Stanislas Wawrinka and Richard Gasquet are first-time United States Open semifinalists this year. Both are in their late 20s; both have glorious one-handed backhands that have been making tennis aesthetes go weak in the knees for years.

But in the expectation game that is professional tennis, Wawrinka has had it easier.

True, Wawrinka won the French Open junior title and looked like quite a prospect, but he was Swiss, and that meant the eyeballs and the pressure would always be on Roger Federer. Wawrinka, to put it colloquially, was gravy.

Gasquet was in a tighter spot. France, with its rich tennis tradition and its gift for centralized organization, has long had plenty of excellent male players. What it has lacked since Yannick Noah won the French Open and leapt into his father’s arms in 1983 has been a Grand Slam champion, and even Noah could summon the focus and desire to win a big one just once.

The speculation began very early for Gasquet, when he graced the cover of France’s Tennis Magazine at age 9 under a headline that asked, “The champion that France is waiting for?”