All Change For The French Open

While it may seem that the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, continue every year with very little change, this is definitely not true for the French Open at Roland Garros. Other venues have improved facilities and main arenas, to bring them up to the standards required of modern day international sporting venues. Roland Garros though, have had to quell a growing band that wished for the pinnacle of the clay court season to move to an all new purpose built venue. If the French had been successful in winning the Olympics for 2012, then the French Open would have had a new venue but, no Olympics reduced the amount of funding available. However, three rival bids were in place to host the tournament, rather than the Roland Garros Stadium, Gonesse to the north, Versailles to the West and Marne-la-Vallee to the east. It was thought that Marne-la Vallee near the Disneyland would be the best option if the venue was to change. The vote last weekend, was close but, ultimately the committee decided to redevelop elements of the 21 acre site at Roland Garros instead. Some see this as a missed opportunity, as many thought it time to raise the standards and profile of the smallest of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The expansion will see a new show court, with 5000 seats and a covered roof, allowing play to continue into the evening and maybe even allow night time sessions. This would mean that Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam, not to have a night time session. Legal arguments may be the next step but, we believe that the French Tennis Open will now remain at the Roland Garros venue when the current deal expires in 2015. One change for the clay court tournament in 2011, is a change to the supplier of the match balls to be used. The Dunlop Clay Court tennis ball, has been used for many years but, Dunlop have decided to invest more time and money into the rest of the clay court season. Their clay court ball will be used in all other clay court tournaments, except the French Open. The new ball will be supplied by Babolet. Will we now see a challenge, to the Slazenger wimbledon ultra vis tennis ball sponsorship deal, at Wimbledon?