A young woman leaves the U.S. for France to flee her abusive
American father and play for the country of her mother's birth.
She turns heads not only with each stroke she carves out but
also with the figure she cuts in leading-edge tennis couture.
Why then is Mary Pierce unloved in Paris? The whistles and boos
that left her in tears at Roland Garros two years ago, after a
loss to Germany's Barbara Rittner, returned last week in a loss
to 19-year-old Magui Serna of Spain. "If I win, I'm the French
Mary Pierce," she said afterward. "If I lose, I'm an American."
The French haven't embraced Pierce, in part because
she hasn't embraced them.
(Heinz Kluetmeier)
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In fact, the reluctance of the French to embrace Pierce has
little to do with her inability to win much more than a Carolyn
Bessette Kennedy look-alike contest since her 1995 Australian
Open victory. She spends most of her downtime in Florida, speaks
imperfect French and can cop an imperious manner that her record
won't excuse. In April, before France's Federation Cup date with
Belgium, she called from the U.S. to ask captain Yannick Noah if
she could skip training camp and arrive the day before the tie.
Don't bother coming, Noah replied.
But more than anything else, the French fault her for a lack of
imagination. When Pierce tried out for the French Fed Cup team
in 1992, former pro Francoise Durr suggested that she play a
short match at the end of a workout. Pierce, taught by her
father, who stressed drills, and raised in the ground-stroke
gulag of Nick Bollettieri, looked back blankly. She had never
learned to build points, only to whack the fuzz off the ball.
From a tennis queen, Pierce's adopted compatriots expect more.
Issue date: June 8, 1998
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