Physical strength rules French Open

By Russell Barlow

JAKARTA (JP): The French Open, like all the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, possess its own special qualities.

The huge crowds which throng to Rolland Garros every year and the well-planned maze of outside courts in a huge park setting, are conductive to a nonchalant, carnival atmosphere.

It is enthusiastic Parisian crowds and great tennis matches that I recollect from my days as a player at Rolland Garros and today as a visitor to Paris in my capacity as a Tournament Director with the ATP Tour. The fans are very different from the staid, polite ones you find at Wimbledon or the ebullient Native New Yorkers at the U.S. Open.

The French crowds are very emotive and always intensely involved in the matches, pulling for the underdogs and willing French hopefuls to victory. Probably the most emotional moment in recent years was when Frenchman Yannick Noah, a great personality and talented player, fought brilliantly to defeat defending champion Mats Wilander of Sweden for the title in 1983.

Spectators see chess on a tennis court at Rolland Garros. One could almost see the tactical minds of the great claycourters -- Bjorn Bjorg, Guilermo Villas, Adriano Panatta, and, today, Sergei Bruguera -- as they cat-and-mouse with their befuddled opponents before pouncing for a kill.

Graveyard

Can a serve-and-volleyer win at the French Open? Sure, but it requires someone who is patient, waits for the right opportunities and is a good tactician.

People point to John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and now Pete Sampras as examples of great all-court or serve-and- volley players who couldn't win at the Rolland Garros "graveyard". There are different reasons why each of these top male players failed to win the French Open.

McEnroe and Becker never really learned the fundamentals of playing the clay court game. Becker can go through to the final rounds on clay, but comes up short when more patience is required against the clay court experts like Bruguera and Thomas Muster.

The same is true of McEnroe, but I saw him play two of the great sets of the clay court game against Ivan Lendl in the 1984 final. McEnroe was prudent and tactical with his shots, and attacked only when Lendl hit a short ball. But McEnroe was not fit enough to sustain the high standard of play over five sets and Lendl, who had made physical fitness his greatness strength, took the title.

Edberg is still one of the most stylish, elegant players on the ATP Tour. His game is ideally suited for grass or hard courts, but he lacks the weight of shot to win on slow clay. The former world number one and a losing finalist in Paris in 1989, lost to Michael Stich in Thursday's second round.

Sampras was sent packing in the first round and there was a chorus of naysayers who said he cannot win on clay. Some pertinent facts were overlooked; Gilbert Schaller is ranked 24 in the world; he is coming off a great clay court season where he beat world number nine Yevgeny Kafelnikov in Hamburg and Karel Novacek in Munich; and Sampras lost 4-6 in the fifth set after a nearly four-hour match.

Sampras is still young and has such immense talent that he can learn the game required to win the French Open. He can rally from the baseline with his flowing ground strokes and, most importantly, has the self-confidence to shrug off any questions about his clay court game.

I have read several articles over the past few days about Indonesia's Yayuk Basuki and her "shocking" defeat in the first round of the French Open to a Belgian qualifier ranked 100 places below her.

Yayuk is a very talented player, with a pounding forehand and a sliced backhand which is great for grass and hard courts, but I can see how she would have problems at Rolland Garros.

The clay at Rolland Garros becomes fast when the weather is hot and dry, but extremely slow after rain when the balls pick up to the powder. It is not as slow as the clay courts at the Italian Open, but it is nothing like the clay courts at the Senayan tennis complex here.

The Senayan tennis courts are very fast and the balls skid, especially when hit with a heavy slice. Yayuk developed her sliced backhand because it is a weapon on these courts, but it does not have the same effect at Roland Garros.

I am hedging on who will come through as the men's champion this week.

Bruguera has the heavy topspin strokes which are so difficult for opponents to handle at Rolland Garros, as well as the huge mental advantage of having won two years in a row. Muster, of course, has had and amazing year and has the stamina to win the long five-set matches.

Agassi and Chang should not be forgotten and either of them could make 1995 the year of the American in Paris.

Russell Barlow is the ATP Tour Consultant for the ATP Tour World Doubles Championship in Jakarta this November.