When Tennis Players' Life (Beyond the Court) Really Existed

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Paris . There was a time not too long ago when tennis players, at night, had an intense and hedonistic life between the eighth and the quarter-finals of a slam, their daily life was not monitored in the smallest detail by hordes of nutritionists and mental coaches, they did not have the obligation to attend boring events organized by sponsors nor to be symbols of health and political correctness. It was the era of the “Nights Sessions” of the Seventies and Eighties, as the Parisian magazine 40-A calls them , the era when at night people would meet at 15 rue Princesse, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in a place where you could find the best of Tout-Paris and Serge Gainsbourg singing La Javanaise, with the yellow hands of Gitanes and a glass of whisky on the piano: Chez Castel, from the name of its historic owner, Jean Castel. “It is said that in 1980, Vitas Gerulaitis was at Chez Castel on the eve of his defeat in the Roland Garros final against Borg,” entrepreneur Antoine Bénichou told 40-A.

Because life beyond the clay courts of Auteuil, where the Roland Garros tennis complex is located, really existed : there was no bubble to be respected with monastic rigor, and when eleven o'clock at night came around, you only had to choose between Chez Castel or Chez Régine, Ruinart or Veuve Clicquot. “I know more discos than tennis courts. The Crazy Horse was my office. At the time, I went back and forth between Castel and Régine: I went to Chez Régine for Régine and to Chez Castel for Jacques ,” Nicola Pietrangeli , who won the Roland Garros twice (1959, 1960), as well as being the captain of the Italian team that lifted the first Davis Cup in its history (1976), told 40-A. The sixth set was played at Chez Castel, among international actresses and models, red velvet sofas and wild dancing.

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It was hard to say no to Jacques Renavand, former tennis player and artistic director of Chez Castel from 1967 to 1981, nicknamed “the locomotive” for his talent for launching parties and leading the other night owls until the early hours of the morning . “He was a promising tennis player, but he went out every night. Parisian to the core, with great charm, he was incredibly successful with the girls,” says Pierre Barthès. “Jacques and I had always been friends, and when he started managing the club we all went there,” recalls Romanian champion Ilie Nastase, who, 40-A reports, “was capable of spending hours seducing Bianca Jagger and Claudia Cardinale.” In 1971, after losing to Czech Jan Kodes, Nastase took home $4,000. Which lasted for one night. “I went to Chez Castel, invited everyone and spent every cent I had earned,” says Nastase.

The champions of the red clay let themselves be swept away by the Parisian high society. At 15 rue Princesse you could come across Jean-Paul Belmondo next to Jimmy Connors, Juliette Gréco next to Marcel Bernard, the first winner of Roland-Garros after the Second World War. But also the gang of Australians: Lew Hoad, Tony Roche and John Newcombe, who, after drinking beer all night, would show up on the courts with ease at 7 in the morning, to then start partying again at the end of the match. "It was their diet. We looked at them like crazy," jokes the former French tennis player Pierre Barthès today. Roche and Newcombe, winners of thirteen Grand Slam doubles titles, were such a complementary duo that they shared the same love for Brigitte Bardot: a love that, however, was never reciprocated.

Singer Nicoletta often organised after-parties in her loft on the Quai des Célestins overlooking the Seine: “There were always twenty-five people who came up to me at 5 in the morning. One time it lasted until 11. Tony Roche and John Newcombe went back to shower, then they went to play at Coubertin (one of the Roland Garros stadiums, ed.). Do you want to know how it went? They won. At the time, we had so much fun .” Paraguayan Victor Pecci and American Vitas Gerulaitis, nicknamed “Broadway Vitas,” were engaged to the night. They were part of the close circle of “gentleman fermeurs,” the last to leave, the tireless ones, those who close the place. “At the time, the circuit was more human. We stayed at the bar and talked. Today, they don’t even know each other,” assures Nastase. For Frédéric Beigbeder, writer and literary critic of the Figaro, a great dandy and a fine connoisseur of Parisian nights, “winning matches without sleeping the day before is the mark of true champions”.

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