If Nadal And Djokovic Play In Front Of No Fans, Will They Make A Sound?

This image is a derivative of Rafael Nadal by Yann Caradec (CC BY-SA 2.0) and Novak Djokovic - 2ème tour de Roland Garros 2009 - tennis french open by Yann Caradec (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The first rule of pandemic tennis – at least, my first and only rule for pandemic tennis – is that every person gets to make his or her own determination of how much a tournament means. 

Is the 2020 French Open as meaningful as every other major? If you think it is, then let it be so. If you think it’s not, let that be the verdict. If you’re not sure, just sit back and go along for the ride. After two weeks, go where your mind and heart tell you to walk. If you’re still not sure, reflect on the matter and see where you stand at Christmas or New Year’s. 

You get to decide how much this tournament means to you. I don’t. No pundit does. You get to make the meaning. You can choose how much to invest in this Roland Garros rodeo which will be tremendously different from any previous claycourt major championship. 

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There will be a roof over Court Philippe Chatrier if rains come. The tournament will be held in very late September and early October, providing a cooler and different feel to what is normally a late-spring event with much later sunsets. Even when the roof over Chatrier isn’t closed, the presence of the roof structure could create a different sun-and-shadow reality on the court (we’ll get to see soon enough). 

There will be very few fans on hand, and with COVID-19 numbers rising in France, local policies could change again during the Parisian fortnight. 

This French Open isn’t occurring after a month-and-a-half-long clay season, but essentially a two-week warmup period, with most of the top players playing only one week (in Rome) after flying from North America and the U.S. Open. 

As I told my Tennis With An Accent partner Saqib Ali on our post-U.S. Open podcast, we still don’t have a normal tour back. A normal tour has distinct seasons which are able to breathe and expand. Players are able to take natural breaks and recharge their batteries before majors. We really don’t have that here. The French Open-to-Wimbledon sequence is the busiest and most demanding transition on the normal tennis calendar, but even then, players can skip the grass warmups if they want to. Staying in Europe, they don’t have to travel a great distance. An elite pro can scale down after Roland Garros and be physically fresh for Wimbledon if match play on grass isn’t absolutely essential. Rafael Nadal has made the semi-finals each of the last two years at Wimbledon despite maintaining a light schedule in the three-week block before Wimbledon. 

This? This French Open in 2020? It’s not a normal tour sequence. That isn’t a criticism; it’s merely a reality. We will know when the regular tour reenters our lives. Now is not that time.  

So, you get to make your own meaning and establish your own level of importance for the next two weeks in France. There is no empirically right or wrong answer. 

The real intrigue lies in how a planet of tennis fans will react… and in particular, how they will greet the match everyone is waiting for, but which hasn’t taken place at Roland Garros since 2014: Rafael Nadal versus Novak Djokovic in a French Open final. 

What if Rafole (Rafa vs. Nole), as the matchup is nicknamed, occurs in this October’s championship match? How will fans receive it? How will history treat it? How will the moment evolve in the public imagination?  

I raise the question not because it’s an obvious lock the two will meet (if it was such a lock for Nadal and Djokovic to play in a French Open final, it would have happened more often over the past six years), and not because Dominic Thiemand Stefanos Tsitsipas aren’t capable of greatness (they are!). I raise the question because I don’t want tennis pundits or fans to enter this French Open thinking this is business as usual. 

Nothing about the 2020 French Open can be described as “the usual.” That has been established. If Nadal and Djokovic vanquish six foes apiece and arrive on court on October 11 as opponents, it is good to think about such a scenario in advance. This being a pandemic – in which our lives have been distorted and derailed – I can’t imagine the tennis community has spent a lot of time wrestling with this question. 

So, let the wrestling begin! 

If Nadal or Djokovic wins a battle royale in an empty stadium – an environment in which the crowd can’t feed the emotions of either combatant – are we going to downgrade the significance of the winner’s achievement, or will we think even more highly of the winner, given that he had to create his own energy from within? 

Are we going to marvel at the winner’s ability to prevail in different October (and possibly indoor) conditions on red clay – a marked departure from late-spring heat and pounding sunshine – or are we going to say that a French Open played in the October damp isn’t a real French Open?  

Are we going to say that a French Open with night and indoor tennis doesn’t offer a genuine basis for comparison, and that the winner (especially if it is Djokovic) has won a “new” tournament, much as Djokovic began to be a much better U.S. Open player only after the roof overhang was installed at Ashe Stadium in 2015? 

Or, are we going to conclude that past French Opens in early June have still had considerable rain and cold fronts, and that the changing of elements is part of Paris at any time of year, not just October? 

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You can reasonably view this French Open as an even tougher test than past editions. You can view this French Open as less authentic than its past iterations in early June. You can view this Roland Garros as a supreme challenge for the assembled pros. You can view this as a Roland Garros festival which is aberrational and never to be replicated in its context. 

Your answer – whatever it is – is right. It can’t be refuted. It’s your own attempt to assign meaning to human events. 

Which side will most tennis fans take? That will be as compelling a drama as the tennis itself. 

Therefore, if Rafael Nadal tries to tie Roger Federer with 20 major titles on Oct. 11, and if Novak Djokovic is aiming for major No. 18 on the other side of the court, how will that occasion be greeted? If that match does occur, two major finalists will take the court with a combined 36 major singles championships between them (Nadal 19, Djokovic 17). That will eclipse the previous record of 35 majors, when Federer (20) and Djokovic (15) met in the 2019 Wimbledon final. It will be – one could argue – the most significant match in the history of men’s tennis… ...

… and it could take place in front of a tiny crowd, if any crowd at all… 

… in October ...

… possibly indoors ... 

… after a one-week period of clay preparation for both men, following a U.S. Open in which Djokovic competed and Nadal sat out. 

There would be no precedent, no obvious point of comparison, no clear historical framework, for any of it. The meaning of the moment would be up to the players to determine… and for you to choose on your own. 

Whatever your answer will be, that answer will be right… because there is no objectively wrong answer. 

If we do get Nadal-Djokovic on Oct. 11, though, one can only wonder how a whole planet of tennis fans and analysts will process the scenario and its eventual outcome. 

Will Nadal and Djokovic make a sound? We have to make our own forest and see where we stand within it. Pardon my French, but "tree bien!" 

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