05/06 - Roland-Garros : "Gentlemen's doubles"

SPORTS / TENNIS : ROLAND-GARROS / "Un Autre Regard" by Nicolas Rey / 05/06 - Roland-Garros : "Gentlemen's doubles"

This year I'm on a doubles team with the writer Philippe Delerm. Good choice, guys. That's what a call a dynamic (and complementary) duo. If I had been left to my own devices the writing would already have stopped. In singles play I’m incapable of lasting more than 20 minutes on a clay court. I collapse by the end of the third game. I can’t fake it for very long. Too many late nights. When you dance to the music you’ve got to pay the DJ. When I was a teenager the matches happened on Sunday morning. The countless liters of beer consumed Saturday night didn’t really help me keep my opponents on the run. With Philippe, though, that’s all changed. I stay at the net. He’ll handle the rest. We discussed all this at the Suzanne Lenglen Court as we watched two Russians play. On one side there was a beautiful girl we would have loved to meet over cocktails. On the other side, a piano mover with the shoulders of a weight-lifter. As strange as this may sound, we were rooting for the pretty one.As far as my doubles match with Philippe, I wish Ken Loach could film it. This could be a beautiful feature-length movie about craftsmanship and modesty. Ideally we would lose in the finals. As Delerm writes in one of his books: “Our near-misses are so much greater our successes.”Philippe’s passing shot is also unbeatable. The player is overwhelmed from the beginning of the match. His strength has been sapped. The opponent moves inexorably toward the middle of the court. His shots take an ever larger toll. The death-blow approaches. The opponent rises up in the air. Then comes the frantic final push, the ultimate effort, that moment when you give everything you have and even everything you don’t. Destiny hangs in the balance. The loser wins and the passing shot has been made. “Against the perfection of lost causes, nothing can be done,” Philippe Delerm writes.Game. Set. Perfect teammate. – Nicolas Rey