Dustup in Paris: A Running List of French Open-Related Grievances

I'm really not someone who's hard to please. I mean, when Slams come around, I just need to either be on location (I am currently available in July and in late-August/early-September), or an air-conditioned locale in which to watch, and a mute button for most match commentators. I also need not to humiliate myself with the draw every year. But no. Every year, I have to deal with people trying to ruin my tournament by doing things like:

1. Airing the French Open on the Tennis Channel: It's nothing personal. I like Jon Wertheim, Lindsay Davenport and James Blake as commentators. (Justin Gimelstob? Hard pass to anyone who would insult a fellow pro player by suggesting, even in jest, that Rafa Nadal got a better challenge from a ballboy than Richard Gasquet, his third-round opponent.) The problem is this feature they have where they go around the grounds to update viewers on other matches. And then ... they just stay with the match they were showing you. Example: Novak Djokovic is in his first set against Roberto Bautista-Agut. At the same time, second seed Alexander Zverev is two sets and a break down to some dude and Grigor Dimitrov, the fourth (!) seed, is also facing elimination. And so it makes complete sense to ... watch Djokovic hold serve IN THE FIRST SET. I know that the Tennis Channel thinks it's the only show in town, but there is this thing called the Internet. It's a wild place, and there, you can watch any match you want, mostly via this one website called Reddit. But, yeah, you keep showing us matches based on what you think casual tennis fans who only know the big names would want to see.

2. This infernal debate about men playing five sets: This happens at every Slam, but nowhere is it as loud as in Paris each year. The courts are slower, the points longer. Five sets can take a long time. Not all of it is action-packed. That means you can basically set your clock to a tweet from tennis writer Ben Rothenberg:

Rough to watch: Yoshihito Nishioka, up 5-3 in the fifth, totally undone by cramping and loses 7-5 in the fifth to Verdasco (who wasn't exactly slamming the door shut). 4 hours, 22 minutes.

There's a better way. #bestofthree #saveourmen

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) May 27, 2018

I like his work. He's a very good reporter, a decent writer. He finds really good tennis stories. But for Pete's sake, he has some really bad takes. #saveourmen? Those poor men who were making more money at all the majors for decades? I have ranted on this before, but I don't know why tennis fans are so quick to change the game of tennis as if something's so horrible about it. Just to pick up a few casual fans? You know what would bring in more tennis fans? Making it easier to people to actually play tennis. I am just saying. I am also just saying that if Roger Federer and Nadal were about to play five sets, I bet it would get awfully quiet in that corner of Twitter. Not every five-setter is worth writing home about. Not every match is worth writing home about. What, are we going to change this to a super-tiebreak game because we think that not everyone has the patience for a whole match? Bruh-uh-uh-uh-uhhhhhhhh.
(Oh, fun fact! I ballgirlled for Niskioka this spring when he played in Sarasota. Did I not tell you guys about that yet? I have to tell y'all about that.)

3. The French are out here every year putting their countryfolk on Phillippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen every year as if a French person is going to win the French Open. You kidding me? We're really watching Gael Monfils and Caroline Garcia on Center Court while Simona Halep is on COURT 18? Yes, the Simona Halep who almost won the tournament last year. Really, French fam? It kind of cracks me up to see this center-court treatment for these guys when I'm old enough to remember how the French used to do Mary Pierce, who actually won the French Open.