The French and the French Open, it is a curious mix. In recent times, Amélie Mauresmo has suffered pain upon pain here, Richard Gasquet - facing up to two years out of the game after a positive doping test for cocaine - will probably miss Roland Garros less than anywhere else on the tour. For others, though, nothing measures up to the thrill of delivering your best to your own people.

Is there a British player, in receipt of a wild card into this year's Wimbledon, who would perform on Centre Court with the clarity of mind and profound belief and resolution that Josselin Ouanna displayed late into Wednesday, when he defeated Marat Safin, twice a grand-slam tournament champion, in five sets?

It is not meant as a criticism of British players - Anne Keothavong almost took a set off Venus Williams at last year's Wimbledon, for instance - but could we imagine, in our wildest dreams, discovering someone with Ouanna's sense of occasion? And he, do not forget, has spent his career almost exclusively on the Challenger and Futures tours, where all of our male players besides Andy Murray reside. What gave him the right to play with such expression against Safin?

And then there are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gaël Monfils, who may participate in a semi-final this year that would blow the mind. Tsonga collapsed in a joyous heap after a 7-5, 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 victory over Juan Mónaco, the Argentinian who cradled his head at the finish. Monfils learnt of Tsonga's victory from the big screen during a third-set change of ends in his 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Victor Crivoi, a plucky Romanian qualifier, broke into a broad smile and applauded. There is a natural affinity among them all.

Ouanna is 23, two years younger than Alex Bogdanovic who has had six wild cards into the main draw at Wimbledon and not won a match. His assessment of his performance against Safin was outstandingly mature. “You manage these [five-set] matches in a different way, because you feel you have time and so you have less stress,” he said. “OK, there may be more stress at the end of the set when things are more important - at the beginning, you wait and see what happens. That's the way I manage it anyway. Then it's a long match, 4½f hours on the court. But sometimes I'm ten times more tired from a nervous standpoint after a match in three sets.”

The British so lack experience at best-of-five-sets matches that the LTA had to stage a play-off for the Davis Cup tie against Ukraine in March, because there was no experience to draw upon. Wild cards are awarded to them at Wimbledon from hands with fingers firmly crossed.

There has been a commendable improvement in the rankings of Britain's leading women in recent months, which is not to be sniffed at, but they have been generously subsidised by the LTA to travel to more tournaments than would have been possible had they belonged to a national federation without a decent pot of funds.