Given that the Pullman has struggled to fill more than 60 rooms on an average nightly basis since its June reopening, management had no choice, a hotel spokesman explained, but to continue taking reservations during the French Open. To accommodate everyone, extra measures, such as the different dining areas, have been instituted to separate the players from the others like cottons and wools in the wash.
There is no such division for the hotel employees, including the person on the breakfast shift in the public restaurant who was serving guests from outside the tennis bubble a day after waiting on Rafael Nadal in the players separate dining area a floor below. Nadal, the defending mens champion, looms large in the lobby, where an enormous video screen loops highlights from last years mens and womens finals.
To walk into the lobby as a scene flashes on the screen of Nadal surrounded by admirers in a tight Philippe-Chatrier corridor with ball kids squeezed in on either side of him is to be hit with the reality of how far this years tournament has strayed from normal.
Its not easy to be stuck in the bubble, the Canadian Vasek Pospisil said, adding: You cant even get fresh air. But it is what it is.
If Gauff was famished Sunday night after her first-round upset of Johanna Konta, she could have grabbed a late-night snack at the players-only dining area, but she could not have gained access to any of the popular spots that serve the crepes and croissants that feed her love of Paris, since that would have meant mingling with those outside the bubble.read more
A Hotel Shows the French Open Is Another Sports Bubble That Isn’t
