The French Open: Projecting a Champion

Roland Garros Preview from our ATP Insider, Jackson Frons

The first post of Left Open, CLT’s leftist coverage of Roland Garros 2023.

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Part 1: Ask the Right Questions

Now that it’s time for another Grand Slam, the Club Leftist Tennis Comintern has deactivated the cryo-chamber where I’ve been held in stasis since the Australian Open, consuming every shred of men’s tennis available Clockwork Orange style. The passage of time has made me reflective. Sure, I could regale you all again with sleepers from the challenger ranks or predict every first-round match. I could wax about Italians. I could dialectically prognosticate in the town square until I’m hoarse, but I need to take a more radical turn. These gifts are precious resources that I can’t hoard any longer. Today, I lift up the proverbial hood. Reader: today you too will learn my secrets from inside the ATP.

Our case-study? Divining the eventual French Open Men’s Champion.

As any good leftist knows, the future is built from the material conditions of the present. We understand the present, however, through our knowledge of the past. It is from history, through the struggles of our revolutionary forbearers that the battles of the day are won. In this way, too, we understand the draw.

As I have previously discussed, not everyone arrives at a slam prepared to contend. Rarely can a player break from the strata of their class to challenge the noble elite of the tour. Upsets happen. Stunners delve deep into the draw. But conquest takes a toll. Round after round, playing three out of five, the odds of advancement slim.

These constraints are even more extreme at Roland Garros, where one balding Spaniard has reigned with nearly uninterrupted monarchic dominion since I was in elementary school. However, the King of Clay, the defending champion, the great Rafael Nadal, the man who I’d very much like to ask, “So how did uncle Tony feel about Franco?” continues to nurse his ailing everything and will not be in the field.

Power rushes to fill a vacuum, and in an open field full of worthy contenders, many tennis leftists are asking the same questions: Should we maybe acknowledge Roland Garros used to be a prison? Why hasn’t Novak Djokovic started a podcast with Aaron Rodgers? And, of course, who will win the French Open?

As for that last question, one needs to tweak the angle of inquiry to gain a stable answer. There is one path to predicting who will win the French Open, and it begins by figuring out who will not win the French Open.

Part 2: Purging the Revisionists

For today, I am the most annoying online leftist. I am a Tankie. I am a Maoist. I am a Stalinist. I am the guy who’s like “after the revolution I’m going to be the hecking executioner of the revisionists.”

So, let’s purge this draw.

Purge 1: The French

While the French are expert at many things—particularly producing laminated pastries and reactionary novelists—French Tennis arguably hasn’t been synonymous with winning tennis since the days of Rene Lacoste, nearly a century ago.

In the Open Era, there have been countless dynamic and nearly great Frenchmen on the scene—from Sebastian Grosjean with his inverted caps to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga—all experts in the almost, but not quite. The trope of the French tennis player on the precipice of true greatness has even entered the realm of fiction. Léon Descoteaux, found in Greg Jackson’s “Serve and Volley Near Vichy,” is charming, talented, a touch undersized, and never quite able to win a major. For every rule, however, there’s an exception. Yannick Noah was famously victorious in 1983[1], but a Frenchman hasn’t taken the title at Roland Garros (or any other major) since.

The draw this year promises to be stocked full of French players young and old, but none of them pose a legitimate threat. However, as the era of Monfils and Gasquet ends, hope exists on the horizon. Look out for Arthur Fils, perhaps the long-awaited heir to the French throne. Will he one day lift the trophy on court Phillippe Chattier? Will he sire a hard-nosed rim running four who can’t make a jumper? Only time will tell.

Purge 2: Anyone who hasn’t won a major, a Masters 1000, or reached a major semi-final

Grand slams are not won by accident. Long gone are the halcyon days of the indie sleaze aughts when Gastón Gaudio could prance to the title on his maiden voyage into a major’s second week. As courts have slowed, technique has become more efficient, and the game, across all surfaces, has become more physical and predicated on endurance. Success exists at the nexus of talent, commitment, and consistency. And clay, once the dominion of dirt balling specialists, now belongs, at the Masters level and up, to the titans of the hardcourt. While Ramos-Viñolas or Garin might galumph to the occasional 250 or even 500 crown, major finals aren’t built for surprises. Even Marin Cilic’s inexplicable U.S. Open run didn’t come from thin air.

