KEY POINTS:
A friend once explained his preference for trotting over the gallops, both in viewing and punting terms.
Because a trotting or pacing race takes longer than the gallopers, he got a longer bang for his buck. Equally, he had more time to contemplate his dollars slide through the
bottom of his pocket.
So it is with the French Open tennis championship, which starts at Roland Garros in Paris on Monday night.
There was a time when Wimbledon was the royalty of tennis' big four. The only one of the Grand Slams on grass, in many eyes, still the purest form of the sport.
Also the one we began watching in the early hours in the days of John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. Remember Chris Lewis in 1983 up against McEnroe? A case where making the final was the real triumph, but the nation was up there with him.
Wimbledon lost much of its appeal in the days of power hitters like Pete Sampras or Goran Ivanesevic. What's the point of peering at a screen trying to watch the small bullet flash past in a series of three-shot rallies?
But Roland Garros is a different story altogether. Sure, it's got the glamour but put it largely down to the surface, the slow red clay which obliges players to work for their points.
If you like watching the game's finest sleekly strutting their stuff unhindered by more earthly requirements like having to scrap and claw for a point, don't bother.
The French Open gives the baseline battler a chance, forces the best players to sweat for their success. Just ask McEnroe, Connors or Sampras, none of whom won there.
But Andre Gomez, Sergei Bruguera and Albert Costa have done, suggesting it's the best of the four venues - the others being the Australian and US Opens in Melbourne and New York - for the less gifted, but physically unrelenting racquet wielders.
As my friend would appreciate, you get more for your viewing time with the clay acting as a handbrake.
This time all eyes will be on Roger Federer as he seeks to lift an increasing yoke and resign his membership of GWHWARG (Greats Who Haven't Won At Roland Garros).
One recent event won't hurt his chances. He beat Rafael Nadal in the Hamburg Masters final this week. On clay. The same Nadal who has won the last two French Opens.
This is significant as the Spanish lefty has had the wood on our Rog in their previous five clashes on clay, and rolled off 81 straight wins on the red stuff going back two years.
Federer, world No 1 for ages and supreme everywhere bar one surface, is not a man given to fist-pumping, hollering, dancing on table tops or outlandish yabber.
So his "it will be interesting to see how we both react to it in Paris" was entirely in keeping. But inside be assured he was dead chuffed.
The win also came straight after he split from his longtime coach, tough Aussie Tony Roche, a step thought to have been a long time coming. Hamburg ended Federer's worst run since he became world No 1.
So perhaps good things will come Federer's way in threes. An 11th Grand Slam title will put him three behind Sampras.
Oh yes, Federer needs the French title to stay on track to join Rod Laver and Donald Budge as the only men to win all four slams in a year. It's been the same for the last few years, so, no pressure then.
The women's singles also has a subtext. Belgian Justine Henin is top seed, and out to become the first woman to win three straight French crowns since Monica Seles in 1992. Her record is strong and she's a resilient battler.
But her private life has been through hoops this year, since the end of her four-year marriage to a husband who was always courtside. She pulled out of the Australian Open in January. Cue a giant question mark over her tennis future.
Still, back-to-back wins in the leadup to Paris suggested she's got her eyes back on the ball. She'd be a popular winner. A Federer-Henin double? A short-priced fancy in tennis' equivalent of going to the trots.
