June 11, 1989, men’s final at Roland-Garros. To everyone’s surprise, American Michael Chang defeated Swede Stephan Edberg in five sets. In the 1/8 th final, the young player – he is not yet 18 years old – had already caused a sensation by dismissing the world number 1, the Czech Ivan Lendl, with his famous spoon service.
Back on the last great battle, in 1999 and 2000
Chang doesn’t know it yet, it will be the greatest feat of arms in his career. That year, the champion, who is now part of Team Dunlop Ambassadors, plays with balls made in … Montluçon. Like all the players of the grand slam tournament.
A different ball from the others
Two months earlier, another match, also a winner, is being played in the cozy lounges of the Château Saint-Jean hotel. In preview, Claude Cham, President and CEO of Dunlop France, presents the yellow ball which, for three years, will bounce on the courts of Porte d’Auteuil. Its name: “Roland-Garros”.
This partnership is concluded with Patrick Clerc, the director of the tournament, accompanied by Patrice Dominguez, the former French player. “It is a different ball from the others whose liveliness and perfect adaptation to the clay are the major arguments”, advances the boss of Dunlop who announces a marketing for early May in France, in other European countries and in Japan.
A hundred people in the workshop
1989 was definitely a good year for the tire manufacturer. In December, the Lacoste group entrusted Dunlop-France with the manufacture and worldwide marketing of tennis and golf items under the crocodile emblem.
Testimony. Véronique Tavernier worked for seventeen years in the tennis workshop. “I did almost everything. The manufacture of the ball, the marking, the cutting of the felt. There is only the cooking which I did not make ”.
Returning to the factory in 1980, like her father and brother before her, Véronique saw the activity change with the takeover of the Japanese Sumitomo. “In the years 85-86, machines arrived, there was less work by hand”.
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The Montluçonnais tennis ball workshop, which at the time produced thirteen million units per year and employed around a hundred people, welcomed the news with great satisfaction. This agreement is “a very positive element for this workshop. This should ultimately increase our production of bales, ”says Marcel Mathieu, the plant manager.
An activity deemed unprofitable
Almost a decade later, it is a serious setback for employees in the industry. In May 1997, the unions alerted the press to the plan to close the tennis ball workshop. An unprofitable activity, judges Dunlop-France. The unions prefer to question the sale of the ball brand “Dunlop” to a British company.
There are only twenty-two employees, including sixteen women, to tackle the task. Only positive point, no dismissal is planned. Part of the employees resettled in the cleaning service.
When the writer Jean-Charles Varennes renamed Montluçon “Dunlopville”
The group is counting on reclassifications inside the Montluçonnaise factory, notably in the cleaning service. An “honest” proposal, believes Jean-Pierre Hurtaud of Force Ouvrière who, on the other hand, expresses his opposition to “night work for women”.
On behalf of the CGT, Gilles Vincent observed, for his part, that “for fourteen people, wages would be frozen for ten years without benefiting from annual increases of a general nature”. In June, the chopper fell. Montluçon loses its tennis branch.
“Dunlop has already stopped producing tires for bicycles, boots, textiles, mechanics, air chambers and aviation”, plagues Robert Lebourg (CGT). Three years later, it is the heavyweight activity that will in turn be sacrificed.
Fabrice Redon
“We needed a big helping hand,” says the workshop director.
Former director of the Montluçonnaise factory (1992-1995), Jacques Parfait remained for four years, at the beginning of the 1980s, at the head of the tennis workshop.
Production. Returning to Dunlop in 1973, this chemical engineer by training, after passing through the motorcycle workshop, remembers that the company manufactured 60,000 tennis balls per day, “5,000 dozen, that’s what we used to say”.
Women. About 80 people including sixty women worked in this workshop. “The manual part was very important,” he recalls. It was necessary to mold the half-spheres, to assemble them while maintaining the pressure inside. After gluing, there was felting with the strips. We needed a big helping hand ”.
Tournaments. At that time, the Montluçonnaise factory sold its balls all over Europe. Balls found on major tournaments on the world circuit. “When we signed with Roland-Garros, we delivered the Dunlop branded balls and the money with them. It was quite an ad for the brand that sponsored McEnroe. ”
Boxes. Jacques Parfait remembers that at first the balls were packaged in cardboard boxes. “There was an expiration date. It changed when we put the balls in pressure tubes. We could keep them much longer. ”
Profitability. Jacques Parfait assures him that the workshop had “good profitability” before Asia entered this market. “With cheaper labor, prices were bound to be lower. It was difficult to fight. Today, I believe that there is no longer a single manufacturer of tennis balls in Europe ”.
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