For players competing in their countries’ Major, there’s always a mixture of pleasure and pressure to perform well in front of the home fans. That’s especially true at Roland Garros where the Parisian crowd can either be a player’s biggest cheerleader or their biggest critic.
No. 4 seed Caroline Garcia finds herself in new territory this year in Paris as the highest and only seeded French singles player on either the men’s or women’s draws. With French singles champions at the event few and far between (Mary Pierce was the last French singles champion in 2000), could Garcia be the one to raise the trophy for her first-ever Grand Slam singles title?
It’s something she’s certainly dreamed about ever since she was a kid.
“It’s hard to exactly remember when it was, but I definitely remember coming back from school when I was less than 10, and so yeah, when you’re coming back to school it’s like kind of snack time and you were always in front of the TV watching Roland Garros, and it was a routine of every day, and weekend final,” Garcia said in a pre-tournament press conference. “It was always special, you know, to see the champion lifting that trophy, and they were getting emotional, and I was getting emotional in front of my TV (smiling). So, yeah, it’s good memories and maybe one day I will be there.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”fr” dir=”ltr”>🎙️😁 Caroline Garcia était devant la presse ce vendredi pour le Media Day <br><br>L'occasion d'évoquer sa préparation avant de défier Xiyu Wang au premier tour 👀 <a href=”https://t.co/yxqrFGUCc1″>https://t.co/yxqrFGUCc1</a> <a href=”https://t.co/U5ulinX3tu”>pic.twitter.com/U5ulinX3tu</a></p>— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) <a href=”https://twitter.com/rolandgarros/status/1662116102258786305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
While Garcia has won the women’s doubles title in Paris twice, including last year, expectations for her to do well this year in singles have increased exponentially after her breakout 2022 season. That included reaching winning Cincinnati all the way from qualifying, reaching the US Open semifinals and then culminating in her winning the year-end WTA Finals that boosted her back into the top tier of the sport.
So far 2023 has been an…
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