How can French tennis find joy at Roland Garros all over again

The Philippe Chatrier, a steely colosseum of right angles outside is anything but steely inside. Fifteen thousand people are losing their minds.

- Sharda Ugra

Roland Garros 2025's last surviving French player – a wild card ranked world no. 361 about whom there is still no information on her player page (neither place of birth, height, weight, playing style or name of coach) had just knocked out her second-successive seeded player. If it was no. 3 Jessica Pegula on Monday, Wednesday was reserved for no.6 Mirra Andreeva, a rising star of women's tennis, who melted in the Chatrier's heat and noise.

The La Marseillaise was sung in one stand, national flags were being waved in the other, there was chanting and booing. Lois Boisson became the first French player since 2016 and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga to reach a Roland Garros semi-final, which is where her run ended. Boisson is a scrapper from nowhere who went unnoticed over the first week of an event which had witnessed the disappearance of more celebrated French players from the draw. This after the hosts have 10 men and two women in the top 100. When she took down Pegula, nobody even knew who she was.

But the absence of the French at the business end is a distressingly annual Roland Garros custom. "The last one who went to the final is me... 88" says Henri Leconte, a very 21st century Mousquetaire, dressed in an old-style bomber jacket. "We need an Italian – we need someone who can play on clay."

Leconte is not being glib when he's talking of Italian-origin players for France but rather focusing on clay court expertise. "We need to organise ourselves and with our juniors to go and see different academies like (Riccardo) Piatti and Rafa's..."