Tennis/French Open Men's Singles final: Like a child's play forever turning up wrong clues, false endings and mystery happenings, Roland Garros yesterday became a full-on screaming pantomime.
The French Open men's singles final was faintly ridiculous at times, providing tears and pathos, but entirely engaged the crowd throughout as Gaston Gaudio became only the third unseeded player after Gustavo Kuerten in 1997 and Mats Wilander in 1982 to take a blind run at the men's singles title here and pull it off.
These championships have a habit of throwing up a new multi-syllable men's champion and of the four Grand Slam events, more different players have won in Bois de Boulogne than anywhere else during the Open Era.
At Wimbledon, 17 players have won since 1968, the US Open has produced 20, the Australian Open 22 and Paris 23. On clay, half a game with a big serve isn't enough and, as Gaudio's fellow Argentine Guillermo Coria found out, neither is a less than perfect body.
This one lasted five sets and continued for over three and a half hours. We thought it had finished after two sets as a competition as Coria blazed a trail and held Gaudio to only three games in two sets. Wrong. We then believed that after the second game of the fourth set, when Coria called the trainer and began to bizarrely bat balls to Gaudio at 20 kph he had chronically injured himself. Wrong.
He chucked that fourth set 6-1, absurdly serving powder puffs and as befits his nickname 'The Magician' resuscitated himself in the fifth set, twice served for the title and lost.
Coria, the third seed and unmatchable favourite, had Gaudio struggling to contain the result to something other than embarrassing. The 25-year-old came into the competition with a history of chronic choking and a gaping hole in his curriculum vitae; he couldn't close out big matches and had won only two tournaments in his career.
Claiming not to enjoy the sport anymore, Gaudio threatened to give it up and spoke to the legendary Guillermo Vilas, the only other Argentine to win in Paris, in 1977. Vilas told him to hang in and enjoy the sport so Gaudio went to see a sports psychologist. Now he'll be remembered for throwing his racquet into the crowd after match point, high-fiving the entire front rows on all four sides of Court Philippe Chatrier and being over $1 million the richer.
But it is Coria's physical problem that came to light in the fourth set that will be remembered and Gaudio's mental strength to weather two match points in the fifth set before emotionally turning it around to win 8-6. Although Gaudio's hand had come off his throat in the third, when he broke Coria's serve to love for 6-4 and trail by just a set, it was Coria's injury that proved pivotal.
He simply couldn't move fully, and didn't try to. The episode lasted for five games and gave Gaudio an easy 6-1 fourth set.
"In the middle of the third set it started. I felt cramps," he said. I was not able to play. They told me I had to wait about 10 minutes after the cream and after that I would be able to move more. In the fifth set I tried not to think about it," said a disconsolate Coria afterwards.
Clearly Coria couldn't cover the ground and although he tried to shake it off in the final set, his normally wonderful movement had perished.
Seven service breaks to 6-6 in the final chapter and Gaudio at last held his serve to lead for the first time in the match 7-6. Again Coria popped over dolly serves, but this time Gaudio took his opportunity.
It transpired afterwards that Gaudio had shouted to Vilas, in the VIP box, during the second set when Coria was orchestrating the match.
"He said I want to leave. I had it. I can't believe I'm playing like this," said Vilas. "And suddenly everything turned. You know he talks a lot."
Laughing loudly through the final set, Gaudio became the pantomime jester after taking the advice of his sports psychologist.
"Try not to suffer on the court, he told me," said Gaudio. "Try a little happiness."
