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Roland-Garros: Benoît Paire, sober pleasure-seeker

Divine surprise for Benoît Paire: Sunday evening, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) indicated that it recognized the non-contagiousness of the coronavirus in case of anteriority of the disease (“Documented by a medical record”). In short: the player no longer risks exclusion, he who has suffered “Two positive tests in New York, nine negative tests in New York, Paris or Rome, two positive tests in Hamburg before two negative tests in Germany and in Paris”. The Ile-de-France Regional Health Agency (ARS) having endorsed the decision, we strongly suspect the FFT of having asked for mercy to avoid chaos. Otherwise, why would the ARS have taken a position on this without being asked for anything? Pair will fall racket in hand and not otherwise, this Wednesday against the Argentinian Federico Coria in the second round of Roland-Garros, or after.

Finally, “divine surprise”, it is not sure. “I would be happy to come home a bit, frankly [les joueurs sont casernés à plein temps dans deux hôtels parisiens, ndlr]. The test and its importance are all relative. I tell myself if I can play, I play, and if I can’t, well I go home to see my dog, my family, and I’m happy. ” We can see his dog and his loved ones on Instagram: Benoît Paire is the glass house of tennis, a guy who shows everything, all the time.

“Too late”

During the first weeks of confinement, his virtual spritz aperitifs (Campari and prosecco) on social networks with Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka helped fans overcome their idleness. The two players then took on a role. To the triple winner in Grand Slam that of the hard worker and introspective, of the benevolent friend who shows the way of wisdom too: “Have no regrets when this ends, Benoît. At 31, it will soon be too late… ” And to the French that of the epicurean, “I drink a drink, I think and I answer you”, child terrible, cossard and in love with freedom. Caught in a field of contradictory forces: “I want to change but I know that I am not capable of it. For example, I want to win a Grand Slam tournament but I know I won’t win one. “

For a month, Paire has been rather the New York prisoner cloistered in his hotel room by the American health authorities after his positive test for Covid-19. And he is also the culprit: the man who sent the flower of French tennis (Adrian Mannarino, Kristina Mladenovic, Richard Gasquet, Grégoire Barrère …) to isolation as contact persons, since he had the misfortune of rub shoulders with them.

To hear it, Benoît Paire came out staggering, haggard: “With everything that’s happened to me, it’s not easy. Everyone will say that I am making excuses but when we stay ten days locked up [à New York], then five days [à Hambourg]… Of course I’m not physically at the top. So, mentally, it’s hard. I try to hang on. ” If he is undoubtedly not wrong on the merits, the general idea is all the same to take the overwhelmingness of Avignon with hindsight.

We are talking about a 25e global. Having, over a long period of time, given the impression of being satisfied with it: not occasionally but in trend, more often at McDonald’s than at the weight room. And it is difficult to hold it against him when we look at his career. “At 16, he still wanted to become a soccer player rather than a tennis player, explains a relative. He did not go through the federal sector, he did not take the fold of squaring everything – training, dietetics – since childhood: it was tennis that came to him, not the other way around. It opened up a different path for him. Maybe if he had been forced, he would have stopped playing tennis after six months. ”

A kid’s thing

Benoît Paire has one weak point, and not the least: social networks, or rather the weight he gives to insults or judgments that fall there continuously. Most of the players have learned not to care, some (like Novak Djokovic) even feed on it, but the Frenchman continues to see himself in the eyes of others, which also makes him one of the greatest charmers in the world. circuit, as sparkling in the interview as it is extremely correct and attentive on the fringes of them. Not sure that makes a winner … “My kif is to earn a good living, Paire explained in January in the Team. To have my home, to be able to have fun, to put aside a little to have a quiet life. They will tell me that I could have won a Grand Slam. Yes, I could have. ” No kidding ? While tennis has been devoured for fifteen years by a trio swallowing some 56 Grand Slam tournaments, and where two of them (Djokovic and Nadal) have never been beaten by a French since the age of their majority?

The role of the one who can but does not want is one of the great standards of the circuit, interpreted by those (Gaël Monfils, Nick Kyrgios) who want to preserve their ego and believe that they have not really been dominated since they did not give themselves the means, although they would undoubtedly have exploded to their maximum level of investment. A kid’s thing, which is also the price of these players.

This Wednesday, Benoît Paire faces the brother of a former tennis magician, Guillermo Coria, beaten in the final in 2004 by his Argentinian compatriot Gastón Gaudio after having had two match points. Two years later, Coria woke up one morning unable to serve properly. He never got his hands on it again. Funny sport, anyway.

Gregory Schneider

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