Perhaps the most notable player eliminated in this cull is the pride of (northern) Italy, Jannik Sinner, who despite his decorated resume and immense potential, hasn’t quite put it together at the biggest events yet.

Purge 3: Assessing the Material Conditions

Let’s take a look at who’s left:

·      Novak Djokovic

·      Carlos Alcaraz

·      Daniil Medvedev

·      Casper Ruud

·      Stefanos Tsitsipas

·      Andrey Rublev

·      Holger Rune

·      Taylor Fritz

·      Felix Auger-Aliassime

·      Karen Khachanov

·      Frances Tiafoe

·      Cameron Norrie

·      Hubert Hurkacz

·      Borna Coric

·      Tommy Paul

·      Matteo Berrettini

·      Pablo Carreño Busta

·      Alexander Zverev

·      Roberto Bautista Agut

·      Denis Shapovalov

·      Grigor Dimitrov

·      Aslan Karatsev

·      John Isner

·      Stan Wawrinka

·      Diego Schwartzman

·      Dominic Thiem

Now our task is simple, we’ve reduced the field to a short-list possible champions[2] who we can now perform material analysis upon. Some of them are pretty washed (sorry Stan and Dominic). Others, while great players, are not materially suited to the surface. Looking at you: Americans. And, finally, some just do not have The Swag to win a major—either because their peak level isn’t quite elite enough or, in the case of Alexander Zverev, they’re cosmically incapable of becoming a true champion.

One man, however, deserves a special shout-out for failing to meet all three materialist criteria. A player who is at once terrible on clay, totally washed, lacking the necessary swag to win a major, and, for good measure, also a fascist. Let’s all give John Isner a hearty round of applause. I hope he finds no peace donating his first-round loss prize money to the DeSantis campaign.

Full list below:

·      Novak Djokovic

·      Carlos Alcaraz

·      Daniil Medvedev (Allergic to Clay)

·      Casper Ruud

·      Stefanos Tsitsipas

·      Andrey Rublev

·      Holger Rune

·      Taylor Fritz (American)

·      Felix Auger-Aliassime (I just don’t see Felix getting over the hill yet…)

·      Karen Khachanov (Surface)

·      Frances Tiafoe (I want to lie here, because he theoretically should be good on clay, but…)

·      Cameron Norrie (No)

·      Hubert Hurkacz (Surface and swag deficient)

·      Borna Coric (Have you ever heard someone be like, “that grand slam champion sure has a terrible forehand?)

·      Tommy Paul (From New Jersey)

·      Matteo Berrettini (They don’t play The Boss Open on clay, do they?)

·      Pablo Carreño Busta (The rare Spanish hardcourt specialist)

·      Alexander Zverev (Get that shit out of here)

·      Roberto Bautista Agut (Look, he seems like a nice enough guy)

·      Denis Shapovalov (Drip - Shapo (Feat. Corentin Moutet))

·      Grigor Dimitrov (Washed, but in a creepy divorced guy way)

·      Aslan Karatsev (Come on)

·      John Isner (No Bass Pro Shops Superstores in Paris)

·      Stan Wawrinka (Washed, but in a drinks three bottles of natural wine a day kind of way) [3]

·      Diego Schwartzman (Washed + incredibly short)

·      Dominic Thiem (Unable to reattach wrist from circa 2019)

Part 3: The Selection of a New General Secretary

At this point I need to make a confession: it’s difficult to imagine a leftist champion. To win one slam is to desire to win them all. It is, almost definitionally, a capitalist pursuit. While I have faith in the possibility of future justice, the present state of affairs is what it is and we are left with a cluster of some of the least leftist guys on tour. What will determine a winner, then, is not the quality of their ideology, but its coherence.

The remaining players sort into three categories:

Major-less, but knocking at the door: Ruud, Rublev, Stefanos, Rune

The Future: Alcaraz

The Past: Novak

Of the major-less, Casper Ruud, despite having already reached the final at Roland Garros, seems the least likely contender. He hasn’t exactly had a “good” year, and I’m generally dubious of his upside. He strikes me as this era’s David Ferrer. Consistent, driven, a tad uninspired. A necessary bureaucrat of the tour.

Unlike Ruud, tennis sad boy Andrey Rublev has been enjoying the best clay court season of his career, a run that’s included his maiden Masters 1000 title in Monte Carlo. It was, however, in a field that didn’t include Alcaraz or Djokovic and this, I think, captures the tragedy of Rublev. Much like the spidery guitar riffs and platitudinal sadness of a mid-west emo record, Rublev’s game, while technically impressive, is a bit one-dimensional and repetitive. The same qualities that make him a dependably tough out week to week are also what limit him from true transcendence. I would, however, love to send him a few playlists.

While Ruud and Rublev might very well harbor leftist sentiments, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Holger Rune radiate a palpable evil. Rune opts for a banal variety —the dead eyed sociopath stare of the fratty investment banker. His social media is slick and professional, his on court conflicts have been of the “come at me bro” variety. While it’s clear Stefanos wants to take up the Djokovic mantle of mystic fascism, Holger Rune sits at an aesthetic crossroads. Will he go the way of Nadal and explore the boundaries of grindset luxury? Or the monarchist elegance of Federer? I think he can carve a new path—maybe a Norse Gods, black metal nationalism type of thing. Coming off a win in Rome against Novak himself, I expect Rune to make a deep run at Roland Garros, but his ideological incoherence will prevent him from winning the title.

On the subject of incoherence, while Stefanos generally adopts the mantle of a proverb spitting, marble column loving, Retvrn guy, his posting of late has turned to include debatably leftist sentiments and contemplations of brotherly affection. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on there, but I’m intrigued by it. He’s stirring up the kind of musky, mind guru cocktail that has helped others reach the promise land, but it doesn’t yet feel fully distilled. Before he can ascend to the mountain top, he must first more fully interrogate his relationship with his father and start posting about Knausgaard.

And then there is Novak, the Serbian God Emperor. The (arguable) GOAT. If not the inventor of the evil champion archetype, certainly the platonic realization of it. The man who, when at his best, is capable of playing the sport at as high a level as it has ever been played. However, since his post-Australian open (lack of) vaccine induced lay-off, Djokovic has been uncharacteristically vulnerable, failing to reach a final in his last four events. It would be easy to shake off these concerns. To place my bets in the powers that be, to barricade myself in a palace of ignorance like Tzar Nicholas in the final days of the Russian Empire, but no. A revolution is at hand. I predict Novak falls before the final.

That leaves only Carlos Alcaraz, the soft spoken, humble, driven, precocious, and generationally athletic Spaniard, who unsurprisingly is often billed as the second coming of Nadal. But that’s a false comparison parroted by tennis hype beasts. Clay isn’t even Carlito’s best surface. Unlike many others in the prognostication sector, I’m not ready to crown Carlos the GOAT in waiting either—I have questions about his serve, his health, and the ways his game will mature with age. He is, however, in his own mold. A power player whose signature shot is the dropper. An avid defender who relies upon the serve and volley. And he’s also broken into a realm of expression never touched by the big three: public horniness. Carlito is modeling Calvins. He’s begging Emma Raducanu to play mixed-doubles with him. And he’s already conquered America’s horniest city, New York. Are we prepared for a polyamorous world number 1? Is Alcaraz the Zoomer heir to Andre Agassi? That remains to be seen. What is certain is that we’ll have a champion who isn’t evil or boring, but a third, weirder, thing. Welcome to the future.

-ATP Insider

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[1] Mary Pierce also won on the women’s side in 2000, but she was born in Canada, raised in America, and is a proud evangelical Christian. Unless she’s a pack-a-day smoker, I’m considering her only marginally French.

[2] Look, if I missed anyone on the fringes of this list, redistribute me a research assistant.

[3] Special acknowledgement here for Andy Murray, who is washed, but in a JJ Reddick I’m a podcaster now kind of way.