I haven't been paying much attention to the French Open this year - busy with work and whatnot - so it took me a while to click onto various sites to check out this year's shocks on the red clay of Paris. Now, Roland Garros is usually a pretty good place for scoping out new eye candy and possible future champions because the wildcard and qualifier batch are usually latin types who do well on clay. I recall Marat Safin (*sigh* made his breakthrough appearance at the '98 tournament. I remember because I was still attending an all-girls' school and his photos in the newspapers made us swoon.
Anyway, this year has thrown up Jonathan Eysseric.
The good news! He's French and could possibly be around for a while - he has a respectable junior record being the 2007 Aus runner up and 2007 US doubles champ and pushed Andy Murray to five sets. The bad, he's BARELY LEGAL. In fact, he only turned 18 on May 27th (bon anniversaire)!
While some may consider the fact that he is legal *good news*, I can't help thinking that when he first picked up a racquet, I was probably considering my own career options by picking tertiary education courses. Either way, he has the potential to transform. Just like Safin did. Here's a reminder of what Safin started out as and is now (source).
So to end this post and to muck up the whole conflict thing a little more, here's a pic that indicates this no longer jail bait already has a tramp stamp (source). Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment