Hey Tom, actually no but I played in France for over ten years and many other countries as well. I have been to Rolland Garros many times as well because you must have a license to play in France and the FFT is there on the grounds of Rolland Garros. I had nerve damaged which stopped my pro career early as I was just getting started. The French Open is for me the best tournament in my opinion because the red clay is the equalizer. You have to have an all round game to play on it, and height and the serve is not as effective as it is on the grass or hard court. If you look at the height of the top ten ATP players you'll see that they average 6'4.2"....and it won't stop there. It's happening in women's tennis as well. Why is this, because back in the early 60's they didn't allow players to jump up and over the baseline, now they do. How does that affect the game? Well with modern technology of rackets and the extra leverage of these taller players, they are able to create greater angles on the serve and of course hit it much harder than ever before. The returners really don't have much of a chance. Case in point is the longest match in history which lasted over 3 days. John Isner being 6'10" tall outlasted Nicholas Mahut only being 6'3" tall. Mahut couldn't get the ball in play because it was to fast or just couldn't get a racket on it. The 5th set was 70-68. A normal set as you know ends at 6 games. Yes the game has been changed because of that rule, and in my opinion not for the better. Tennis has lost a lot of the finesse players because the serve is now the most dominant stroke. You've also have lost a lot of talented would be tennis players because guys at 5'6"-5'11" are at a disadvantage...not being able to create the angles or the power that these taller athletes can produce. Change the game back and 8 out of the top ten players wouldn't even be in the top 1000 in the world.
