The second Grand Slam tournament in the sport of tennis, the French Open or also known as Roland-Garros, it takes place during the last week of May and the first week of June at Stade Roland-Garros, Paris. It was founded in 1891. The tournament is played on clay and consisting of the regular seven rounds victory needed for a championship. French Open 2020 will be the 124th edition of the tournament and will be played on a renovated Court Philippe Chatrier.
The surface is slow and it is the only Grand Slam where the final set is retained to be an advantage set i.e., played without a tiebreaker. It is the most prominent court clay tournament of tennis and the game on his surface is regarded as the most physically exhaustive forms of tennis.
The men’s trophy, Coupe des Mousquetaires, refers to ‘The Four Musketeers’ of French tennis, Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet, and René Lacoste. And the women’s trophy, Coupe Suzanne Lenglen is named after the French tennis player, Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen.
The champions of the tournament are given 2000 ranking points and the ATP finalists collect 1200 ranking points and the WTA counterparts are awarded 1300. The French Open 2020 total prize money is €38 million. It is less by 10 percent this year, from €42.66 million, due to the losses on account of the coronavirus.
The men’s and women’s singles champions received cheques of €1.6 million each. The finalists took home €800,000 each.
This year, only 1000 fans were allowed inside the Roland Garros fields due to coronavirus concerns.
In the Open Era of tennis, on the men’s tour, the ‘King of Clay’, Rafael Nadal has won the highest number of Roland Garros titles and has won 13 times in his career. And Chris Evert has won the seven titles which is the highest on the women’s tour. The champions of the French Open 2020 are Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek. The Polish youngster Swiatek became the first singles Grand Slam winner from her country. She was dominant throughout the event.
Nadal defeated great rival Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the final.
The Roland-Garros 2020 main draw matches started on 27th September and concluded on 11th October. This year’s French Open saw night matches as well along with the day session. Matches began at the usual timing of 11 am local time (5 AM Eastern Time).
As the matches were played under lights in the 2020 edition and Court Philippe-Chatrier had a roof, many matches went late in the night and were also played despite the rain.
One of the matches, between Nadal and Jannik Sinner in the men’s singles quarter-final, ended just a few minutes before 1.30 am.
| Gaston Gaudia | 2004 |
| Rafael Nadal | 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 |
| Roger Federer | 2009 |
| Stan Wawrinka | 2015 |
| Novak Djokovic | 2016 |
| Justine Henin-Hardenne | 2005, 2006, 2007 |
| Ana Ivanovic | 2008 |
| Svetlana Kuznetsova | 2009 |
| Francesca Schiavone | 2010 |
| Li Na | 2011 |
| Maria Sharapova | 2012, 2014 |
| Serena Williams | 2013, 2015 |
| Garbine Muguruza | 2016 |
| Jeļena Ostapenko | 2017 |
| Simona Halep | 2018 |
| Ashleigh Barty | 2019 |
| Iga Swiatek | 2020 |
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