5 Ways to Make the French Open More French
A little less play and a little more pâté.
A little less play and a little more pâté.
(Photo: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2013)
The 2013 tournament at Roland Garros kicks off this week, and while the action is always fierce, we can’t help feeling like a certain “Frenchiness” is missing from the proceedings. So, to get back to their “cheese-eating surrender monkey” roots, we are instituting some new rules for the French Open.
Mandatory Smoking
There are not many things less French than puffing away like a maniac while sitting at a café, on a bench, at the beach, or generally doing anything at all in the world. The French Open is the best place to get these athletes smoking, so they can stop thinking they are so much better than smokers, just because they have so-called “healthy lungs” and “the ability to walk up stairs.”
Red Wine in Water Bottles
Hydration is for teetotalers and motor skills are for truck drivers (get it?). Some people (mostly alcoholics) even say that red wine is good for you. In this case, it would mostly be good for those of us in the audience; a stumbling, cursing, and screaming Roger Federer could put on quite the show. We’re pretty sure Andy Murray is drunkmost times as it is.
More Breaks
The French have never met a work stoppage they didn’t like. They celebrate three hour lunches, long weekends, and every strike they can get their hands on. They should just make it official and put a hammock on their flag. Tennis players get a two minute break every other game, and that is simply unacceptable; that’s not even long enough to be rude to a tourist! Here’s a good time for them to come back from a break: whenever they damn well please.
NO SHOWERING
Who’s got time for showering with all the drinking, smoking, and not working they’re doing? It’s time to live up to the high standards of Pepé Le Pew. How hot can the temperature really get in France anyway? (Umm, we just checked, and apparently it can get really hot, but rules are rules…even if we just made them up.)
Surrendering
It’s a French tradition, but it’s frowned upon on the tennis court without an injury. In true Franco-fashion, players should be able to wave the white flag and call it a day whenever they feel like they’ve had enough. And by “had enough” we mean “expended even just a tiny bit of energy.”
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