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 Honestly I can’t wait! So who will win this year – Nadal or Roger Federer, or is it this year up to the only English speaking challengers to the title in the two Andys, Andy Roddick or Andy Murray!! Sadly Del Potro is out, but there is still the Frenchman Tsonga – but secretly you know who I’m cheering for!

I have many clients of France-The French Way who are packing their bags to head to Paris for the time of their lives! But have you ever wondered as to why this tennis tournament takes the name of Roland Garros? Hamish my tennis partner asked me this question the other day.

Roland Garros became famous during the First World War as an ace pilot, and apart from being the first to fly solo across the Mediterannean, was an engineer who developed a system of firing a machine gun through the props of a fighter plane. On one mission during the First World War in northern France, Garros was downed by the Germans, but failed to destroy his plane which was equipped with his prototype machine gun firing system. The plane was sent back to Germany where the engineer Anthony Fokker studied it and mastered the modern system of  forward firing machine guns.

But why should a Pilot’s name grace a world famous tennis stadium? In 1927 the French won the Davis Cup. Tennis in Paris was controlled mainly by the sports clubs. Stade Francais and Racing Club (see article earlier on Andrew Mehrtens) organised the tennis tournaments and they decided after this major Davis Cup victory that they should organise an international tournament based at a central site in Paris. Stade Francais and Racing Club of course are still well known today as leading Rugby Clubs, and it was Stade Francais who offered to sell 3 hectares to the west of Paris for the development of a national tennis centre. Their one condition was that it be named after one of their own members who had died during the war – Roland Garros! Voila!

If you are in Paris?

Head to the Hotel de Ville during the last week of the tournament for a Beach Tennis festival for all ages. Public participation is also encouraged. I can’t quite imagine this – something like Beach Volleyball?? Maybe Sharapova might be there?!

Roland Garros: 23 May to 6 June 2010