Experienced, unorthodox and near the top of the sport – all are descriptors that apply to Team France’s top singles players Caroline Garcia and Adrian Mannarino.
Could these assets combine to deliver French success at United Cup 2024?
Garcia and Mannarino are a duo offering fans a different look at how success can be achieved at the top level.
They open their United Cup campaign in Sydney on 1 January against Germany, before taking on Italy in their second Group D match.
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Seeded fourth at the 2024 event, France is the only country among the 18 teams with both No.1 singles players aged in their 30s.
Garcia, 30, first came to attention more than 12 years ago as a teenager who had Maria Sharapova on the ropes at Roland Garros.
Playing magnificently, she surged to a 6-3 4-1 lead, prompting Andy Murray to tweet: “The girl sharapova is playing is going to be number one in the world one day caroline garcia, what a player u heard it here first.”
Garcia went on to fall in three sets, but has forever been associated with that tweet. At times it proved burdensome, yet in two separate seasons, she came extremely close to fulfilling that prophecy.
In 2017, she won the prestigious Wuhan and Beijing titles back-to-back, cracking the top eight and qualifying for the WTA Finals. Those results eventually pushed her to a peak of world No.4 in 2018.
In 2022, she returned to that ranking after winning Cincinnati, reaching the US Open semifinals – her best Grand Slam result – and triumphing at the WTA Finals.
These performances reminded everybody of what Murray saw in her, a player especially deadly when her plentiful weapons were supported by a confident, positive mentality.
This crystallised in her hyper-aggressive return stance; she was practically up on the service line, rifling returns back at overwhelmed opponents.
It looked jarring on court but it worked, and she has continued to be rewarded for this attacking mentality, finishing 2023 inside the top 20 and with more than 1800 overall winners – the third highest tally on tour.
If you thought Garcia did things differently, then wait until you see Mannarino.
Extraordinarily, at age 35 and in his 20th season on tour, he enjoyed his best year, winning three ATP titles and more than 40 matches to hit a career-high ranking of No.22.
Around the same time Garcia first attracted attention, in 2011, Mannarino experienced wrist pain that forced him to adapt his forehand technique. This has contributed to the unorthodox game style we see today, as does his string tension, believed to be the lowest in the men’s game.
Most of Mannarino’s opponents have never encountered anything like the game they’re confronted with, nor the kinds of shots he is able to play. This one, at United Cup 2023, was deemed best of the tournament.
His story and style inspired Giri Nathan to pen the piece ‘What is Adrian Mannarino doing?’ for Racquet magazine.
“At a glance, Mannarino seems to be playing a different sport from his peers,” Nathan wrote. “He barely cocks his racquet back, then takes these abbreviated baby bunts, like the swings you might mime with the palm of your hand while walking around your living room. They look suitable for a ping-pong ball. They don’t look like they should be able to transport an object as heavy as a tennis ball over distances as long as a tennis court.
“The result is deadlier than you’d suspect… All this oddball technical stuff makes for a unique, almost darkly comic watch.”
Team France will hit the ground running at the United Cup when they face Germany, a match-up delivering the women’s singles blockbuster between Garcia and Angelique Kerber and which sees Mannarino play top-10 foe Alexander Zverev.
Tennis fans in Sydney are in for a treat.
