Special envoy to Tokyo
To discover
The Olympic medal table
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Infernal spiral.
After the eliminations in the first round of Caroline Garcia, Alizé Cornet and Kristina Mladenovic during the Olympic tournament in Tokyo, Fiona Ferro lost in the second round on Monday (6-1, 6-4) against the Spanish Sara Sorribes Tormo.
There are therefore no more Frenchwomen in the table.
In the second round of the Olympic tournaments, the chances of French tennis rest on the shoulders of Jérémy Chardy (opposed to Russian Karatsev in the second round) and Ugo Humbert (who will face Serbian Kecmanovic).
And double Cornet-Ferro (who will meet the duo Mattek-Sands-Pegula) and Monfils-Chardy (against Struff-Zverev).
Poor France ...
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The blue delegation wanted, in Tokyo, to chase the catastrophic image of the 2016 campaign. In Rio de Janeiro, inconsistent in terms of tennis, the Blues had signaled outside the courts: Benoît Paire had been excluded from the selection for "breaches of the rules", Caroline Garcia had experienced problems of dress during a double with Kristina Mladenovic (the Lyonnaise had accused the French Federation of not having warned the two young women that it was necessary to play with a similar outfit in doubles games).
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No extra-sporting problems to deplore this time, but the French confirm their difficulties in existing at the highest level. Even when the prestigious packages pile up and seem generously to leave a little room. To explain his poor performance, Alizé Cornet revealed in L'Equipe: “The fact that I spent thirteen days in a hotel room in Hamburg did not help. I had the Covid three weeks ago. I did not communicate on it, but facing girls like that ... I only made one hour of points in training in three weeks. I hadn't played since Wimbledon. My first training sessions were at CNE, just before leaving. And there I clearly felt that in terms of vision and level of play, I was too short. ”
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The Olympic tournament is the logical continuation of the limits seen in the Grand Slam tournaments.
Tokyo could have, taking advantage of special circumstances, offered a little respite.
It has not happened.
French tennis, at the Games, as elsewhere, exposes its current difficulties to light.
They do not date from this summer.
They will last.
