player – Tennisarchives.com

General First namePaul
LastnameAymé
GenderMale
CountryFrance
Date of birth1869-07-29
Place of birthParis, France
Date of death1962-07-25
Place of deathMadrid, Spain

About

Although still comparatively obscure, Paul Aymé was one of the most successful of the early French lawn tennis players. He notably won the men’s singles event at what is now known as early French National Championships four times a row, from 1897 to 1900.

Paul Aymé was a member of the Tennis Club de Paris, founded in the French capital in 1895, and won the club championship in men’s singles in 1897, 1898 and 1899. In 1904, he was also notably a member of the first ever French lawn tennis team to take part in the Davis Cup competition. Aymé lost both of his singles but, together with Max Decugis, won the doubles as France lost 2-3 to Belgium in the all-comers’ final.
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The following is an English translation of a piece on Paul Aymé that appeared in the French magazine La Revue Sportive on 7 August 1903:

Personalities in tennis – Monsieur Paul Aymé

[Unsigned]

Monsieur Paul Aymé makes me thinks of a dance master. His chest is arched, his calf is prominent and his moustache rises; what is more, he possesses the elegance which is the stamp of teachers of good manners and good bearing. People who understand what tennis is, have told me that Monsieur Aymé had a great talent for this sport, but that he has not developed it much. On the contrary, in my view, Monsieur Aymé does not play from instinct, but after long study and laborious preparation.

I cannot doubt that Monsieur Aymé learned tennis with the help of a ‘method’ in which all of the strokes were described and analysed in the way that, in special tracts, the step or the waltz or the strokes of battle are described and analysed. The ‘drive’ is done in three stages and we have to give up hope of ever seeing Monsieur Aymé do it in two stages.

The book which initiated Monsieur Aymé into the things of tennis taught him, I wager, that before ‘serving’ the player must stare at his opponent with a challenging look, then ‘tap the floor in front of him with the wood of his racket’. And Monsieur Aymé, because he does not understand the ‘why’ of this rite, observes it superstitiously. Similarly, where religion is concerned, our faith bends to practices whose raison d’être our criticism does not penetrate.

And, in truth, Monsiuer Aymé believes in his ‘method’, as others believe in the holy books. If, after he has congruently executed his ‘drive’, his ‘backhand’ or his ‘smash’ in the way he was taught it, the ball nevertheless hits the net or the stop netting at the back of the court, Monsieur Aymé still believes that he has fulfilled his duty.

He remains still and, in his rigid but elegant stance, keeps his arm and all of his body in the position in which they were when he hit the ball. By doing so, he shows both himself and the spectators that he played according to the rite. And then, when the umpire calls the score, Monsieur Aymé appears very surprised that he has lost the point.

The strong faith which he has in his method will always prevent him from ever admitting that he has played badly. He will only show, by looking skywards or shrugging his shoulders, that he is the present victim of that hostile force which the ancients used to call fatality. And those who have chatted with Monsieur Aymé know that, nowadays, in order to persecute the mortals who play tennis, fatality takes the form of ‘a ray of sunlight in the eyes’ or ‘the too new racket that turned in the hand’.

In the way in which I have tried to describe it to you, at this year’s tournament on the Île de Puteaux, Monsieur Aymé’s game triumphed over both the skill of the English cracks – because Monsieur Aymé won the doubles championship – and over the eternal and impenetrable composure of Mr Reginald Doherty, because we live many times – and Monsieur Aymé, I swear to it, had the honour of seeing a smile light up the impassive mask of the English champion.

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