Tenez!

The French adore tennis! In fact, the word tennis derives from the word Tenez! which, in the early days of the game, is what the server would call out before starting up the point. In French, it means, loosely, "Take heed!" or "Take that!" This passion for tennis goes back a thousand years when monks in France invented the game of jeu de paume. The aristocratic children sent to monasteries for schooling quickly discovered the fun of the game.

By the 1300s, the ordinary man, and woman, had taken to jeu de paume.

The game proved to be so popular, and disruptive, that in June of 1397, the Provost of Paris banned the playing of jeu de paume every day except Sunday to stop the tradespeople and other commoners from abandoning their obligations on weekdays which was very "prejudicial to good order. "

The other day, during a tournament in Cannes, we got a taste of the unruly behavior, the abandonment of manners, inspired by passion for the game.

The match was scheduled for 3:00 on a Wednesday. I navigated through Le Cannet and the windy streets of Cannes to find the Montfluery Tennis Club, flanked by flowering bushes, hills and palm trees, just in time to see Luke (in red) warming up for his match.

There were two benches, separated by thick brush, next to the court for spectators. A crowd had assembled to cheer on Luke's opponent -- the mother and father (who spent a lot of time smoking and French kissing); an older woman, perhaps an aunt; and a collection of brothers, friends, or cousins. I took a seat on the other side of the bushes after a polite nod. A couple of Luke's buddies from ISP soon joined me, including Igor, a young tennis player from Ukraine. In the U.S., you're not allowed to coach, jeer, taunt, or otherwise interfere with the play of game. [Robyn and I have taken a German father to task for even gesturing to his son during a match.] Apparently, the same rules apply in France, but, according to Igor, no one seems to mind them.

During crossovers between games, the father on the other side of bush had no qualms about crouching down next to his son to give him pointers on this game. And often when a ball was called out, the entire crowd of spectators joined in the following discussion as to the rightness of the call. [The unruly mob pictured below.]

Igor twice shamed Luke's opponent into revoking a bad ball call, and, to compete with the crowd screaming for their player, he continually shouted encouragement at Luke, even if a bit inappropriately on occasion. ("Come on, Luke! This guy's gonna have a mental breakdown soon." This provoked the boy's father to shout back over the bush, in English, "You shut up!")

Luke mostly kept score in French, threw out an Allez! here and there, but the novelty of his being a native English speaker roiled the gathered crowd. After winning a long, challenging rally, Luke shouted, "Come on!"bringing on mocking shouts of "Cahm awn! Cahn awn!" from the boys. They even jeered when Luke missed a ball, although at one point, they became strangely silent.

Luke lost the match (6-7; 6-1; 4-6), but he managed -- for the most part-- to stay cool and focused, despite the circus atmosphere around him.

During the car ride home he said, sheepishly, 'I did something I shouldn't have done on the court today." "Did you call a ball out that should've been called in?" I asked. "No, but when those boys were laughing at me, I flipped them the bird." All right then... that might account for their sudden silence. I didn't have the heart to lecture Luke on court side protocol -- at least not then and there. And his action does give new meaning to the word -- Tenez, indeed!