British No 1s will confront conundrum
Just days before withdrawing from this tournament with an unspecified illness, the ever-quotable Nick Kyrgios caused a few Parisians to choke on their morning croissants. Speaking into his cameraphone at Wimbledon, he said: “French Open sucks compared to this place.”
Within British tennis, Kyrgios’s assertion must have drawn knowing nods. Our best men and women have been bombing out early in Paris for generations. So it will be interesting to see how the two highest-ranked players – Johanna Konta and Kyle Edmund – fare at Roland Garros today.
Konta – who faces German qualifier Antonia Lottner – has yet to win a main-draw match in Paris in four attempts: a total blank which contrasts with a win-loss record of 23-14 across the other three majors. Edmund’s tally is a little healthier, with a couple of visits to the third round, but he has never exactly thrived, and world No 40 Jeremy Chardy is unlikely to be a pushover.
It is funny how crossing ssing the Channel disconcerts British ish tennis players more than a long-haul flight to Melbourne or New ew York.
The explanation lies in the treacherous, powdery footing. oting. Ironically, clay-court tennis nnis was invented by a pair r of Englishmen – the Renshaw aw brothers, Wimbledon legegends of the late 19th cenntury – as part of a missionary programme to o the Riviera. When grass s refused to grow properly y in the heat, they crum- - bled a pile of flowerpots into dust and raked it into a flat surface. An ingenious solution, for sure, but hardly one that today’s British players would thank them for. Last year, Konta’s edginess spilt over in a h heartfelt answer about the pressures press of her job when she said: “I want to prove these b------s [the [ assembled tennis media] wrong.” This week, Konta Kont seems more assured after aft finishing runnerup in both Rabat and Rome R over the past month. m
But Edmund has moved in the other direction, and comes in on a five-match losing streak. “It just is what it was,” he said, somewhat unenlighteningly, on Friday.