French Open: date, place, mode, history - all information about the tennis tournament
Created: 05/02/2022 10:13 am
Stade Roland Garros © Federico Pestellini / IMAGO
Named after an aviation pioneer, the Grand Slam tournament, also known as "Roland Garros", kicks off the clay court season year after year.
Worth knowing about the mode, the schedule and the historical background of the French Open.
Munich – The
French Open is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, making it one of the most prestigious events in the tennis world.
They are traditionally the second Grand Slam tournament of the year between the Australian Open and Wimbledon and take place at the end of May to the beginning of June.
Venue is the French capital Paris.
The French Open is played on clay.
This makes the French Open the only major tournament to take place on this surface.
After Guy Forget's resignation as tournament director of the French Open last year, former world number one and two-time Grand Slam winner (Australian Open and Wimbledon 2006) Amelie Mauresmo took over the helm.
Mauresmo is the first woman to hold this position.
French Open – Stats & Facts
Edition: 121st French Open
Date: May 22 to June 5, 2022
Venue: Stade Roland Garros, 2 Av.
Gordon Bennett, 75016 Paris
Tournament Director: Amelie Mauresmo
Surface: sand
Defending Champion (Men's Singles): Novak Djokovic (SRB)
Defending champion (women's singles): Barbora Krejčíková (CZE)
Defending champions (men's doubles): Pierre-Hugues Herbert (FRA) / Nicolas Mahut (FRA)
Defending champions (women's doubles): Barbora Krejčíková (CZE) / Kateřina Siniaková (CZE)
Defending Champion (Mixed): Desirae Krawczyk (USA) / Joe Salisbury (GBR)
Website: www.rolandgarros.com
French Open - the mode
128 athletes compete in the first main round of the individual competitions of the French Open.
In doubles there are 64 teams competing for the trophies.
"Best of five" is played, i.e. three winning sets.
A change in the game mode of the Grand Slam tournaments will be used for the first time at this year's French Open: The organizers of the Australian Open in Melbourne, Roland Garros in Paris, Wimbledon in London and the US Open in New York have agreed on a uniform tiebreak rule agreed.
For some time now, a different rule has applied to all events in the deciding set.
From now on, the tie-break will be played to ten points, with a difference of two points.
This innovation applies to all single and double competitions as well as junior and wheelchair competitions.
French Open – the 2022 schedule
Sun, May 22, 2022 - Mon, May 23, 2022: 1st round singles, men and women
Tue, May 24th, 2022: 2nd round singles, men and women
Wed, May 25, 2022 - Sat, May 28, 2022: 3rd round singles, men and women
Sun, May 29, 2022 - Mon, May 30, 2022: 4th round singles, men and women
Tue, May 31, 2022 - Wed, June 1, 2022: Quarterfinals singles, men and women
Thursday, June 2nd, 2022: semi-finals singles, women
Fri, June 3rd, 2022: Semi-final singles, men
Sat, June 4th, 2022: Final singles, women
Sun, June 5th, 2022: Final singles, men
This (planned) schedule may change at short notice.
French Open - the trophy in the men's singles competition
"La Coupe des Mousquetaires" is the winner's trophy awarded to the winner of the men's singles at the French Open.
The trophy's current design was created in 1981 when the then President of the Fédération Française de Tennis, Philippe Chatrier, commissioned jewelers from Paris to redesign it.
The trophy honors the French quartet of Jean Borota, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste who dominated men's tennis in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The quartet is known as "The Four Musketeers" and has won the Davis Cup six times in a row.
Decorated with vine leaves at the top and swan-shaped handles, the silver trophy is 21 centimeters tall, 19 centimeters wide and weighs 14 kilograms.
The winners since 1891 are engraved on the marble floor.
Only once a year, on the day of the men's final,
French Open - the trophy in the women's singles competition
The women's trophy "La Coupe Suzanne Lenglen" commemorates France's most successful player in history.
Suzanne Lenglen was the sport's superstar in the 1910s and 1920s and was considered almost unbeatable.
The trophy has been awarded to the winner since 1979 and is on display in the National Sports Museum.
However, something went wrong with the engraving of the winners' names.
British photographer Ella Ling, for example, discovered through a photo she took in 2019 that Brit Sue Barker, who won the title in 1976, is listed as Australian.
The engraver also had a mishap the following year when the Slovenian Mima Jausovec, winner of 1977, was engraved with “Jausevec”.
French Open - the story of the second Grand Slam tournament of the year
The roots of the tournament go back to 1891.
Women were allowed to play from 1897.
However, participation was reserved almost exclusively for the French until 1925.
That's why the competition was originally called the "French Competition".
With the admission of foreign players, however, this had to change, which is why the "French Open" (i.e. "French open") was founded.
Similar to the Olympics, for a long time no professionals were wanted at the French Open.
This was only changed in 1968, which is why this opening is still known today as the beginning of the "Open Era".
The record winner for men is the Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who has already won the tournament thirteen times.
The American Chris Evert celebrated seven victories in the women's singles.
