The beating heart of men’s tennis in France has arrived once more, this time with that unmistakable head of hair in small braids.
Gaël Monfils, the 38-year-old savant, is ready to put on another show. For the French players and fans that descend on Roland Garros every year, that’s what tennis has been all about for some time. Winning would be nice, but it just doesn’t happen all that much for the locals.
No man has won his home Slam since Yannick Noah in 1983. Mary Pierce, the 2000 women’s champion, is the lone French woman to win the title in the modern era of professional tennis, which began in 1968. Over the years, French tennis has seemingly become about something else.
“We always want to put on a good show, right?” Monfils said during an interview earlier this year.
Monfils has been doing that for going on 20 years. Splits in the air; leaping forehands; bullet-time overheads, suspended above the court. Enough magic to fill so many highlight reels that players, journalists and fans often engage in discussions about which collection is the best one. A 6ft 4in frame and a spring in his legs that can still launch him over an umpire’s chair help with that.
These gifts helped make Monfils the urtext of what people — French and foreign tennis fans alike — have…
