The French have a brigade stronger than their army at the
SW19. Lead by Jo Wilfried Tsonga, there is Richard Gasquet, Gael Monfils, Gilles
Simon, Nicholas Mahut , Julien Benneteau and the lone woman ranger Marion Bartoli
who is ranked at no.15.
Among these players, I love watching Richard Gasquet-
the strongest reason being his single fisted backhand and that he gravitates to
the net at every opportunity and treat the grass surface as grass and not
hammer blows from the baseline. The
problem is we all know that the these players with the exception of Tsonga will
not reach beyond the quarter finals.
Gasquet has played in 7 Wimbledon championships and his best result has
been the semifinals in 2007. Gael Monfils has never progressed beyond 3rd
round, Gilles Simon has done one round better than him and so has Benneteau.
Bartoli has played in 10 championships and her best result came in 2007 as a Wimbledon
Finalist. Tsonga has shown the most promising performance. Ranked at No.7, he
has played in 5 championships and his best result has been the semi-finals in
2011 where he beat Federer and in 2012.
All these players have been around for
at least 10 years on the tour and may never beat their peak results which are
at best average. Many of them are in top
20 and their rankings will slide even further as years progress (Lleyton Hewitt
at No.82).
But Hewitt at least got the kiss the trophy in 2002 and enjoy a
brief fling with being No.1.
