And when does the French Carlos Alcaraz arrive?

• If the Blues are doing better than last year with two qualified in the third round (Gaston and Simon), French tennis is still looking for its great hope of tomorrow.

• Twenty years after Nadal, Spain has already found its own in the person of Carlos Alcaraz, already the present of tennis.

  And ours, is it coming soon?

At Roland Garros,

We do not deny the unbridled enthusiasm provided by some Tarantinesque scenarios the first few days.

But here it is, it's only Friday, and the French players still in the men's table are as rare as an LREM candidate for the legislative elections without a pan in the buttocks.

We are therefore forced, despite our love for Gaston and Simon, to return to our existential jealousies.

But why, why after having imposed the Nadalian yoke on us for two millennia, Spain has still unearthed a nugget with precocity-never-seen-since-Rafa while the tricolor tennis snoops in all corners to unearth its Carlos Alcaraz?

"With us, you spend 2 rounds and you end up at the Cannes Film Festival"

To tell you how frustrating it is, we caught ourselves silently pushing behind Ramos-Vinolas the other night, secretly hoping that the new wonder of world tennis would wallow miserably against a 75-year-old compatriot.

But no, the guy is already building his legend based on deglingos passing and match points saved after four hours of play, encouraged by prepubescent kids who have already betrayed, for lack of such a promising idol at home.

This very Franco-French irritation of the unfulfilled quest for the great champion provides part of the answer, and it is the only tricolor winner of a Grand Slam, Yannick Noah, who says so at

“To get a place on the front page of a Spanish tennis magazine, you have to beat everyone.

With us, you just have to spend two rounds and play a match on the Central, you have the first page and then you go to the Cannes festival.

It happened for real and more!

In Spain, you have Nadal, of course, Moya who has won three Roland-Garros, Bruguera, you have knowledge of victory.

To make a name for yourself, the bar is high if you want people to talk about you”

Richard Gasquet, the last teenager of the house stamped genius, confirms half-word in his biography

, published this week by Stock, about his youthful rivalry with Nadal.

“I spoke about it once with his uncle Toni, how much they had appreciated working in the cushy shadow on their island, without pressure.

They cohabited with Carlos Moya, winner of a Grand Slam title.

Even in his small perimeter, he was taken for a simple hope who still had everything to prove.

In Spain, we didn't care about Nadal!

There was not this kind of centralized federation that we have in France, the big machine which seeks to shine the smallest nugget to enhance the model.

In the feverish expectation of a successor to Yannick Noah, I was thrown into the light.

»

The level of coaches, the place of heritage

The famous media pressure that would too quickly escort the course of a vaguely successful kid as a junior?

The reproach has been addressed to us often enough not to dismiss it with a disdainful gesture.

It is not, however, a French evil.

Spain, to come back to it, has also had its share of fallen stars before their time.

Carlos Boluda, double winner at Les Petits As in 2006 and 2007, left the ramp last year without ever having entered the top 200: "I could never have imagined that the child I was at 11 or 12 could generate so much expectation and pressure.

»

The proof that it was not a foregone conclusion that Alcaraz swallows the pressure to the point of becoming 6th in the world before his 20 years.

The construction of the champion, we keep repeating in the richest Fed in the world or not far, is as much a question of individual will as the result of a development in an archi-marked system like France.

So what ?

We plunge back from the book of our Ritchie which evokes another track: “I missed at the beginning of my professional career, a great coach.

Someone who really knows, who has the experience of the high level, and masters the range of skills necessary to support the best hopes, from the mental to the technical and tactical management of matches.

Even today, this state of affairs remains a great regret.

I affirm it with all the more certainty that I analyzed the first steps of Alcaraz on the circuit, guided by Juan Carlos Ferrero, winner of Roland-Garros.

It is certain that Ferrero has saved this player three years.

Alcaraz I envy him, he enjoys a priceless treasure.

»

Openness to private academies

This idea is all the more interesting in that it goes against what French tennis likes to think of it: a country of great technicians who train the most creative players on the circuit, or almost, the rest being the responsibility of everyone, of characters that reveal themselves, or not.

Everything is true in there: the legitimacy of national coaches as well as their lack of success among boys.

We think back to this confidence of Winogradsky, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's first coach, on their final at the Australian Open in 2008. quickly… He was stronger than Djokovic that day but he didn't know how to put it back on when necessary and I didn't know how to tell him.

»

In his own way, moreover, Tsonga seeks to remedy this by sponsoring the BNP Paribas Young Talents Team.

These are not the recommendations of a Grand Slam winner, but of a double Roland semi-finalist, and you can take it: "He gives us advice on the mind, diet or even technique, everything that includes tennis what, explained Arthur Cazaux, 350th player in the world.

It's good that a player like him can pass on his experience to us.

It boosts us to rub shoulders with him and it guides us in our early career.

»

The brand new retiree has also offered himself a private academy, which is no longer seen as the big bad wolf by La FFT.

The latter has long sworn by the dominant local club / France / CNT model in Paris, which has not brought only misfortunes either.

But Alcaraz hatched in Murcia, in a lost corner, and he never needed to go up to Madrid to be trained by a size.

“France is a tennis nation, it will bounce back”

Comment by Jean-René Lisnard, founder of the Elite Center in Cannes, where Daniil Medvedev trains: “I don't see where it's complicated to dialogue between the Fed and the academies.

Tomorrow, if a Frenchman wins the US Open, whether he trained in Italy, in a center in Angoulême, at the CNE or in England with his father, it's the same.

“We will even add that the private projects, all set up in the south of France, offer the possibility of training outside all year round, a lack identified for the best French hopefuls based in Paris.

Gonzalo Lopez, Diane Parry's trainer, thus forced his protege to go on tour in South America to cut her teeth: "In Paris, she trains indoors all the time, she needs to do long matches, build points, learn to slide.

»

“We must not stay in this negative spiral which does not have to be, judge Camille Pin, consultant on the tournament for Amazon.

France is a tennis nation, it will bounce back.

Maybe we need to smooth things over and work together.

Everyone wants more.

Starting with the great potential of tomorrow?

Pauline Parmentier, who put away the snowshoes in 2020, sometimes wonders about the desire of aspiring pros:

“It's a completely different generation from ours.

The last time I had a discussion with a young person about the Miami final, she had not watched or even seen a summary.

It's your sport, it's where you want to go, be curious, go find it.

This is also what must be transmitted to young people, "you also train by doing all that".

“In this case, we hope that many of them have put the post to admire the rage of victory of Alcaraz against Ramos-Vinolas.

You can't buy it at Carrefour, as the great French patriot Kylian Mbappé would say.

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• Sport

• Tennis

• Roland Garros 2022

• Carlos Alcaraz

• Richard Gasquet

• Jo Wilfried Tsonga

• Gilles Simon

• Rafael Nadal