PARIS – Practically alone with a buffet of tennis to gorge on at the pandemic-skewered French Open like no other, Christophe Bailly glanced at his watch and reluctantly realized that not only was it past bedtime for his 9-year-old but that the reception from his wife would be frosty if he didn't get their son home ...
Darn! It's already past 9? Problem was, Theodore was nowhere to be seen, having vanished again with his giant Day-Glo souvenir tennis ball, for one last appreciative gaze from the stands so empty that the kid was able to get close enough to actually see the ochre brick-dust being kicked up by the players' thumping shots and hear their every mutter and cry of “Come on!” “He’s hooked, like me," said Bailly, a 54-year-old.