Roland Garros, by Ahmed

ROLAND GARROS !

The French tennis tournament, Roland Garros also called «internationaux de France » is one of the four greatest Tennis tournament in the world with Open d’australie, Wimbledon and the US Open. Roland Garros started in 1928 in Paris. Nowadays Roland Garros is also called the “French Open”, his specialty must be the clay-courts. In this tournament you need 3 set to win the game and if you go on to a five set match than there’s no tiebreak. That is mostly why it is considered as the most physical tennis tournament in the world.

                                                                     Clay Court:

                                                                          

They are a few things clay courts are none for like slow down the ball and increase the bounce of it at the contact with the field. It is very hard to play a serve-and-volleyers technique on those field and players with a great service are not as much advantage than they are on grass court or hard court. But still players like Nadal with a really big defense are in there elements with the clay court, that’s why he won the French Open six times by now. It is also very special for players like Pete Sampras or John McEnroe because they never won the French Open not even a single time during their career.

The most known players in Roland Garros.

The number one in the French Open is a still young player Rafael Nadal. He won six times the French Open and haven’t even had finish yet.

                                                                             

                                                          

The second one is Bjorn Borg, he also won six times the French Open and had the record of the number of French Open winning but Rafael Nadal seems to be ready to beat the king.

                                                                                 

                                                                                 

                                                                                 

The interview.

The person to interview was quite easy to find for me, my mother. She worked for Dunlop for several years and went to Roland Garros during almost 10 years.

- Hello  Mms Harakat, I'm here to interview you about your years in Roland Garros. At the time you were working for Dunlop is it right?

-Yes, it is. I’ve been working there for 15 years. I had always love my job their but I had to quit once I had my first son because I needed a more stable way of life.

- And how many years have you spend on Roland Garros?

-I spent 9 years there from 1980 to 1889. Certainly the best years while I was working for Dunlop.

- Explain to us How was it?

- It was just wonderful, I mean like every year I was only waiting to go there. Even if I was working quite hard all day long I could saw some of the matches and enjoy a little bit of Paris. That wasn’t the only advantage you could at any place meet a famous tennis player. Some which are still playing others who stopped years ago and are just enjoying the tournament or the young players with a dream.

- So which players have you seen during those days?

- I almost saw all of them it will be hard to give you the list in details (laughs)

- I can understand, are they players you have really met?

- Yes three of them particularly, they were sponsored by Dunlop that’s why I met them. I was working on their rackets. The first was Tarik benhabiles he won the junior tournament of Roland Garros and became the number 22 player in the world.

- And the second was ?

- He is a one you must know better than Tarik, it is Guy Forget. He has always been really kind towards me and I’ve spent much time with him talking on his rackets that’s why we became friends. He's now the trainers from the French Tennis team and was certainly one of the best french players in the world ! But most of all he was a great guy much than a great tennis player.

- Was it always like that ?

- No, some of them were more distant but Tarik Benhabiles, Guy Forget and my little favorite Steffi Graff were really close to me.

- Talk to us about your relationship with Steffi Graff.

- We were really close to me at the time, she was also the greatest tennis player I have met. On the court she dominate everyone with a lot of facility.She is still today the only one to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam and the Olympic gold medal the same year. But more than that she became a great friend of mine. I used to come to her room after her matches we spoke a lot but we practically never spoke about her matches. She really wanted a "normal friendship" with me and I was really glad by that.

- I'm glad you answered our questions, Thank you very much.

- You're Welcome, bye.