French Open 2013: The good, the sublime, the bad and the ugly

The Ugly

You’d think a sport that has seen the worst possible consequences of inadequate security (rewind to the 1993 on-court stabbing of Monica Seles) would be particularly careful about ensuring unimpeachable security at every single tournament. And yet, for the second time in four years, one of the biggest tennis events of the year was marred by a spectator invading the court and coming within striking distance of the eventual champion. Are the organizers waiting for another player to be stabbed, maybe even killed, before they implement more foolproof security measures?

The debate on whether to implement Hawk-Eye on the claycourts of Roland Garros continues to rage on. But Sergiy Stakhovsky’s frustration at the chair umpire’s supposed inability to make the right call, which led to him photographing the ball mark with his phone, may have tilted the argument slightly in favour of Hawk-Eye – a player photographing a ball mark is clearly a bad advertisement for the game. Besides, as noted tennis columnist Steve Tignor remarked recently, an umpire repeatedly getting down from his chair to try and decipher which one among the many ball marks is the right one makes the French Open look behind the times, maybe even a little regressive. If they can’t put a roof over the players’ heads, maybe they should go ahead and implement Hawk-Eye to give the impression that they are at least trying to keep pace with the other Slams?

Ernests Gulbis

The last word, as it almost never is, is reserved for Ernests Gulbis. The flame-throwing (both on and off the court) Latvian regaled and frustrated in equal measure during his high-quality 2nd round loss to Gael Monfils. But he made plenty of noise even before the match; in an interview with L’Equipe, he launched into the top players, calling Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray ‘boring’ and accusing them of ‘putting on an act’ by being unfailingly courteous with their opponents. Gulbis went even further, saying that he’d like tennis to be more like boxing, where there is ‘war, blood and emotion’. Gulbis has never been shy of coming up with a quotable quote or two, and for the most part his interviews are hilarious and entertaining. But maybe he should try winning a little more often before he launches into poorly-timed tirades against his colleagues? He probably didn’t watch the Nadal-Djokovic semifinal, but if he did, he’d know that the top players, as Andy Murray so eloquently put it, are boring for a reason; they’d rather keep the focus on their tennis than their interviews, so that they can keep producing the belief-defying exhibitions of staggering athleticism that we’ve become accustomed to witnessing. If the cost of being in the Golden Age of tennis is putting up with less-than-thrilling player interviews, I can certainly live with that. It’s time Gulbis learnt to live with it too.