New Jersey’s own Tommy Paul and Maryland’s own Frances Tiafoe made it into the second week, and thus the quarter-finals, of the French Open. This is good news for American tennis, considering no American man since Andre Agassi in 1999 has won this, the most hoity-toity of the majors (aka the Slam circuit) on the racquet tour if not the most fun (that would be the one in Melbourne), nor the most venerable (that would be Wimbledon, in London’s SW19), and surely not the bestest and the greatest, in Queens NY.
Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, and the spirited and lovely girls have a big week ahead.
Still, it’s the Slam circuit, where the men play best-of-five and the money is substantial. The Internationaux, to go by the tournament’s official name, is an old love affair between France and America; its home is on the avenue Gordon-Bennett, named for one of this great city’s favorite Americans, the sportsman scion who first made it over the Atlantic while engaged in a sailing race, though there was a rumor, some call it a canard, he was high-tailing or rather high-winding it because he had peed on his fiancee’s grand piano at her family’s mansion in Newport R.I., to the considerable annoyance of his father, Gordon Bennett Sr., founder of the New York Herald, which did not report the story.
The young playboy redeemed himself by becoming one of the first of the great sports entrepreneurs as well as the publisher of what became the Paris Herald-Tribune, at one time the best American-language newspaper not published in America. He gave good parties.
However, weak as our men’s recent record has been at Paris, it can at least be said the French have not done any better, with their last win being Yannick Noah’s in 1983. If it is any consolation, and I suppose it must be, the women of both countries have done rather better — Serena Williams won in 2002, ‘13, and ‘15 — and there has been some success in doubles. At any rate, Paul and Tiafoe both got through in straight sets, and it is by no means unlikely either or both will move on into the semis and beyond next week, and among the young ladies, Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff, Madison Keys — who won Australia in January — and Hailey Baptiste all are making great runs. This is an important time for the red, white, and blue, better than the bleu-blanc-rouge.
Actually, the French were not paying as much attention as you would expect. After all, they built the park where the event takes place, the Stade Roland-Garros, for the very purpose of ending, mid-1920s, American dominance in tennis. They took over the leadership and held it for several years thanks to a team known as the Four Musketeers, one of whom, Robert Lacoste, went big in elegant casual wear after he retired, also introducing some of the first metal racquets toward the end of his successful business career.
This is why when you say it’s time for Roland, or I’ll be at Roland, at this time of year, most French persons, even if they never play tennis, know what you are talking about, it is an important date on the national calendar, and they are friendly to American visitors.
French Soccer Riot
Except that this year, the local football team was in the Champions League final against a side from Milan. Paris-Saint-Germain, as the club is called, had never won this tournament, which is rather like a Euro Series, the best teams in Europe, a big deal. When on Sunday night PSG crushed Inter Milan, 5-0, a rare score in a low-score sport, the fans went wild. Did they celebrate with champagne, cheers, man-and-woman hooha, and other normal expressions of joy and vitality? No. Rioting and rampaging hit Paris — the match took place in Munich, so the rioters were not ticket holders — leaving cars burned, windows smashed, cops hurt, and several people dead.
What happened? Well, this is a serious matter, and speculation without evidence is not the proper function of journalism; but can the French police and security agencies avoid taking under consideration that PSG is owned not by a French equivalent of George Steinbrenner but by Qatar’s top sheiks (with an American group as minority owners). This is the same lot of oil billionaires who are funding Hamas.
More facts are bound to come out. But consider this, too: French president Emmanuel Macron was out of the country during the week instead of showing himself, as befits a head of state, at Roland-Garros. He was in Asia, selling Airbus airplanes. He made a successful pitch to the Vietnamese, who are partial to Boeing aircraft but may have become alarmed when the U.S. president indicated his displeasure with our leading manufacturer. If he could not get his order in on time and in a fit of impatience took a pre-owned model from Qatar — Qatar! — what sort of deal could they count on?
President Trump can still make a quick trip to Hanoi and sell some of his family’s bitcoins or whatever the currency is called, since he appears to be giving up on the dollar as well as Boeing. It is not clear how this will create American jobs, nor improve American chances at the tennis majors.
Which is okay; Americans know they must count on their own efforts, not rely on a distant government in Washington, D.C. Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, and the spirited and lovely girls have a big week ahead, and somewhere up there in the stands (or boxes) of the center court at the famous old stadium (recently renovated and equipped with a roof), Gordon Bennett is smiling down on them, “it’s Paris, boys and girls, enjoy!”
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