PARIS — What better place for an underhand serve than the French Open?
The French already have a better name for it than we English speakers. They call it “un service à la cuillère,” or a spoon serve.
The trick shot — even rarer than a day without a transport strike in Paris — played a major role in the 1989 French Open, when Michael Chang, just 17, sprang it on Ivan Lendl in the fifth set of their epic fourth-round match.
Chang was cramping and already had considered and then reconsidered retiring from the match.