60.
“Generation hole”
“Apart from Garcia, the French have respected their ranking, confirm to Freed Michaël Llodra, former player now consultant on France TV. We know that today we are in a period of wavering, of a generational gap as is often said, with a new generation that is slow to hatch. The results of recent years only highlight the qualities of the older generation, who have been so criticized and pointed out for not having won a Grand Slam. But we had almost four guys in the top 10 simultaneously. I was 20th in the world and I was only the sixth Frenchman. French tennis is clearly going through a complicated passage.
Among men, a glimmer of hope exists. If a handful of young people are promising, expectations rest first on the shoulders of two of them, the subject of all conversations: Luca Van Assche, just 19 years old, and Arthur Fils, who will celebrate them on June 12. Junior Roland-Garros finalists two years ago, they both discovered the main tournament this year. And both were taken out, not without being unworthy, by the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, 34th in the world and not the least comfortable on clay. “We obviously had a little hope after the victory of Son in Lyon [une semaine avant Roland-Garros, son premier titre sur le circuit principal] and Van Assche’s good start to the season. But if the next generation is there, there is still a gap to overcome. They are young, we still have to give them time. They won’t win overnight.” delays Michaël Llodra.
“Obvious mistakes”
Above the “generation gap” Repeatedly put forward by French officials, some have pointed for several years to the responsibility of the federation which would not have sufficiently anticipated the end of the four musketeers Gasquet, Simon, Monfils and Tsonga. This week, former player Fabrice Santoro gave a layer of it: “We cannot accept the results of French tennis with the means we have, it is not possible to be satisfied with that. We can’t say it’s a generational problem, it’s too easy, it’s a bit of hiding the dust under the rug. I think there were obvious mistakes, which should be recognized first.
To put out the fire, the federation organized a press conference on Friday June 2, the day after Arthur Rinderknech’s defeat. Like last year, it was Nicolas Escudé, National Technical Director, who took it upon himself to play the duty fireman in front of the journalists. For him, “we cannot make the federation responsible for everything” : “The high level is only individual projects. It is the players who choose their staff, who set up a roadmap with objectives and means to achieve them. But unfortunately, today, we are not there. And the players are the first to be disappointed. Before calling again “everyone, players, coaches, whether they are from the federation or not, or managers” To “to question ourselves”.
So, generational gap, individual failures or general failures in training? For Arnaud Clement, “the truth is probably somewhere in the middle” : “Maybe the formation took one or two wrong ways at one time, but the generational gap exists after extremely high density.” The Australian Open (2001) finalist recalls that if “the federation has a formative role” with the objective of “bring as many young people as possible to a certain level”, It is “It’s up to the players to take the last steps by surrounding themselves, becoming independent and finding solutions”.
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