French Open History

The French Open Tennis 2009 competition is one of the four global Tennis ‘ Grand Slams’ the others being Wimbledon, The US Open and the Australian Open. The French Open however is the only one played on clay courts. It generally happen from 24th May until 7th June.
The French Open history had its start in 1891 and was known as the Championatde France International de Tennis it was for men only. The womens event began 6 years later in 1897. At that time all tennis was played on grass, but the French introduced a new surface of clay, the tournament is still played on clay today and it has become the biggest clay court tournament in the world.
After France won the Davis Cup on American soil in 1927, they decided to protect the success, but wanted to have a quality French Tennis Championship venue to host the contest plus other global matches and competition, The French Government assisted and donated three hectares of land in Paris to build a venue, but they insisted that it be named after heroic World War 1 fighter pilot, Roland Gaross.
Once the stadium was finished it work the International flavour continued and the tournament began to attract players from far and wide. Some clay court specialists and others clay court learners.
In 1968 the French Tennis Championship became the first of the four Grand Slams to go ‘open’, thus allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete, these days however, with the huge growth in popularity nearly all players are now professional. Like other Grand Slams it only invites the top players in the world and the world rankings to compete. The last 20 final results can be seen in the French Open Tennis Roll of Honour.