At the French Open, only one trophy but so many triumphs

Sport isn't fair, this is the plain truth, this is the deal athletes accept.

- Rohit Brijnath

Not everyone makes it, not everyone's haircut like Carlos Alcaraz's makes the news, not everyone's bank balance swells like Novak Djokovic's US$187,086,939 (S$241,500,000), not everyone gets on centre court.

Players shrug, it's OK, but what everyone desires is a chance. That's all. To be somebody. To get a shot. To be one of 128 in the French Open draw. This is harder than you think. The clay in Paris, 80 tonnes of it, comes from a single brick factory, but talent comes from everywhere and feels as omnipresent as the dust.

The lowest-ranked player on the WTA Tour is No. 1,402, on the ATP Tour it's No. 2,133, and it's a suffocating, hardscrabble, physically punishing life. A player once spoke about cutting costs by sleeping in a brothel but didn't quite fully explain the economics of it.

Bianca Andreescu won the US Open in 2019, then this summer she lost in the qualifying for the French Open. No one cares and the tour pulls along, everyone searching for an edge. It's not just lines which get hit out there but self-esteem.

Who you are in the mirror sometimes is just a ranking. Stefanos Tsitsipas was a finalist in Paris in 2021, now he's a second-round loser, about to possibly drop out of the top 20. Everyone's trying to rise but it's hard not to fall. Unless you're Rafael Nadal and you lived in the top 10 for 912 consecutive weeks.