Starting tomorrow and for the next two weeks, the tennis world turns its attention to Paris for one of the year’s four major tennis tournaments. You may have noticed that some people call the event the French Open, and others use the name Roland-Garros. The reason is both complicated and emblematic of a tournament that has long struggled with its identity.
Christopher Clarey shared the outline of this fascinating historical vignette in his new biography, The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay. It is the saga of the French tournament’s shifting nomenclature. The official name is Les Internationaux de France de Tennis. However, that name never gained traction with fans or broadcasters. Instead, Le Tournoi de Roland-Garros, simplified to Roland-Garros, has emerged as the preferred title in France. However, many people refer to the tournament by an alternative name, the French Open.
In recent years, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) has become increasingly adamant that the tournament should officially be called Roland-Garros. Currently, all official merchandise, social media accounts, and digital properties carry the Roland-Garros moniker.
Until Clarey’s deep dive in The Warrior, I was oblivious to the hyphen in the official name. However, it is not a stylistic flourish, but rather a part of the country’s grammar. The French tradition is that when events or places are named after people, the name is hyphenated. While that rule has become less commonly used in modern times, the organizers of the tournament have decided that Roland-Garros will hold fast to that linguistic tradition. Hence the hyphen, which is here to stay.
Roland Garros played tennis but wasn’t actually an avid or well-renowned player. The stadium was named after him because he was a pioneering aviator and national hero who was killed in combat during World War I. While naming a stadium after a war hero is a patriotic gesture, turning around and naming the tournament after the stadium is a novel marketing decision.
Roland-Garros may have been inspired by Wimbledon, which officially refers to its tournament as “The Championships.” Absolutely no one calls it the British Open. The “Championships” title may have emerged as a subtle assertion of that tournament’s primacy over the other Majors. While the US Open and Australian Open lean into their national identities by using geography in their branding. Roland-Garros, by contrast, carves out a unique identity of a different nature.
So, what’s in a name? In this case, history, nationalism, branding strategy, and a hyphen that most tennis fans have likely overlooked. Whether you call it the French Open or Roland-Garros, the tournament remains one of tennis’s crown jewels. In the meantime, unless you want to look like an ignorant American, Roland-Garros is the name to use.
