Big ups to Tiggy on his fantastic piece about the movie The French, based on events of the 1981 French Open.

He makes the great point that tennis movies, in theory, are stupid. With other sports movies, they can often focus in on the specific things one player, or group of players does on a team. Take football for example. Unless you’ve played in the NFL, no one really knows what it looks like deep down in the trenches, or exactly what goes on in huddles. You can pull that off in a movie. Tennis, not so much. It’s a personal sport, and both players are always being filmed. It can also feature a competitive explosiveness that would be difficult (and perhaps a tad silly) to act. To be honest, it’s kind of why I hate sports movies. Why not just watch real sports and wait for the actual moments to happen with athletes, not actors. It’s a bit silly to try and recreate it.

Which is why this video really caught my eye. The shooting of it is entirely cinematic, with ground level shots and isolated video of Conners and J-Mac, something you would expect from a Hollywood movie.

It’s also super cool to see a really young looking J-Mac and follow his trades and reactions piece by piece, and it really captures the atmosphere of the match (yes, French fans were just as ridiculous 30 years ago).

Anyway, just thought I’d share for the 2 people who don’t regularly read his stuff, or might have skipped over it. There’s lots of other links on youtube to other pieces from the movie, be sure to check ‘em out. Gotta love the lines too.

“It would make me feel a lot better to not have you in the chair”…

And my personal fave: Mac, after bitching and wanting someone to check out the court, gets the chair to call, and he let’s out a “I appreciate it. OK.” in typical Mac fashion as if to say “well, finally”. Classic.