A remarkable performance by Gasquet
Guillaume Baraise
Sunday, June 9, 2002

At not even 16 years of age, Richard Gasquet has added his name to
the winners of the juniors event at Roland-Garros. With perfection,
he defeated another French player, Laurent Recouderc (6/0, 6/1).

A splendid performance. Richard Gasquet has ended his two weeks here
with honors, a run which started on May 27th on Suzanne-Lenglen court
when he bullied Albert Costa in the first round of the main draw. A
logical performance looking at Costa's success.

Returning to the juniors event, Gasquet (seeded no 2) was determined
to justify his reputation. He did even better than that, with his mind
boggling one way final on Court 1, forgetting that he was playing
against a friend. Despite the severe score (6/0, 6/1 in 45 minutes),
Laurent Recouderc, who defeated the Swede Robin Soderling (no 1 seed)
in the round of 16, has no reason to be ashamed. He just happened to
fall upon a prodigy, an all-round player with his amazing crosscourt
backhand.

Richard Gasquet was hoping for a perfect final. It was amazing to see
him festering either because of the net or because of his own
imprecision. Whatever the case may be, he's broken the record by becoming
the youngest player to win here at Roland-Garros, where we've seen
quite a few champions born.

For Gasquet, tennis is nothing but a pleasure. One can tell. And he's
been invited by the organizers to play the Queens tournament in London.
On Tuesday, he'll discover the British grass in a match against the
South African Neville Godwin. Should he win, he'll be up against Tim
Henman. Everything's going very quickly for the French boy. But for
the moment, he's keeping up with the pace.

冠軍照http://www.rolandgarros.com/images/pics/large/bv_20_008.jpg
冠亞軍合照http://www.rolandgarros.com/images/pics/large/bh_20_007.jpg