(More or less) in Bercy,
There is something paradoxical in regretting not having witnessed a French defeat in tennis. Already because there is always something to make up for the next day, but above all because as a good patriot of the yellow ball, we obviously prefer when things are funny. And yet, the elimination of Richard Gasquet against Tommy Paul (seeded number 12), Monday evening, at the end of the night, had something beautiful and cruel at the same time. And we watched it on TV in the absence of being live from the frenzied stands, the fault of matches having stretched all day on the center court.
Beautiful and cruel, then. Beautiful, because Richard. At the age of 37, the Frenchman started his match against the American the way one cleans his house after a fiesta of the fire of God: with napalm. Crazy races to make you forget the weight of the years, winning shots of a welcome sweetness at the start of winter and backhands of full-line aliens, in twenty-seven minutes, Gasquet had just made the Madison dance poor Tommy Paul.
Cruel, because the mind (and the legs) will finally have got the better of the Bitterois. From the stands, Brad Stine, the American’s coach, invited his colt to force Gasquet “to feel very old”. Caught up one set everywhere and defeated during an epic third round where, from 5-2 Paul, Gasquet began a barely believable comeback, with sequences of play that would make your insides twist, before giving in in the tie- break despite three match points, the Frenchman had regrets in his throat.
A fiery atmosphere in Bercy
“Obviously, I lead 6-3 in the tie-break, I saw myself as the winner. But I saw myself losing too, we mustn’t forget that at 5-2 double break against me it wasn’t crazy. But I managed to come back by making huge points and it’s true that at 6-3 I took two big serves which hurt me a little because I had a lot of morale, he analyzed late in the evening, at a press conference. I find myself at 6-5 very very quickly and there I make the double. With stress, anything can happen. I would obviously have liked to win but it’s neither the first nor the last time that it’s going to happen. »
With experience helping, the current world number 68 should quickly get rid of this disappointment to keep only the best, this exceptional atmosphere that we will hasten to regret when, due to lack of infrastructure to match a Masters 1000 on the annex courts of Bercy, the tournament will be relocated to the Défense Arena. “It’s sport, you lose, the next day you forget the defeat, you have to start again. Here, I am very disappointed but tomorrow we must forget to try to be better next week and try to progress. The audience was fabulous. It’s only at Roland-Garros and Bercy that you have atmospheres like that. You play for atmospheres like this. That’s why I continued this season. »
Enjoy as long as possible
When we interviewed him this summer, after an unexpected comeback in the top 50, the boy amazed us with his still intact love of a demanding sport which has attracted many younger than him. And Monday evening, the speech had not changed one millimeter, as the end of season rest time came. Asked about this quest for pleasure without an expiration date, Gasquet compared his situation to that of another tennis addict, Stan Wawrinka (38 years old).
“It’s just the passion for the game quite simply, you experience emotions, tonight you lose but that’s part of the game. You’re obviously disappointed but what remains is this audience, the sensations you can have on the short. There aren’t a lot of people who know about this. But we will know how to stop him like me when we no longer have the level at all. » Which is far from being the case as he showed us again Monday evening.