The big day was nearing. Twenty-four hours after stepping ashore in New York, the four members of France’s Davis Cup team left the Big Apple and headed north. It was a six-hour drive up the coast. Long Island. New Haven. New London. Narraganset. The aptly named Providence. Then Boston, Massachusetts, their final destination. This was where the French players would take on the Australians, in this exhilarating city.

Despite its provincial feel, Boston had the cultural buzz of a major capital. Here, people studied and wrote. Boosted by powerful industrial families, the city was also developing at a phenomenal pace. New, gleaming buildings were springing up everywhere – the Boston Opera House, the Symphony Hall, the Fenway Studios – with the international airport being inaugurated just days later.

Discovering the brand-new Forest Hill stadium in Queens, eastern New York , came as a profound shock to René. This freshly inaugurated venue would host future editions of the US Open and was built to seat 14,000 spectators. It was simply staggering, compared to the stadium in Deauville with its wooden stands, a few rows high, that could hold a crowd of a few dozen. Lacoste couldn’t believe his eyes. Tennis, his sport, was a much more commanding form of entertainment than he had ever imagined. His ambition to reach the top suddenly burned a whole lot fiercer.

But his curiosity was also piqued by what he saw on the courts. The US Women’s team were playing their British counterparts for the inaugural Wightman Cup. It was much more than just a match, it was a real showcase by the American team. US tennis star Helen Wills was especially showy with her powerful, accurate and dramatic style of play. Watching Wills in action gave Lacoste the feeling he was rediscovering his sport, and he frantically jotted down his thoughts in the notebooks he always carried with him. What he was witnessing was bound to come in useful one day. Maybe sooner than expected – against Australia.