Thomas Siniecki, Media365: published on Friday March 31, 2023 at 11:42 am
Everyone will judge the merits of this change of tone on the part of the leader of French tennis, but Nicolas Escudé is at least trying to follow Arthur Fils in his ambitions. And already calls for the short term.
Nicolas Escudé, national technical director for a little over two years (he was appointed in March 2021), makes an uncompromising observation when he is called upon to explain his mission: “We looked at the pyramid of young people, Leagues, national structures, our Poitiers center too… To see that our male reservoir was poor, and that it was even worse for the girls. We reworked the base, with the technical teams, in order to train a volume of much more important players to become denser.”
“Pejorative to caricature in the mind”
The former world No. 17 (in 2000) and winner of the 2001 Davis Cup does not want to sum up the tricolor faults in the mind, “it’s pejorative to caricature at that”, but he appreciates for example the state of mind new from one Arthur Son. “When you see his philosophy and his approach, when he says he wants to win a Grand Slam tournament in the next four or five years, he will not be satisfied with a second round at the next Roland-Garros. And we either. We want a second week or more.” He also mentions Luca Van Asschewinner of Roland-Garros juniors in 2021 and recently invited to the Australian Open before winning the Challenger de Pau after a Homeric final in front of his compatriot Ugo Humbert.
As for the girls, the “Scud” quotes Diane Parry, Elsa Jacquemot, Selena Janicijevic or Clara Burel, but he agrees without difficulty: it is slow to explode. The DTN is also responsible for giving them advice so that they can structure themselves, but it is still very difficult to find one able to follow the locomotive. Caroline Garcia, which has always evolved under the bosom of his father and therefore far from the federal sphere. Behind the fourth world, Alize Cornet is only 66th and Oceane Dodin 93rd, while three other French women remain at the gates of the top 100: Diane Parry, despite her magnificent victory over Barbora Krejcikova last year in the first round of Roland-Garros (1-6, 6-2, 6-3 ), remains 108th, wedged between Burel 104th and Leolia Jeanjean 109eme.
