The Historic Slam Moves Into The 21st Century

Catching up with its fellow Slams, Roland Garros is embarking on an ambitious plan to expand its grounds in Paris, and its brand around the world

- Stephen Tignor

No one was sure exactly what that meant, but it sounded like a soirée you didn’t want to miss. An hour or so later, when we picked up our party favors— colored spray-paint cans and a white construction helmet with the words “Media Center 1988–2018” printed across the front—we understood what was about to happen.

Starting that night, Roland Garros was going to demolish the press rooms where we worked, along with most of the rest of the 90-year-old stadium, Court Philippe Chatrier, that housed them. In the hours before the decimation began, as photos that had hung for 20 years came down and desks were cleaned out for a final time, we were encouraged to spray whatever tributes and memories from the tournament came to mind on the soon-tobe-nonexistent walls around us. This graffiti would be our final words written at the old Roland Garros.

The tournament didn’t have a day, or even a night, to waste if it was going to meet its ultra-ambitious goal of creating a new Roland Garros by the time the 2019 French Open began 50 weeks later. Wrecking crews arrived soon after, and within a month, one of the sport’s most-storied arenas had been stripped to its foundations.

“What’s going to happen between 2018 and 2019? Now, very serious business is going to start,” said Gilles Jourdan, the man charged with running Roland Garros’ renovation project, when he announced the plan. “After the 2018 tournament, we are going to destroy 80 percent of the existing center court to rebuild the stands.”

“Everything is planned and organized, but we don’t have much time.”