French Open - multiple winners in men's singles
Rafael Nadal, ESP, 13 titles: 2005-08, 2010-14, 2017-20
Max Decugis, FRA, 8 titles: 1903/04, 1907-09, 1912-14
Björn Borg, SWE, 6 titles: 1974/75, 1978-81
Henri Cochet, FRA, 5 titles: 1922, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1932
André Vacherot, FRA, 4 titles: 1894-96, 1901
Paul Aymé, FRA, 4 titles: 1897-1900
Maurice Germot, FRA, 3 titles: 1905/06, 1910
René Lacoste, FRA, 3 titles: 1925, 1927, 1929
Mats Wilander, SWE, 3 titles: 1982, 1985, 1988
Ivan Lendl, CZE, 3 titles: 1984, 1986/87
Gustavo Kuerten, BRA, 3 titles: 1997, 2000/01
André Gobert, FRA, 2 titles: 1911, 1920
Jean Borotra, FRA, 2 titles: 1924, 1931
Gottfried von Cramm, GER, 2 titles: 1934, 1936
Frank Parker, USA, 2 titles: 1948/49
Jaroslav Drobny, EGY, 2 titles: 1951/52
Ken Rosewall, AUS, 2 titles: 1953, 1968
Tony Trabert, USA, 2 titles: 1954/55
Nicola Pietrangeli, ITA, 2 titles: 1959/60
Manuel Santana, ESP, 2 titles: 1961, 1964
Rod Laver, AUS, 2 titles: 1962, 1969
Roy Emerson, AUS, 2 titles: 1963, 1967
Jan Kodes, CZE, 2 titles: 1970/71
Jim Courier, USA, 2 titles: 1991/92
Sergi Bruguera, ESP, 2 titles: 1993/94
Novak Djokovic, SRB, 2 titles: 2016, 2021
French Open - multiple winners in women's singles
Chris Evert, USA, 7 titles: 1974, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1986
Steffi Graf, GER, 6 titles: 1987, 1988, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999
Justine Henin, BEL, 4 titles: 2003, 2005-2007
Margaret Court, AUS, 3 titles: 1969, 1970, 1973
Montagica Seles, YUG, 3 titles: 1990-1992
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, ESP, 3 titles: 1989, 1994, 1998
Serena Williams, USA, 3 titles: 2002, 2013, 2015
Martina Navratilova, USA, 2 titles: 1982, 1984
Maria Sharapova, RUS, 2 titles: 2012, 2014
French Open - what not everyone knows
A few weeks after the French Open of tennis players, there will be a major for padel players in Europe for the first time on the Roland Garros stage: from July 11th to 17th, 2022, the Stade Roland Garros will host the first European major as “Paris Premier Padel Major" under the umbrella organization International Padel Federation (FIP).
The new major international event will be broadcast by leading TV stations such as ESPN and Sky.
Despite his (previous) refusal to undergo a corona vaccination, tournament director Amelie Mauresmo expects or hopes that Novak Djokovic will compete: "As things stand, nothing stands in the way of Djokovic participating."
The often used name "Roland Garros" for the Grand Slam tournament is actually not the name of the big event, but the name of the tennis facility in which the game is played.
This goes back to the fighter pilot of the same name, who became a legend in France during World War I and loved tennis.
In 1911 he won the prestigious Grand Prix d'Anjou flying competition and the Paris-Rome and Paris-Madrid aviation races.
On September 23, 1913, he was the first person to fly over the Mediterranean Sea: it took eight hours from Fréjus in southern France to Bizerte in Tunisia.
Unlike other major events, the French Open has started on a Sunday and not on a Monday since 2006.
In the meantime, 32 games will be played on this first matchday.
When the French Open took place for the first time, just five players met on the grass courts of the Racing Club de France in the early summer of 1891 to play off the French tennis champion.
Only with the move to the Stade Roland Garros will the French Open be played on clay (= sand).
The first winner of the French Open was British.
H. Briggs, whose first name is unknown to this day.
He was only allowed to take part in the 1st Championnat de France international de tennis because he was a member of a French tennis club.
At 17, Monica Seles became the youngest French Open champion in 1970.
Michael Chang was the same age when he defeated Stefan Edberg in five sets in the 1989 final.
Germany's most successful player at the French Open was Steffi Graf.
Between 1987 and 1999 she won the women's singles at Roland Garros six times.
In doing so, she replaced Hilde Sperling.
Sperling won the French Open three times in the 1930s (1935, 1936 and 1937).
At 8.5 hectares, the Stade Roland Garros is the smallest of all Grand Slam tennis parks - less than half the size of those in Melbourne, London and New York.
The Stade Roland Garros is home to a total of 20 tennis courts, including the three stadiums Court Philippe Chatrier, Court Suzanne Lenglen and Court Simonne Mathieu.
So that pigeons and small birds do not fly over the courts between the rallies, the organizers of the French Open use three birds of prey to drive the small, flying troublemakers away from the facility.
In 2020, the Corona pandemic was used to install a retractable roof in the Court Philippe-Chatrier.