Tennis/French Open: The gee-whizz efforts of 15-year-old French girl Alize Cornet had Court Philippe Chatrier lapping up a little "darling" cameo played out in a hot Paris afternoon yesterday.
It took Cornet's adolescent charm and her complete underdog status to temporarily knock Amelie Mauresmo out of her normal residence deep in the bosom of the French crowd.
But the little girl, who likes to read and play the piano and whose best tennis memory is an event that happened just two days before with her first win at Roland Garros, annexed the spectator heart for two sets before Mauresmo repossessed it, 6-0, 6-2, after an hour or so of tennis.
It was a day when the two French wildcards were placed in stunningly unpromising positions with Cornet's colleague, 18-year-old Aravane Rezai, also stepping into the ring with the world number two Maria Sharapova. Rezai's entire career prize money before this tournament was $20,910, less than half of what Sharapova earned two weeks ago for reaching the Italian Open semi-finals.
But Rezai's ranking of 244th is a few hundred higher than Cornet at 645th, a level that is even lower than several Irish players earning their money on the tour. Ireland's problem in getting players into any of the four grand slams is that it doesn't have a tournament of such status of its own to blood teenage players and barter with other slams. For young players in Australia, France, Britain and the US, their majors are a way of both giving experience to young talent.
While Mauresmo earned her way to the third round with few heart-stopping moments, Sharapova's advance was more chaotic and haphazard. Renzai, a full head shorter than the 6ft Russian, snapped and bit at her heels for the entire time, much to the delight of the crowd, who having forfeited lunch to support one of their own, were empty-bellied belligerent about Sharapova's strings of errors.
Lustily going for broke on almost every shot, Renzai inevitably sprayed many wide of the mark. Sharapova, shaky on her ground strokes and not at all playing like a compelling favourite, finally settled for a flattering 6-3, 6-2 win. The surface and a distracting injury were later named as defendants in the case against her performance.
"Grass is probably my favourite (surface). Hard (court) is up there as well. But clay is more of a challenge for me, for sure," said Sharapova.
"Early in the third game I sort of twisted my ankle. Next game I felt it a little bit. So I was a little distracted by it. It got better after that game. I just tried to find a way. She had nothing to lose and she was just going for her shots. Finally I started feeling a rhythm out there, began playing better."
Rezai, despite handing Sahrapova even more free points than Sharapova gave her, was not overly impressed by the Wimbledon champion's game. When asked did she think her opponent was impressive, Rezai was refreshingly frank.
"Well, not especially. There's a lot of media around her, but she is a player among other players," she said.
Rezai, who has moved around tournaments sleeping in a camper van and initially practised on a piece of waste land near her home, plans to play the junior competition at Roland Garros.
"I was practising on a piece of land that was not even a tennis court when I was young. But probably it gave me a lot of mental strength. I hope I shall keep that. Now I shall take planes. It's going to be more expensive. I'll have to manage that."
Meanwhile, Sharapova's own brand of perfume should be hitting the beauty stores at some stage over the next few months.
From a Russian point of view the second seed does not soldier alone into the main draw. Her compatriots yesterday all came through in two sets and there are now eight Russian players left in the women's draw from 15 starters.
Sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova defeated Sofia Arvidsson 6-3, 6-4; Nadia Petrova, the seventh seed, beat Severine Beltrame 6-1, 6-3; Elena Bovina beat Tathiana Garbin 6-1, 6-4 and Anna Chakvetadze defeated Kiara Koukalova 6-4, 6-3.
