At Roland-Garros,

It had to happen this year, of course.

A week after the launch of the Orsec plan to save French tennis, four junior boys signed a resounding feat on Thursday by qualifying for the semi-finals at Roland Garros.

They are called Arthur Fils, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Sean Cuenin and Lucas Van Assche.

Four Frenchmen in the last square Porte d'Auteuil, this is a historic first.

And a signal that takes on a whole new dimension given the context.

These debates on the dark future of France, the youngsters did not pay attention. Well, not too much. “We have heard things, but personally, I pass above all that, assures Arthur Fils. We had an invitation to play in the qualifiers [for the senior table], we were pretty focused on that and then we moved on to our tournament. "" I was already very stressed before the start of the tournament, I did not need to get excited even more, engages Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. They say that French tennis is going badly, but among the juniors it works pretty well, doesn't it? "

If they felt capable of anything, the Frenchies were not predestined for such a raid. Ranked 8th, 12th, 18th and 19th in the world, they do not fly over their category. And for good reason, three of them (Fils, Cuenin and Van Assche) are one year ahead. "We had talked about it, we said to ourselves that we had to go as far as possible, until we played, says Fils, the youngest of the gang (for a few months) from the top of its 16 years old. Everyone believed in it in their own corner, but collectively we could not imagine that. "

It has been a few months that they skim the future tournaments among the big, with some notable performances here and there.

Fils, for example, eliminated Bernard Tomic (in distress certainly but former top 20 anyway) in the first round of qualifying at Porte d'Auteuil.

Emulation is in full swing.

“We all know each other very well, we've done a lot of tournaments together in recent years.

There is no pact between us, but we want to go very far, ”said Van Assche.

Rather Monfils or Blancaneaux?

Today, they are living “a dream” by finding themselves in the semi-finals.

"We will enjoy, but tomorrow morning there will be no more smiles on their faces," says Mpetshi Perricard.

Because as beautiful as this story is, there will only be one to succeed Geoffrey Blancaneaux, the last French winner in the category, in 2016.

After that ?

The question burns lips, but the same should not be done with the steps.

If the examples of Gaël Monfils and Richard Gasquet, also winners here, are inspiring, Blancaneaux's early senior career is a little less so.

Impossible to predict what the future will bring.

“I think we will have a beautiful, brilliant generation, we all play well, Judge Fils.

We can reach the top 100 in two or three years, and then we'll see.

"

"I hope that thanks to us we will be able to forget a little this difficult tournament of the French and say that the future of French tennis is interesting", notes for his part Van Assche, whose confidence contrasts with his very youthful head.

The teenager, who knows himself "many qualities" and "few defects" on the court, wants to live a career without regrets, where he will have "exploited all [his] potential".

“My biggest dream would be to win a Grand Slam, and why not Roland-Garros,” he said.

Rest assured, French tennis is still on the move.

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