Anyone for Tennis?

Anyone for Tennis?

My experience at Palais Omnisports de Place Bercy began the same way it ended: with waiting, waiting for the discontinuities of the system to be bridged. After ten minutes of just waiting around, a courier, looking as unhurried and bored just as any gofer does, came and solved the problem. I was promised that this problem would not happen again for the finals, that my tickets would be at the desk. I hope they are, but I’m preparing for them not to be.

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The Center Court of the POPB is the homiest aircraft hangar I’ve ever been to. The sightlines looked pretty good, and there’s no differentiation between upper and lower bowl; there’s just a lower bowl. So I had a great seat.

Unfortunately, it was a great seat with these caveats. After spending an hour or so straight in that room, I noticed that the air became heavy and hot, lulling me into a catatonic state. I had to step out during the changeovers to get some ‘fresh’ air, which was merely normal building air and not that fresh at all. When I did step outside for lunch, that fresh air rejuvenated me. The difference between fresh and stale air is like the difference between good tap water and mineraly, bad tap water: it’s the difference between life and a coma.

The lighting was both too bright and too dark. This was because the court was like a stage and well-lit and set-off. At the same time, however, the fluorescence was piercing.

Right above me, some machine emitted a droning buzz throughout my entire time there. That I would say was the most annoying environmental aspect, because it was an aggressive drone, like white noise on TV, not a drone that you eventually ignore. Other than that, it was curiously silent, even more so than most tennis tournaments. Music was much more low-key, except for the evening’s matches, which relied heavily on Rolling Stones vocals set to pounding techno beats.

The jumbotron only showed faces, and boring ones, and highly attractive people were rarely displayed, even though there was a fair number. Nor were the trivialities of most Jumbotrons featured: no racing tennis balls, no Kiss Cams, nor even advertisements.

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Interestingly, the umpires speak a patois: scores and score related things are in French; but much else is in English. For example, everything challenge-related was in English, from the terminology to introduce it: “Blankity-Blank is challenging the call on the right baseline” to the actual display, which displays the verdict “IN” or “OUT”. The crowd loved the challenges most of all. Everyone said “OH” for the result, and not a drawn-out one, but rather a staccato series of “Ohs!”

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The common fan noises/chants: first, the opening chords to “Seven Nation Army” (“Ba-ba-BUH-ba-BUH-ba”), the “Let’s Go” (“Ba-ba-BUH-BUH-BUH-ba-ba-ba-Allez!” Substitute “Let’s go” for “Allez” and the chant is the same), and the strange idiosyncratic one that I can’t name that ends in Ole! but is not the common one.

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I first saw Teimuraz Gabashvili versus Nicolas Mahut match, which interested me mostly in an abstract let’s-go-see-tennis way, rather than a “Ohmigod, Mahut’s playing!” kind of a way that’s ultimately more stimulating. But the French were pumped for this match because Mahut’s French, as they were for every other journeyman and up-and-comer Frenchman on the card today. Everyone carried the tricolor, whether in miniature flag form or scarf form or some other idiosyncratic way. And, in one corner, to unite the crowd, a conga drum kept time for their chants. Unlike most poorly ventilated aircraft hangers, the room neither stifled nor echoed sound. The rooting therefore was potent but not too potent.

Anyway, there they were hanging on every shot for what turned out to be a very mediocre match. While both players moved well and quickly, their shotmaking left something to be desired. Like World War I, having been stuck grinding in the trenches for so long, each made several ill-advised charges to net, even though they did not have the firepower to justify that maneuver.

One funny point in the Mahut-Gabashvili match. Gabashvili served a ball to deuce court with some nasty spin that swerved straight into Mahut’s body. Pretty standard tactic. Mahut’s reply was not. Instead of shuffling over to the center while hitting a backhand, Mahut chose to squat a little bit, put his racquet in front of his face, and block the ball back into the court. After a crosscourt approach shot reply, Mahut sent up a weak duck of a lob, which Gabashvilli duffed overenthusiastically.

I ducked out after the first set to get some lunch.

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Instead of “Break Point,” “Set Point,” or “Match Point,” it is “Balle de Break,” “Balle de Set” and “Balle de Match.” These were displayed on the jumbotron screen in gothic script superimposed on star-shaped sketches. I felt I was in X-Games: The Tennis Tournament.

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I came back in time to see the second-set tiebreak of Mahut’s, which he won. It was pretty routine.

