End of an Era: Reflections on Tennis Legends and Roland-Garros Farewells

1981. Serge Gainsbourg, depressed and alone after the departure of Jane Birkin, tired of taking it all in stride, in every sense of the word, released his second (and last) reggae album, Bad News from the Stars. Despite some fantasies, the record appears very dark. Gainsbourg moves slowly into Gainsbarre. The 80s will be that of drinking, excess and diving. One of the pieces, Comrade Nostalgia, sums up the tone of the whole thing well. A deep melancholy, even tinged with the Rasta airs of Nassau.

At the time when the great Serge recorded, tennis was adorned with melancholy finery. Change of times, there too. The end of something. Björn Borg, the man who revolutionized this sport like no one before or after him, is leaving the stage. He won his sixth and final title at Roland Garros. He will never come back there again. Tired, fed up with everything, playing tennis, winning, being a star, an idol to whom we bow down, he will leave the stage. He will leave millions of fans and tennis lovers there and transform even his opponents into orphans, starting with John McEnroe. Nostalgia, comrade…

Under the sign of farewell

Forty-three years later, Roland-Garros once again oozes melancholy as it has not happened for a long time. The autumn weather (a polite synonym for disgusting), which makes this 2024 vintage look like a 2020 edition, that of the Covid, disputed in the middle of October, does not help one to feel in a perky mood, it is TRUE. For example, Larousse speaks of the “melancholy of an autumn landscape”. It is not a coincidence. But there is something else. This fortnight is largely marked this year by major departures, official or probable farewells.

French tennis is not the last to escape it. Alizé Cornet has bowed out, and we cannot help but think that for a Gaël Monfils and undoubtedly even more for a Richard Gasquet, the goodbyes after defeat in the second round had a little more of a scent of farewell. We are preparing for it, in any case.

We are far from a Franco-French affair. This is not the main thing. Dominic Thiem, double finalist of the tournament, nevertheless, was saluted for the last time and as it should be by the public at Porte d’Auteuil during the qualifications, from which he was unable to escape. And it was strange, because the man is still very young (30 years old). Ditto for Stan Wawrinka, who had his eyes in water after his defeat against Pavel Kotov. Two days earlier, he hugged Andy Murray as a winner at the net, after a duel that once had shock value at the top of world tennis.

Then there is the big deal of this edition. Rafael Nadal’s first round exit. No matter who comes out on top next weekend, this 2024 edition will be remembered as the Spaniard’s big departure. Yes, he kept a way out by explaining that he was not 100% certain that this Roland-Garros would remain his last, but the most likely is that if he returns to Roland next year, it will undoubtedly be to present the Musketeers’ Cup or to sit in the presidential stand.

Pouille: “The only regret for Nadal was ultimately the draw”

Roland will recover, tennis too

No champion has ever held such an important place in a tournament, whether at the Grand Slam or elsewhere. 14 tracks, from the mid-2000s to the early 2020s. Crazy. So, obviously, the idea of ​​continuing without him would almost incite one to heave a melancholy sigh. Bad news from the stars…

To think that Nadal, Wawrinka and Federer will all be a thing of the past very soon is to realize that 16 of the last 19 French Open victories will evaporate, if they haven’t already. Only Novak Djokovic will remain. The three-time winner from Serbia fends off the onslaught of passing time but, at 37 years old, he too is not eternal. There is something strange about all this because these champions, in addition to having been of remarkable caliber and even, for the famous Big 3, generator of irrationality, have had a rare longevity. They have been part of the landscape for so long that getting used to the idea of ​​their disappearance on the courts is perhaps even stranger than for certain great figures of the past.

And yet. Even if it seems just as paradoxical, and even if it means flirting with the crime of lèse-majesté, Roland-Garros will quickly move on to something else. No player, however immense, is bigger than a tournament and even less than the whole of tennis. There will probably never be a Nadal again, perhaps we will never see again champions as voracious as the Big 3, but Roland will recover, move on to something else and if those after will be different, the tournament will not be any less great.

If, today or in a few years, you can no longer follow and appreciate tennis because Federer, Nadal or Djokovic are no longer there, it is because you loved one of these champions more than you really love tennis. . So your mourning will be impossible but tennis, Roland-Garros and the others will do without you. If this is not your case, you will like the sequel. You will bury this very special era, it will become a youth or adult memory, depending on your age, but burying an era is not burying tennis as a whole. Tennis rises from everything. Roland-Garros recovered from Borg and all the others, and will recover from Nadal, even if his place in History is gigantic. Unique, even. But if it is not accompanied by an afterthought, nostalgia is a bad advisor, comrade.

Why isn’t Nadal announcing his retirement? “He doesn’t know it himself.”

2024-05-31 22:34:00
#RolandGarros #Nostalgia #comrade