Will Roland Garros Have New Digs?

by Craig Hickman


AP

Paris in Springtime May Not Include the French Open
by Christopher Clarey

IT sounded outlandish at first, like nothing more than a thinly disguised bargaining chip. But the prospect of moving the French Open to the suburbs has gradually developed into a legitimate option, or if you are Mayor Bertrand Delanoe of Paris, a legitimate threat.

The vote to determine the future of the grand slam tennis tournament is scheduled for Sunday, when 180 delegates from the French tennis federation will attempt to decide whether the Open will remain at its current location on the western edge of Paris or move farther afield in 2015 to one of three other sites: Gonesse, Marne-la-Vallee or Versailles.

A two-thirds majority will be required for selection. If that proves impossible Sunday, the plan is to reconvene within three months and vote again with only a simple majority necessary.

For now, Paris and the existing Roland Garros Stadium still look to be the slight favourites, considering the French emphasis on tradition and centralisation, and the prohibitive cost of building elsewhere from scratch. But Versailles has the requisite snob appeal, with its palace within walking distance of the proposed location on a former military base, and either Gonesse or Marne-la-Vallee would allow the federation to own its site outright instead of settling for a long-term lease.

All three alternatives offer huge increases in acreage and elbow room for a tournament that is the smallest of the four grand slams and whose walkways can often seem as crowded as a subway car at rush hour.

Rafael Nadal, a five-time French Open champion who could surpass Bjorn Borg's record for singles titles, has repeatedly made it clear he is against the tournament moving, emphasising that it would lose some of its soul. But Justine Henin, the retired Belgian who won the women's title four times, takes a more nuanced approach. ''I have a hard time imagining Roland Garros anywhere else, but I think it's definitely true that the site needs to grow,'' she says. ''The players and the spectators suffer because it's too small. They have to find a solution.''

Nostalgia has hardly been much of a trump card in grand slam tennis. The US Open left the West Side Tennis Club for a bigger, more soulless site in Flushing Meadows in 1978. The Australian Open was held in other cities before it settled in Melbourne at Kooyong, only to pull up stakes and move to a new facility in Melbourne's city centre in 1988. Even Wimbledon moved from Worple Road to its current grounds in 1922, and has been on a modernisation kick of late that has led to the destruction of multiple show courts, including the atmospheric No.1 Court.

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If they move, they better build a stadium with lights and have night sessions. (Are you listening, Wimbledon?) It's time to bring all the Slams into the 21st century.