• Gilles Simon, invited by the organization this year, will meet Marin Cilic on Saturday in the third round of the tournament.

  • For his last Roland-Garros, the Frenchman finally enters into symbiosis with an audience that has often relegated him behind Tsonga, Monfils, or Gasquet during his career.

At Roland Garros,

It seems that we often start to believe in God at the imminence of death, sometimes it's useful for afterwards.

The French public did not wait for Gilles Simon's last rites to start loving him, but they took the time, the bugger, boiling like never the other night against Carreno, and again conquered two days later against Johnson.

Fifteen years that the greatest mentalist of the circuit holds the candle, one day for Tsonga, another for Monfils, and then also for Gasquet as long as we are there.

Fifteen years he has been waiting for his moment of glory just for him.

We watched out of curiosity: the former 6th player in the world in 2008, his best year on the circuit, found himself once in the position of the last musketeer still standing.

It was at Wimbledon in 2009, for an 8th final immediately lost, immediately forgotten.

Otherwise ?

Otherwise, always a friend to steal the show and the media coverage that goes with it.

“I was prevented from dreaming”

How better to illustrate the misunderstanding than at Roland-Garros?

A single peak of heat in a big fifteen participations, an 8th final against Federer well fitted on the Central.

But here, it was Federer in front, the only player who divided the crowd even outside, Simon had ended up palming, and then it was to send Tsonga in quarter in a fratricidal shock.

We found what we wrote at the time out of curiosity:

“After a complicated first week where his matches were often overshadowed by the exploits of a Monfils and the power of a Tsonga, whom he could have found in the quarter-finals, Gilles Simon almost crashed into the rollercoaster Roland-Garros for the first time in his career.

»

This damn skepticism, already, which has accompanied Simon since childhood.

The story is known but still: you have to know how it crushed and still crushes the brain of the person concerned.

Read what he says about it in 40-A magazine, just before the tournament.

"As a teenager, what I was told was 'you won't make it you won't make it you won't make it', it's a real trauma.

At 15 I am 15/2, Richard I no longer see him.

I see Jo coming back from the junior Australian Open and going back to South America, I'm playing in Béthune and Vitry-Le-François… We said “Wait, it's already good that you're here”.

OK but hey, I would have liked to go even higher.

But it's still difficult to project yourself when everyone tells you that you won't make it.

I was prevented from dreaming.

»

The famous syndrome of the high-level athlete who was built alone and against all, often quietly accredited by the officials of Insep at the time.

Borfiga: “Not many of us believed in him.

It must be said that he does not win many matches, that he is not very rigorous.

Some took him for a joke, not me.

“Simon will keep a form of resentment and sometimes restraint with the media.

However, when the guy starts talking about tennis, everyone opens their ears wide.

During our last interview, we listened to him season the mode of governance of tennis with delight: "The coaches on the ground, different formats, a great tie-break in Australia, then a stop at 12-12 at Wimbledon It makes me want to cry it's so stupid.

»

The Davis Cup Thorn

This cerebral reputation also applies to the pitch, and that hasn't always helped his popularity either.

Simon doesn't have a flashy backhand to pull out of the bag, a rhinoceros forehand to flaunt, or an athletic bulk to swoon over the crowds.

His thing is the game of chess, endless discounts, a long-term strategy to drive the guy opposite crazy: "It's his signature, but it's a little more complicated to appreciate than for other players because there are quite a few free points, spectacular shots, ”summarizes Cédric Pioline.

Coming from the same generation that swore only by attacking tennis, Guy Forget never really joined.

As a result, Simon has developed a form of blockage in the Davis Cup (seven defeats in his first seven games), THE competition which allows French players to share eternal emotion with the French public.

In the middle, we often tell ourselves that everything could have changed during the final in Serbia, in 2010, two points everywhere on Sunday.

Simon had never lost against Troicki, and who knows if he would not have become the idol of this generation in the event of a somewhat crazy victory in Belgrade?

But Forget had preferred Llodra, for the result that we know.

This week, after the déglingos match against Carreno, several foreign colleagues were surprised in the press room: “but since when is Simon loved like that in France”?

"Gillou" himself was amazed the next day in the

team.

“Honestly, it's by far, far the best atmosphere I've had.

In any case the most touching.

Because you might think at some point that you're a bit sure of the Davis Cup atmosphere, in the sense that the guys are there from the start, they can send you a

Marseillaise

... But in fact... It's is almost selfish to think of it like that but it's almost even better.

Because when we are in the Davis Cup, we play for France.

There, they are there for you.

Those who didn't want to see you, they didn't come.

»

“There is something when you look at this player anyway”

Touching is the right word.

Touching to see the lovers of “Gillou” coming out of the woodwork, them that we had been chambering endlessly for years.

Paul, a fan boy since he was a kid, was a little detached, for lack of convincing results.

He falls back into the pot in three seconds: “Against Johnson, I was watching the match on my phone, I saw myself at 20 planning my schedule for him.

It's funny to see that people finally find it cool to support Gilles Simon.

He was not the favorite player of the four, people thought he had a bit of a boring game, maybe rightly so, but he was always interesting to follow.

He's not a smooth character, and then this hyper-cerebral game, there's something when you look at this player anyway.

To all those who hesitate to get on Gilles Simon's boat,

I tell them to hurry, there is not much time left!

".

Perhaps one more round, perhaps, against Marin Cilic, an opponent he loved to martyrize in the good old days.

Pioline wants to believe it: “It's great what's happening to him, he announced that it was his last Roland-Garros and it's going wonderfully well.

He is more demonstrative, more in search, we see that he looks at the public, that he shakes his fist, something that we did not see him doing before… It is a deserved last stand as for Jo.

I hope he will go a little further in the tournament and that he will have the tribute he deserves”.

Ah yes, that's another secret not very well kept: the FFT has planned a small ceremony, too, for his "Gillou", after his last match at Roland.

We can push back as much as he wants, concerning us.

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