Far away: That’s not the picture of a club championship, that’s the French Open in 13th place.
Image: Jürgen Hasenkopf
Far away from the glamorous world of the French Open, followers and fallen players play deep in the west of the tennis facility. But some are also happy about a match on the sidelines of the Grand Slam tournament.
JEvery morning shortly before 11 a.m. the first matches will be announced over loudspeakers at the Roland Garros facility. The order is always the same: it starts with the encounter on the Philippe Chatrier court, followed by the fixture on the second largest court, Suzanne Lenglen, and then the games on the other show courts are read out. After about a minute, shortly before the end of the announcement, there is an indication of who is playing in 13th place. In other words: who has to play there.
Deep in the west of the long tennis facility, squeezed between two streets, the tournament organizers usually order those who are among the followers on the professional tour, such as Hungarian Panna Udvardy and Irina Schymanowitsch from Belarus. Or those who are past their prime, such as 38-year-old veteran John Isner of the United States and Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman, both former top ten players. And when the individual fields thin out, juniors have to come here.
