Roland Garros 2010: Day 5 - I'm only happy when it rains....

A friend had been before and already had tickets for Chatrier as a result of an Bercy package – and had registered to get tix on the internet – so on the day they came out – between us we tried ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY! I was at work so it was a bit tricky to keep checking and if you think Ticket Master in the UK is irritating for Wimbledon – that’s nothing on the Billeterie a la FFT !

However – perseverance paid off and we had tix for me to treat mum to a trip to France and a spare ticket for Chatrier!


What we DIDN’T bargain on … weather!!!

So – Arrived on the Weds – got a cab to the apartment hotel and having just gotten an iPhone – I was pretty stoked to be able to liberally use their free wifi!

We caught some of the coverage of Rezai – the French commies were hilarious!!!
I’d spent most of the journey thinking I’d figured out the right bus etc to get to Porte d’Auteil… ummm just No!

The bus we needed was right outside the apartment! Took us by the Arc de Triomphe!
Now – what you need to know is that in France – it’s not traffic on the roundabout that has priority… non non non… it is traffic JOINING… so cars inexplicably stop dead on the roundabout as the bus hurtles along… holy moley – hilarity and terror in pretty much equal measure!

For my money – RG and Wimbledon are pretty similar in setup
Both are situated slap bang in built up areas… fairly long schlep to the stadium – e-billets at the ready we scanned through – and in we were.
And then it started raining.
Just spitting really – but enough to mean that play was delayed.
We divided and conquered with mum heading to Lenglen and I had my friend’s tic to Chatrier because she knew I wanted to watch JJ … not that we watched anything for a while!



11am start….delayed to “trieze heures”… then “quatorze heures” … we headed off to La Terrace where – yep pretty much the entire spectator population of RG had gathered! Mum managed to get some shelter and I tootled off to get some frites. I’d had a bit of fun chatting with the staff at the Chatrier and Lenglen gates – and decided to try out my French at doing that very British of occupations – joining the end of a queue, with a rather nice guy in front!



Just like in nightclubs – doesn’t matter where you stand – it seems to be a public throughway – a comment I made and to my surprise the VERY nice looking dude in front turned and agreed and we chatted all the way to the front of the queue… Mainly about how I would (hopefully, eventually) see the difference that playing on clay brings… in terms of court smarts.
Food gotten – I headed back to where we were trying to shelter and the daughter of a French family sat playing cards offered me a seat while she got her grub – so again – similarly to Wimbledon we chatted all about tennis here – the plans being discussed to move RG to Versailles or to have extensions to RG (think…. Converting the golf course next to Wimbledon to be additional court space).
I trotted back to chat up the guy at Lenglen to see how long – and initially they were outlooking no play until 4pm and then suddenly – out of nowhere – blue sky, and dryness.
We legged it to our respective courts and irritatingly JUST as I got to Chatrier – it had started spitting AGAIN! But they seemed determined to get them underway…