For my 34th birthday, in 2015, I received two tickets to the men's quarterfinal of the French Open. I'm a Rafael Nadal loyalist, and I hoped to cheer for the King of Clay. I ended up seeing the Swiss-on-Swiss pairing of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka.
This turned out to be a mercy, because I missed seeing Novak Djokovic become only the second man ever to defeat Nadal at Roland-Garros, and was treated instead to some of the most beautiful groundstrokes I have ever seen. Wawrinka, who would go on to upset Djokovic in the final, was playing the best tennis of his life, stretching the court to open up Pythagorean angles. What struck me most about that match, other than the straight-set ease with which Wawrinka subdued a 33-year-old Federer—then still widely considered the greatest in the game—was the aesthetic mirroring of their backhand play.
Both Federer and Wawrinka opt for a single-handed grip, which led to a number of exquisite backhand rallies the likes of which a contemporary fan almost never gets to enjoy. The French Open is the most eccentric of the slams, played on an impractical surface of ground brick that must be raked and swept and alternately moistened and kept dry. Conditions shift with the fickleness of the Parisian thermometer, and points are drawn out from the slower bounces.
The main court, Philippe-Chatrier, is far smaller and more intimate than Arthur Ashe Stadium, in Queens, and the players, smudged with sweat and dirt, appear human and vulnerable.