My Love/Hate Relationship with the French

Crappy photo but it's raining hard. Trust me.

Today was a weird day. Nothing of note happened until late in the day. Well I guess that's not entirely true, it poured rain all day. So we sat inside and watched it. I didn't play until 17:30 and we left around 15:00 for St. Germain de la Grange, while Frank opted to stay in Rouen and train with some other players. At about 14:45 I went to the bakery and got a baguette for the ride. I think the rather large, old lady that runs the store has a thing for me as she gave me a bag full of free croissants when I bought my baguette. I got like 10 pastries for €0.85. At this point in our French travels, we often find ourselves wondering where the French got this reputation for being mean. They've been nothing but pleasant, and this lady's generosity was just another example of this.

Gustavo and Gregario watch some tennis.

However, during the course of my match my love for the French dwindled. I played a 29 year-old player, ranked 1/6, who was a coach at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy. At first this guy was nothing but kind. He spoke English, was chatting me up, and seemed very friendly. However, there was a trouble from the get go. His very 1st serve he hit out wide and probably missed by 3 or 4 inches. I called it out and prepped for his 2nd serve. But he sprinted to the net and said, "No, no, no! This ball hit the line." I walked up to the line looked for the mark, and pointed at it. He ran to my side of the court, and threw a fit while pointing at some smudge that could not possibly have been made by a tennis ball. It was the first point, so after some discussion I gave him the call and moved on. This was clearly a mistake. For the rest of the match every time he hit a ball that was within 1 foot of the line he would sprint to the net and yell, "Where? Where is the mark?" Now, contrary to popular belief, clay doesn't mark every time. So sometimes there are simply no marks. When I couldn't find the mark, he would yell at me and tell me how I was trying to cheat him. His animosity really got in my head and I quickly found myself down 1-5. Somehow I battled back to 5-5, but dropped the first set 5-7.

Another view of Mouratoglou Tennis Academy. 

In the second set my opponents shenanigans continued, with him questioning my line calls at least 15 times during the course of the match. After going down 0-3 in the second I played a couple of good games and brought it to 3-3. During a big deuce point at 3-3 we played a marathon point that ended when my ball hit the line, and took an awkward bounce sideways that caused him to shank his ball out. He looked at the line and screamed, "No!" Followed by some tirade in French. I thought he was trying to call my ball out and immediately responded by saying, "No way man! That's right on the line!" I quickly realized he was simply frustrated with himself, but it was too late. His eyes darted towards me and with the wrath of the entire country he screamed, "Shut up you American! I'm not talking to you! You shut up! You don't do this anymore!" I'll have to admit I was a little freaked out. I lost focus and quickly lost the next three games to lose the match, 5-7, 3-6. Then the strangest thing happened.

He ran to the net, shook my hand very graciously, and told me how wonderful I played. Then he insisted I come up to the bar with him so he could buy me a beer. We then proceeded to talk for 20 minutes where he was once again amazingly kind, I was too confused to try and exit the situation. I've never seen a guy go from being so, so angry, to so kind. I suppose it was some kind of gamesmanship, but he was so downright cruel that it was over the line. Either way, I really had opportunities to win the match but am still making too many unforced errors on the clay. It's very frustrating. But Frank and I both are improving a lot, so I guess we can't complain too much. Plus, we've been having such a good time over here that life is good.

The French countryside taken on the ride back to Rouen.

Frank and I pick up our rental car tomorrow and in about a week we will be out of the flat and on our own. We don't play our next tournament until Saturday, so we have a few days to learn how to drive a manuel car, train on the red clay, and do some sightseeing. Gustavo insists that learning how to drive a manuel is a piece of cake and we'll be experts in no time. But I'm a bit concerned. Tomorrow we have a whole day to practice so we'll see how it goes.

Frankie stringing on the worst stringer ever made. For some reason you have to put a paper towel under the string when you pull the tension. When I was using it, the damn thing snapped my string and I had to start over. I hate it so much.

Frank's modified his airplane sleeping strategy for the car as well. Pomona breeds some smart folks.

-Max