Not sure if any of you watched the Bedene-Paire SF but it had some premium Benoir content. He routined Bedene 6-4 in the first and had him covered comfortably. The crowd was buzzing, cheering for a local boy. The FH was passable, the droppers were dropping. Ol' Benny Deuce looked destined to make a paire of French finalists. A few points didn't go his way early in the second and then we got a more familiar script.
The FH started going AWOL. He tanked the remaining games of the 2nd, holding serve once at 5-0 so he could serve first in the 3rd. He ripped off his Lacoste, regardless of la cost: a code violation. Not a barbaric rip from the Nolan heights, just enough to signal that it was time for everyone to settle into a muted, civilised calm to appreciate the bouquet of another Benoir meltdown. But the music men didn't get the memo: the band kept playing. And the challenges kept malfunctioning - both Benny's decisions and the system itself - leaving long periods of pounding drum music giving Benny a beat that he wasn't gonna march to.
During the first two sets I was sitting there drafting a witty poast in my mind about the band music playing between games and sets at French 250s. Everything wrong with French tennis can be sheeted home to the self-respect and sanity robbed of their elite players by that incessant racquet between games. Deep down, the elite French players hate the game, the fans and themselves and have decided to give France exactly what they think it deserves: mediocrity on the level of their 250 band music.
Benny decided to rob me of the full glory of that poast too, actually stopping play to complain to the umpire about the noise of his own supporters. He hadn't slept for days, he had this headache, please make an announcement... Well, the music stopped alright. The band and the Deuce side of the scoreboard didn't make another sound... I don't think even Kyrgios has the balls to tell his supporters to simmer down. When the challenge system malfunctioned again and the beat kept going, he wanted to cancel the challenge just to shut the drums up, then went at it with the umpire because the challenge wasn't cancelled... Like I said earlier, the real Benny Deuce showed up for this SF.
Bedene looked like he got the message: he felt terrible that he was winning but he pressed on with the grim task because he knew was all part of Benoir's plan.
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