2024 French Open

Discover all there is to know (or almost) about 2024 French Open (May 26–June 9) from a French perspective.


06/06/2024

Official poster of the 2024 French Open


Paul Rousteau, French visual artist, has been chosen to imagine the 45th poster in the history of this tournament.

The artist has chosen to focus on Paris by depicting a sunrise or sunset reflected in the Seine, over which floats a transparent tennis court.

As it was created with the help of artificial intelligence, it is particularly innovative.

Paul Rousteau : « J’avais plein d’idées en tête mais qui étaient souvent impossibles à réaliser à travers la photographie, comme de mettre un court de tennis sur la Seine. J’ai donc choisi de me tourner vers l’IA »,

The poster reminds us of the work of Van Gogh and Impressionism genre.


France and Tennis 

First, how about a little background? 

France is a land of tennis, and the figures speak for themselves. There are just over a million French tennis licensees, spread across nearly 8 000 clubs. This makes it one of the most popular sports in France. Over 400 000 players are ranked each year, and some 350 000 take part in tennis competitions and tournaments.
Every year, France hosts numerous tournaments at all levels in different cities (among them: Montpellier, Marseille, Lyon, Metz...). Above all, it hosts one of the most prestigious Grand Slam tournaments in Paris, Roland Garros.

The French Open (Roland Garros)

Roland Garros is an annual clay-court tennis tournament, created in 1891 and organised by the Fédération française de tennis (FFT). It is held since 1928 at the Roland-Garros stadium at the Porte d'Auteuil of Paris. 

It is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. It is the second in the calendar after the Australian Open, which takes place in January (does this remind you of anything?), followed by the Wimbledon tournament, in the last week of June and first week of July, and finally the US Open, starting at the end of August.

French tennis players in The French Open

We had a few French tennis players champions. Among them: René Lacoste, Yannick Noah, Suzanne Lenglen (one of the courts is named after her), Amélie Mauresmo and more recently Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. You may have heard about them but can you name actual French tennis players champions? If not, it is probably because the new generation struggles to stand out. 

For years, we wondered if a French tennis player could win The French Open, and now we've moved on to wondering if a French tennis player could even make it to the second week of Roland Garros. Indeed, it's been 4 years since any of our athletes saw the light at the end of the tunnel of the first week.

Is this bad luck? A curse?
There may be no specific reason to justify this but Ronan Lafaix, a trainer who has worked with Gilles Simon, had conceded that mental and psychological preparation were too often neglected among French tennis players (we'll say that's the reason).

French tennis players in the 2024 French Open

Now that you know that, you can understand why we're stressed at this time of year...

The 2024 edition doesn't mark an exception. Whether in the women's draw or the men's draw, there are few satisfying results. 29 French tennis players were in the competition. The last tennis player to compete was Corentin Moutet but he lost in the fourth round against world No. 2 Jannick Sinner. In the women's draw, the last French representative, Varvara Gracheva, was also eliminated from the French Open in the fourth round...

It should be noted that things went better for the Australians this year as the Australian tennis player, Alex de Minaur, became the first Aussie man to reach the quarter-finals in Paris in 20 years.
Therefore, let's not forget to also pin our hopes on Australian tennis players for the future editions!

Let's catch up next year! ✨