“I’m rather full cake!” Asked Thursday by teleconference in a context a bit euphoric, the question asked to the Breton Clara Burel was about her supposed appetite for the sausage pancake. Anecdotal certainly, but by no means trivial in a depressed tricolor context, where the bulk of French players cleared the floor in three days and where the emergence of a hexagonal regionalism is far more exotic than the sideways glance of a player from the East wanting to finish with the media exercise as soon as possible.
Read also Roland-Garros: Hugo Gaston, young, set and match
If time permits, Burel (19 years old) will face Chinese Zhuang Shuai in the round of 16 of the tournament on Saturday and she will not be the only Frenchwoman on deck that day: Niçoise Fiona Ferro (23 years old) will be opposed to the Romanian Maria Tig, the two players thus being able to join their elder Caroline Garcia in the round of 16. The same story – young players, without reference, discovering themselves throughout the tournament – with a very different flavor. Ferro is supposedly the stronger of the two, the more expansive too: a game in the guns of the time (hitting hard on both sides) that has been a hit for a few weeks since she is undefeated (seven wins) since the end of the confinement, a privilege she shares with Novak Djokovic among men, if however we consider that the exclusion of the Serbian in New York for having involuntarily knocked out a linesman is not a defeat in due form. We must also put into perspective: before Roland-Garros, the Niçoise had won the tournament in Palermo, classified International that is to say second. Burel, on the other hand, tumbles in by surprise.
And not just a little. A year ago, she was practicing with foam balls after a delicate operation of the wrist, which she half-admits to watch: “This wound is completely behind me. But not completely (sic), I have to be careful. At the back, I begin to free myself. I don’t know if it’s 100%, but it’s starting. ” Burel is at her (very) young age: concise in her answers, confused the rare times she launches out, seemingly quite sure of herself. “It’s kinda crazy what’s going on here for me, she explained Thursday. I didn’t necessarily expect it. It’s hard to describe the emotions but I think it’s really just joy at the moment. “ Burel does not have the austere and uncertain game of his speech: it varies a lot, which the French public – or rather what remains of it, gauging a maximum of 1,000 spectators per day – is quick to associate to the notion of intelligence (go find out why) and which the player refutes in her own way: “It’s hard to talk to myself about the way I play. But it is true that this intelligence of play which one lends to me, I hear it a lot and I read it a lot. “
Read also Headwinds at Roland Garros
“A feeling of illegitimacy”
For this edition of the tournament, Burel received a wild card from the Federation. A gift that has long poisoned the life of Fiona Ferro when she also benefited from it: “As I did not win a match at Roland Garros, I had a feeling of illegitimacy, explains the Niçoise in the team. I found it hard to feel like I belonged. ” This is the big business of Ferro’s career so far: to convince herself that she is not a clandestine passenger on the circuit, she who has crossed the categories of young people in all discretion. “I think where I have improved the most in recent weeks is my attitude and believe that I can really impose my game [tout en puissance] against anyone. Before when I played against girls who hit hard like [la Kazakhe Elena] Rybakina [que Ferro a battu jeudi] or [l’Italienne Camila] Giorgi [qu’elle a dominée à Palerme], I really thought I was powerless and the only way I could get points was if they missed them. I played to make them miss. There, it’s different and it’s really a big change of power. ”
After her victory over Rybakina, Ferro confessed that he sometimes needed to convince himself that she could lead the exchange: “It was a bit of a struggle against myself.” Since this fall, it has been taken over by Emmanuel Planque, close to Yannick Noah and who has long accompanied Lucas Pouille, French semi-finalist of the 2019 Australian Open. A size, whose presence has undoubtedly helped the Niçoise to gain credibility in his own eyes. Burel also received a reinforcement of weight after the confinement of Thierry Champion, director of the high level, who settled for a month in Brittany to follow her and with whom she “typed” every day. Sign of recognition but not only: to be the player of her generation diagnosed the most gifted by far, Burel is an important stake in the small environment of French tennis. The Breton woman’s impassiveness on and off the court also speaks of standing, the habit of looking at others. Ferro, she changes world: “So far there hasn’t been a lot of waiting around me. It’s something that’s going to be a little new. ”
Gregory Schneider
.
