A History of Tennis: World Tennis How the 2009 French Open Unlocked 130 Years Gazette Of Cartoon Images ———————— MARCH 2020 Vol 12 No 10 From Royality to Snoopy
BY JOHN MARTIN log, which credits him with generating a tennis PARIS — Every player takes tennis serious- boom in Japan. His “Prince” now appears in mu- ly at the French Open, but this year (2009), sicals and video games, the catalog reports. there’s a seriously comical side to the sport. One pair of life-size cutouts, drawn by the An exhibit called “Bulles et Balles” (Bubbles French artist Andre Cheret, chronicles the events and Balls) delves deeply into 130 years of tennis of Yannick Noah’s life leading up to his tumultu- cartoons and comic strip panels from the world’s ous triumph in the 1983 French Open final magazines, newspapers and books. against Mats Wilander of Sweden. The bubbles are those places in In a series of smaller, newspaper- the strips where characters speak. size panels, Cheret follows Noah from The balls appear in many of the 143 the African village where he was born panels displayed or cited by a full- to the moments after his victory at Ro- color catalog that would be the envy land Garros, where he runs to embrace of any curator in the world. his father, who has climbed down from Navigating an elaborate maze of the stands. panels that form walkways below Titled “Once Upon a Time, Yannick ground at the Tenniseum, the French Noah,” the panels are drawn in a style tennis museum at Roland Garros, vis- popular with millions of French readers itors see hundreds of images of ten- who have followed Cheret’s cartoon nis, from a 1615 depiction of Royal character Rahan for 40 years. Con- Court tennis in Leiden to the 20th ceived as a prehistoric man, Rahan’s metaphorical predecessors include Tar- century American favorites Mickey YANNICK NOAH Mouse and Charlie Brown. zan, cited by Cheret as a major inspira- Snoopy’s two best lines are “I’m thinking seri- tion. ously of not taking my tennis so seriously” and “I “Yannick is an athlete that is full of life, like didn’t invent the double fault, I merely perfected Rahan,” Cheret said in a catalog interview. “Many it.” fans have actually asked me to draw Rahan with “We rented those cartoons from the Shultz a racket.” foundation,” Franck Lehodey said with a sly In keeping with his character’s prehistoric na- smile. He is an artist and former newspaperman ture, Cheret drew Rahan brandishing a plank who helped mount the exhibition for the French formed from a rubber tree as a racket and swing- tennis federation. ing at the sun for a ball. One section displays Japanese depictions of Besides Noah, visitors see cartoon depictions tennis in a comic-book form called “manga.” A of Suzanne Lenglen, Rene Lacoste, Bjorn Borg 38-year-old artist, Takeshi Konomi, created “The and Justine Henin. Prince of Tennis” in 1990, according to the cata- Seriously.
“The Art of Tennis, in Cartoons,” The New York Times, June 5, 2009