The next match was Fabrice Santoro versus Albert Montanes. Amusingly, the announcer ate the final ‘o’ of Santoro’s name, making it sound like his name was “Santor.” Poor Fabrice was dressed in a pink-green-and-black striped polo shirt that looked like American Eagle’s idea of 80’s fashion. Between that and his long-hair, Fabrice looked like the extra in an 80’s drug film who invites the hero/-ine to do coke with him in the bathroom. Montanes, on the other hand, looked generically Spanish and played that way too.

Playing generically Spanish seemed to work well for Montanes, as Fabrice Santoro had (as a consequence of his cocaine-debauched lifestyle?) acquired a huge white sleeve for his knee and was generally ginger and tentative while transporting himself around the court. It looked as if Santoro might be overwhelmed early, falling 3-1 down and in danger of losing the fifth game on his serve. But Santoro conjured some magic: he approached, his body weight and momentum hurtling towards the line, but was somehow able to, purely on arm strength, backhand the ball inside-out to the open court. Montanes didn’t stand a chance and Santoro ground out the first set. I ducked out; apparently he romped in the second.

The reason I ducked out was because I needed some time to take care of errands, and I didn’t care much about the participants of the next match, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Sebastien Grosjean.

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Once I got back, in the second set, it quickly became clear that I should’ve cared about Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who’s 22 but appears to have some potential. I'm surprised I haven't heard about him, considering the cult of youth that permeates tennis moreso than any sport I'm familiar with, other than basketball.

He played romantically, with a fondness for big shots. Like most players of that type, he went on some spectacular runs, both on the good and bad side. But he’s very powerful. He’s also idiosyncratic for a French player in that he uses the two-handed backhand, which appears to be really rare here. His demeanor on the court was also very idiosyncratic: his face appears very calm at all moments, and yet he is kind of hunched over from shoulder-up, making him seem smaller than he actually is.

One great point: so one point, Grosjean tries to hit behind Tsonga on an approach shot (apparently the French call this a “contre-pied,” or “against foot”), but Tsonga, who seems committed to his guess on the crosscourt side, stops, settles, and lunges for the ball, producing the passing shot for a winner. Boom.

Grosjean evened the match in the second set, then Tsonga took the third to win. Then they went and played doubles as a team.

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The next match was the highlight match for me: Fernando Gonzalez versus Mikhail Youzhny.

The match started out with Gonzalez racing out for a quick lead, as Youzhny played uncharacteristically sloppy (I say ‘uncharacteristically’ not because I know Youzhny’s game that well, just because, with his square face, buzz cut and perpetual stubble, he looks like he could act as the evil German/Russian spy/soldier who coldly says stuff like “Break him!” and “Kill them all!”), culminating in his lobbing a ball into the safety net. The French apparently do not like to see their tennis players display anger, and they turned against Youzhny.

But for whatever reason, the ball abuse (Youzhny got a warning) calmed him down, and they settled into exchanging serves, leading Gonzalez to wrap up the set.

Youzhny opened up the second set in the flow, dissecting Gonzalez perfectly. It looked as if Youzhny simultaneously had a God’s-eye view while he was playing; it was as if everything was preordained. Youzhny didn’t even seem to be playing aggressively, just going for the natural shot. I think Gonzalez was actually quite lucky to keep the set within one break.

Interpolation: on one set-change, Gonzalez changed shirts. Not a big deal, right? Except everyone—and I mean male, female, asexual, everyone—begins wolf whistling at him, like they were construction workers and he the latest hot female to pass by.

In the third set, Youzhny looked like he was going to succumb to the classic letdown game, but he managed to hold on. Two holds later, and we’re at 2-1 Youzhny, Gonzalez serving. After a five deuce (egalité in French) game, Youzhny triumphed. Apparently Gonzalez found this intolerable, and he smashed his racket against the ground, cracking him. But the damage was not enough; he sent his racket into the ground again, as boos fell down upon him. After receiving the racquet abuse warning, Gonzalez broke back.

At the changeover, a hot girl (actually the first shown on Jumbotron) was shown sleeping. Return of the wolf-whistles. The French: equal opportunity oglers (this is a lie; women are definitely ogled more).

Youzhny took the set in match in a grind-him-down fashion. He conducted his interview in English, then did his strange military-salute-with-racquet-on-head routine.

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Then came a “spectacle” which consisted of gymnasts, and lighting patterns out of a James Bond intro song. With that and the upcoming Gilles Simon-Tommy Robredo match, I was getting bored. I left.