At the other end of the Eurostar line, on the Wimbledon grass, Andy Murray will play under Centre Court's retractable roof when it rains, but in Paris he is affected by the drizzle and the cloudbursts as much as anyone.
Murray's 6-2, 6-7, 6-3, 6-2 second-round victory over Juan Ignacio Chela on the mushy clay of Roland Garros on Thursday was not a match so much as a series of mini-matches. Delays, suspensions and interruptions made it a bitty and fragmented affair stretched out over two days, four sessions and four sets.
The rain, the wet clay and the poor light had been clogging up Murray's progress at the French Open, and the ridiculousness of the situation was summed up by the shortness of one session, which brought just six minutes and nine points of tennis. The match could easily have gone into a third day and a fifth session.
It was almost 9pm on the bullring-shaped Court One, and darkness and more rain were just on their way when Murray achieved the win that took him through to a last-32 meeting with Marcos Baghdatis, of Cyprus, yesterday.
Experience
"Rain delays — I've not really had many in my career," Murray said. "It was a good experience for me, one I could have dealt with maybe a little bit better."
If the interruptions did not do much for Murray's game, neither did the heavy conditions, which did not allow him immediately to impose his talent on his Argentine opponent, someone he had got into the habit of beating, and beating easily.
During the first session, on Wednesday evening, Murray had generally been striking the ball with poise and power, though he had just dropped his serve when the contest was suspended because of poor light at 9.30pm, with the Scot leading 6-2, 3-3.
In the second and third chunks of the 3 1/2-hour match, he was unable to dominate the exchanges with the South American. Nothing has come easily to Murray during this year's French Open.
In his opening match, he had to deal with the class of Richard Gasquet's one-handed backhand, and in the next round he had to cope with all this.
It was just as well that Murray's tennis picked up in the third session of the day, and the fourth of the match, as they could not have continued for much longer.
"I was lucky to get another break in the fourth set, as we couldn't have played many more games," he said. "It was tough. It was the first time in my career that I had been in this situation."
