THIS FRENCH SLAM IS FAR FROM GRAND
Players rage at event organisers
TV CAMERAS yest erday captured French Open champion Ash Barty back in her native Queensland, drinking beer in the stands at the Gabba while watching Aussie rules football.
Wish you were here? It did not look like she was missing Roland Garros much, but then quite a few of those she has left to contest the title do not seem to have enjoyed the Paris experience.
A surfeit of men’s and women’s seeds have already lost and there appears to have been an abnormal amount of broken rackets, spats and complaints.
Playing a dislocated second Grand Slam within a month amid Covid restrictions and slow, i nhospitable conditions has caused an undue amount of angst for players as the tournament heads into its middle weekend. A saving grace is that the number of positive cases among players has been r el ati vely s mall, but t he event f aces more headwinds.
Rain is forecast for all next week, and over the next three days the temperatures are not predicted to get above 60 Fahrenheit. French government officials are also meeting this weekend to discuss whether the city should be imminently moved to ‘alerte maximale’, which would mean the closure of all bars and restaurants.
Amid this distinct possibility and with numbers of Parisian cases increasing, Rol a n d Garros — unlike the US Open — will not be seeing a reduction in the players it is catering for next week.
This is because, in its original ambition to stage as normal a Grand Slam as possible, the French agreed to stage a full junior event in its second week as is customary at a Major. That means the arrival of 64 boys and 64 girls, plus a few more for the doubles events. Already t he senior doubles draw is double that in New York.
Numerous players have drawn unfavourable comparisons with the set-up at the US Open. There they housed them at large hotels out on Long Island and laid on an outdoor cinema and golfing area. In Paris they are penned in city centre hotels with no such distractions.
Canadian Vasek Pospisil, an influential figure who has helped set up the new men’s player association, described i t as ‘much worse’.
‘At least for the players, the hotel we’re staying at, it’s tough,’ said Pospisil (left). ‘We don’t have anything. The US Open, there was a much bigger effort I felt from the organisation to make the time in the bubble a little bit more comfortable.
‘I think almost every player was of the same opinion.’
With nine days to go it is likely the ability to best focus on the job in hand will be a determining factor in who stays until the business end.
The rain will help bigger name players most likely to play under the Philippe Chatrier stadium roof. Sebastian Korda’s father was a Grand Slam champion but his hero was Rafael Nadal, who was idolised so much that the family cat was named after him.
Now Korda, the last remaini ng American man at the French Open, faces the Spaniard in the fourth round after his sixth win in barely a week.
The 20-year- old from Florida came through the qualifying event, and yesterday brushed aside Pedro Martinez in straight sets to fix a meeting with the 12-time champion.
‘He’s my biggest idol,’ said the world No 213. ‘He’s one of the reasons I play tennis. Unbelievable competitor. Whenever I’m on court, I try to be like him.’
Korda is 6ft 5in and looks very much like his father Petr, the Czech player who won the 1998 Australian Open.
“Comparisons
with US Open are not good”