There are few feelings more unpleasant than playing on Philippe Chatrier against a French player. Perhaps only Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer have earned, over the years, exemption from cheering against. Everyone else would be better off not paying too much attention to the poor etiquette of Parisians watching a match between their compatriots. Jannik Sinner is exemplary in this too.
On Sunday evening the Italian, number two seeded in the tournament and on the verge of first place in the ranking, played the third round of Roland Garros against Corentin Moutet, number 79 in the world, genius and recklessness, with indecipherable and unfriendly tennis. Before the match, Petar Popovic, the Frenchman’s coach, très sportivement, says: “We’ll try to give him cramps.”
Mais oui, these are things that are said, a joke. At 8.15pm, the time when the two players descend on the Centrale, the atmosphere is warm, the sold out can be felt throughout. The public wants the feat from its “Co”, or perhaps they just want to annoy the opponent. Nothing personal, of course. But this is how it has always been done in France. A few nights earlier, against Richard Gasquet (also French) a forehand winner from Sinner was judged out by the public (not by the line judges) who began to complain and scream, making the ball boy believe that the point was over and that he could run to retrieve the ball. Scenes of chaos that penalized the Italian, who had to replay a point that he had already won. He did it his way, without saying a word. Even against Moutet, Jannik Sinner didn’t make a pleat. Never.
Of course, it’s easy not to get upset when you’re winning or you know you will win, it’s easy to stay focused when your level offers you the reasonable certainty that your opponent of the day won’t be the one who throws you out of the tournament. But on Sunday evening there were at least forty minutes of panic and a good hour of tension inside the mind of the number two in the world. On one side of the field a player in a competitive trance, motivated by the continuous allez, on the other a disoriented, confused opponent, moreover forced to hear the applause even with fifteen thousand people in the game in progress.
In such situations it would be human to expect a gesture of decompensation, a scream of anger, an impatient expression, some frustrated mistakes (the trademark of players on the verge of a nervous breakdown). None of this. What was seen in Sinner’s part of the pitch was an impassive boy, who with water at his throat went into defense mode, running with his head down every time his opponent legitimately made fun of him and remaining silent until Moutet’s moment of infallibility was over. Service from below? No scandal and no problems. Jannik also ran for that ball without grimacing and without making a moral drama out of it, it is certainly reasonable to think that rather than lose that point he would have preferred to bite the bullet.
Moutet played à la Moutet, with the aim of destabilizing. Nothing wrong, not even the joke from below. The problem, for him and for all the spectators, is that Sinner played à la Sinner, even before playing tennis with his head.
And the head of this boy is that of a twenty-two year old who, while his opponent is arguing with the referee who in the meantime is also arguing with the public for allowing himself to ask for “Silence merci”, removes himself from the frame and doing his exercises, as if that match didn’t concern him. It is the head of a boy who, disturbed by the public who decided to let off a wave just as he is throwing the ball to serve, turns to the referee and makes him understand that enough is enough. And in fact from that moment on it was enough, in the sense that it took Sinner very little to complete the paperwork and leave the pitch. However, not before thanking everyone present: “It would have been strange if you had come here for me. You were fantastic, the atmosphere is incredible,” she said. The most mischievous ones thought that in a very chic way, he wanted to give them a lesson in etiquette, as well as tennis. Chapeau.
