As I write this, out of the corner of my eye I am watching the first round of the French Open Tennis Championships on television. It is played at Stade Roland Garros next to the Bois de Boulogne. The playing surface is the slow, red clay characteristic of European courts. I am at home in the U.S., but it reminds me of the tennis I played one September in Paris.

Tennis has historical links to France. It was invented there, n’est pas? I looked it up. Here’s what the U.S. Olympic Committee has to say: “Historians speculate that the origins of tennis date back to the Stone Age, when humans first used clubs to hit rocks back and forth over barricades of dirt and stone.” Hmm. The USOC goes on: “But it was the French who first gave the game its modern shape, as well as its name: the w...

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