May those who have never returned from Roland-Garros with good sunburn cast the first tube of Biafine. That’s also the charms of the French tournament, this side of life in the open air, the nose in the wind, a good sunburn on it… We will not be unduly surprised that in 1972 the tournament of the door d’Auteuil is called Open Vanaos, from the name of a range of sunscreen and beauty products then sponsor of the event. No, but what do we write? “It will come as no surprise that…” ? But so precisely! You have to be surprised. It was scandalous, this appellation! Here it is, very precisely: “International Vanaos Open de France”. Vanaos? In place of Roland-Garros! Wasn’t there like a bone?
The 1972 tournament poster. (DR)
It’s true, there was one. And a big one. In 1972, the finances of the Federation sailing in low water, its president, Philippe Chatrier, to his great shame, had agreed to cede the name of the tournament to this cosmetics firm, in fact a sub-branch of L’Oréal. 522,000 francs at the time would partly fill a relatively embarrassing financial hole and would also allow them to position themselves at the same level of prize money as Wimbledon and Forest Hill (the US Open). This is the first and only time in history that Roland-Garros will bear the name of a sponsor. Even if the Americans are used to naming our old tournament “BNP Open”, compared to the ubiquitous baselines on television (they also say The French), Vanaos, it was going strong.
Philippe Chatrier, then president of a highly indebted FFT. (The Team)
It still happens that we distribute samples of products at the gates of the stadium via elegant hostesses, but these beginnings of marketing had a taste of sacrilege for the regulars. The Internationals of France passed with rackets and luggage under the control of a commercial firm as will later the Internationals of Australia accepting the invasive sponsorship of the Ford brand (the tournament will be called Ford Australian Open from 1984 to 1994). It was definitely a funny vintage this year 72 with the Spaniard Andres Gimeno, astonishing winner, the oldest in history, 35 years old and an incipient baldness, who has in the final Patrick Proisy, twelve years his junior. Another oddity, the first two rounds were played to the best of three sets. The height to return to this famous sponsor, Vanaos, is that the weather was terrible in Paris and that there was hardly a sunburn to deplore during the fortnight!
