Beaten by Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final, Novak Djokovic will not succeed in the calendar Grand Slam in 2023, that is to say winning the four most prestigious tournaments in the same year. For their part, the Blues are still in the running to achieve a less flattering “Grand Slam”: at the Australian Open, Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, none of them managed to reach the round of 16 in male paintings (Caroline Garcia achieved this in Melbourne). And it is not certain that the situation will change at the US Open.

In New York, they are three qualified in the third round to still carry the hopes of the tricolor. But for two of them, joining the second week at Flushing Meadows would mean a small miracle. Arthur Rinderknech is preparing to challenge the Russian Andrey Rublev (8th in the world) while Adrian Mannarino will challenge the local Frances Tiafoe (10th). In the women’s tournament, only Clara Burel is still in contention. She will have a hard time facing the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the world number 2.

Finally, the best hope of seeing a Frenchman in the round of 16 is Benjamin Bonzi. The 27-year-old from Nîmes, ranked 108th, faces the Swiss Dominic Stricker (128th) on the night of Friday to Saturday.

It is paradoxical – and quite revealing of the form of French men’s tennis – to bet on a player “very happy to be in the third round” even if he had “not necessarily hoped” to go as far as he did. told the French Tennis Federation (FFT) after his victory over the American Christopher Eubanks in the previous round. After a promising start to the season that led him to 42nd place, Bonzi suffered a series of injuries and a hell of a drop in the standings, until he dropped out of the Top 100.

“It’s a hyper paradoxical season, with this encouraging start and after that it was, in quotes, the nightmare, adds the Frenchman to the FFT. We have to rebuild everything in confidence, in what we put on the field. You have to take it upon yourself. I think this year I learned patience well. Deprived of Roland-Garros because of his left wrist, Benjamin Bonzi then had to trade his usual two-handed backhand for a more experimental shot played with one hand at Wimbledon, until his arm was fully operational.

Succession is waiting for the Blues

Six defeats in the first round later, he finally won a match in mid-August at the Challenger (the secondary tennis circuit) in Winnipeg (Canada). “Tennis is a sport of feeling. And sometimes, a little grain of salt changes a lot of things…”, he analyzed, Thursday, with L’Equipe, referring to injuries and defeats. His black series behind him, Benjamin Bonzi will now try to be the “little grain of salt” in the algorithm tirelessly giving the same result: the French all disappear from the tables as the prestigious trophies approach.

Because since the “golden age” of the four “Musketeers” – Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet and Gaël Monfils – French tennis is desperately looking for a replacement. If the last two named resist and postpone the time of retirement, they no longer seem able to play the leading roles, at 37 years old. Behind them, youngsters Luca Van Assche and Arthur Fils (19 each) are starting to emerge, but they were both eliminated hastily in New York.

While waiting for them to hatch at the highest level – or a last feat of arms from Monfils or Gasquet – Benjamin Bonzi will try to join the knockout stages of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. His opponent, Dominic Stricker, out of qualifying, created a sensation in the second round by taking out the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (7th) in five sets.

A victory for Bonzi against the Swiss would not be considered such a feat, especially since the French could see things get seriously complicated in the next round, where a hypothetical duel against the 9th in the world, Taylor Fritz, awaits him. . But it would at least allow French tennis to save appearances in 2023, and avoid the zero point of 2021.