A cry of rage with his fist raised, then a broad smile. From her match ball won against Australian Jaimee Fourlis (150th) in qualifying last week, Fiona Ferro let out her joy, almost incredulous.

"It's super happy, I've gone through a lot of emotions in recent months, not necessarily positive, she breathes in the aftermath. If I had been told that I would qualify for the main draw of Roland, I would have signed right away."

There was a time when the 26-year-old Frenchwoman probably wouldn't have celebrated this victory so much because she belonged to a different sphere. In March 2021, she was ranked 39th, her best ranking.

But since then, Ferro's career has taken a different turn. In February 2022, she filed a complaint against her former coach Pierre Bouteyre for alleged acts of rape and sexual assault committed from 2012 to 2015. She was between 15 and 18 years old.

Break of several months

Then begins the fall. Failure of results, ranking down... Ferro decides to take a break. "It really became a necessity," she says. I kept playing, but not like I did before, more for fun, because that's what I love. Putting the investment and intensity every day to be at the level, I didn't necessarily have the resources to be able to do it."

The Frenchwoman stayed away from the world circuit for several months, until a team match with her club TC Paris in November, where she found "the adrenaline of competition".

"From that moment on, I started training seriously again with fewer expectations about the results, saying to myself: +Maybe it doesn't matter if I'm 300th or 400th, that's still what I want to do at the moment.+"

Under the leadership of Pierre Mazenq and Eric Winogradsky, former coach of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga among others, Ferro resumed tournaments at the end of January and slowly climbed the slope in the other world of tennis, that of unknown and low-paying tournaments.

France's Fiona Ferro during an Australian Open match against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina on January 17, 2022 in Melbourne © Michael ERREY / AFP/Archives

"In March, I did a tournament in Mallorca that brought me 35 euros," she smiles. I took a picture of the prize money. Registration cost more than prize money (...) It encourages humility."

"A necessity to talk about it"

Ferro began qualifying for Roland Garros with his best result this year being a final at the ITF tournament in Bellinzona (Switzerland) in April, but cleared all three hurdles to the main draw.

"It's a lot of happiness to be able to share with my family, my friends, who know what I've been through in recent months, because they were also part of the thing. It's a bit of a rebirth."

Ferro operates this renaissance in parallel with that of Lucas Pouille, another foal of Winogradsky to have managed to invite himself in the fortnight. "We feel quite close in the comeback process," she says.

The lowest ranked player in the WTA to enter the main draw, the native of Libramont, Belgium, now wants to resume the thread of her career, without regret.

"I think there are a lot of young girls who have been or can be in my situation today. For me, it was a necessity to talk about it, she says. If it can also help other girls in their journey, that's great. During this Roland, I will try not to talk too much about it because I want to bring things back to the sporting level."

On this level, the Swedish Rebecca Peterson awaits him in the first round, to continue his resurrection at the "best place to share emotions".

© 2023 AFP