Two Fannys, Zero Points

Two games. Two 13-0s. Zero points conceded.

That’s how the French women’s team opened the European championships in Loutraki, Greece, on Friday: Scotland beaten 13-0 in the morning, Bulgaria beaten 13-0 right after. In pétanque, a 13-0 is called a Fanny. Two in a row is a statement. Zero points conceded in two games is the part that makes the rest of the field nervous.

The French quartet — Nelly Peyré, Nadège Baussian-Protat, Sandrine Poinsot and Toréa Tairio — didn’t even need the same three players twice. Peyré sat out the Scotland game, having played the precision-shooting qualifiers the day before. Poinsot took the bench for the Bulgaria game. When you can rotate your team through a European championship and still not concede a point, your depth is doing the talking.

A word about the Fanny, for the uninitiated: we have a whole glossary entry for it, and it’s worth a read before your next club night. The short version is that losing 13-0 is the sport’s ritual humiliation. Handing out two of them in one day is not an accident. It’s the difference between a team that is playing well and a team that is barely being touched.

Let’s keep it in proportion, though. Scotland and Bulgaria are not the games France will be judged on. The European triplette runs on a Swiss system, and the opposition gets harder with every round. The timed games punish slow starters, and France has been the opposite of that — the Scotland game was over in forty minutes. But the medals are decided in October, in Loutraki, on the weekend, against the teams that also win fast. Two Fannys is a start. It is not a title.

Meanwhile, Nelly Peyré has a second front to fight on. She qualified for the precision-shooting quarterfinals with 36 points, second only to Turkey’s Yağmur Tosun on 45. The quarterfinals are Saturday morning in Loutraki. Turkey, by the way, is the story nobody should sleep on — after a remarkable junior Europeans earlier in the week, the Turks are playing like a nation that has decided it belongs at the top of this sport.

And the juniors are already home with proof of concept. France left Loutraki on Tuesday with two European titles, and with Dawson Herlemann’s silver in precision shooting — the 15-year-old who shot 59 in qualifying losing a tight final 47-58 to Italy’s Nicolò Dagati. The pipeline is fine. The question was whether the seniors would hold up their end. Friday’s answer: loudly, yes.

The triplette continues through the weekend. France has played two games and given up nothing. In pétanque, that’s all you can ask of a Friday. The ground is still the ground on Saturday.