Fear of Tomorrow Keeps French Open at Roland Garros

For a long time, and as late as a week ago, it looked like the French Open was going to leave its traditional place in Auteuil and move to one of the three new proposed sites, all outside the city limits of Paris, by 2016. In order to keep up with the other three major Slam tournaments (Roland Garros is by far the smallest venue), the French Open needed a larger area and to make plans to build roofs over the main action courts.

Versailles looked like the candidate in the best position to be the next host of the prestigious Slam, the only one played on clay courts. The proposed site was more than four times the size of the current Roland Garros site, almost three times bigger than the proposed expansion of the current site to keep the tournament there. Out of the three new sites proposed, it was still the closest to the city of Paris. Transportation would not be a problem as Versailles is reachable by public transportation from the city and there was also the proposed opening of a new railway station near the new site by 2015.

The other two sites, Marne-la-Vallée and Gonesse, carried the burden of overcoming substantial distances to the city center, 25 miles and 15 miles away, respectively. Furthermore, Versailles carried the history and the prestige of its name that would seem to fit the tournament's high status in the tennis world.

The battle was fierce (for example, Marne-La-Vallée site took multiple page ads in major tennis publications in France to advance its agenda), but at the end of the day, the 195 delegates who voted last weekend decided convincingly to keep the tournament at its current site, albeit expanded by 2015, with 70% of the votes in the final round against Marne-la-Vallée. Gonesse was eliminated in the first round, Versailles in the second.

What was the reason for the late turnaround in favor of the current site? The answer is no secret: love of tradition and fear of tomorrow. Moving the tournament out of the current site represented too many unknowns for a tournament who built its image on its legendary relation to what many consider the most romantic city in the world, and its rich tradition cherished by a population who highly values notions such as beauty, ambiance, prestige, location, and emotional bonds, often times at the expense of others such as pragmatism, cost, and modernism.

The fear of the unknown and the possibility of Roland Garros losing its romantically constructed love relationship with the city of Paris worked against Versailles and the other new sites. What would happen if Versailles and its history's grand reputation with the magnificent Palace built during the leadership of Louis XIV became the image that snatched Roland Garros out of its long-time relationship with Paris, and build a new image as the tournament being "Versailles' tournament," and absorbing the image of Roland Garros being "Paris' tournament?"

Would Parisians still embrace the tournament as their own if they could not get there in a few minutes or be able to have an elegant dinner in one of the many stylish Parisian cafés and restaurants at the end of a day of watching tennis? What about all the memories cherished over the decades at the current site?

This last question above was not just the concern of the French tennis lovers, but also the two biggest clay court masters of the Open Era; Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Borg. Borg's headlining quote in L'Équipe, the largest daily sports paper in France, read "My Second House," in reference to his feelings to the current site, while Nadal firmly stated that Roland Garros had a history to protect and that the history exists within the walls of the current site and nowhere else. He added that the tournament would remain big if it moved, but it would lose its "essence." One could almost speculate that Nadal's French alter-ego came out for a moment to make that quote! Yannick Noah, the last French man to win Roland Garros, spoke briefly, leaving no doubt on his position on the affair: according to him, at the current site, "the walls speak."

In the middle of all the fear of unknown and losing the traditional values of the current site, last few days leading up to the vote, suddenly the tide changed. The project of keeping the current site and expanding it found some last minute allies and received some late "gifts." The French Tennis Federation's directing committee publicly endorsed the idea of keeping the tournament in Roland Garros one day before the vote. In the last hours leading up to the vote, the City Council of Paris promised the Federation a 99-year lease on the property. Finally, the potential of future legal actions by ecologist groups due to the inclusion of annexation of the greenhouses in the nearby neighborhood seemed to be swept quickly under the rug.

These late manipulations did not go unnoticed by François de Mazieres, the head of the Versailles proposal. He tried in vain to remind the public that his proposed site was supported by both the Ministry of Culture and the architectural committees and would be finalized without any "headaches." He went as far as accusing Paris of utilizing fear tactics to sway the vote.

Call it fear tactics, or the resolve to hang on to traditional images. Despite Mazières' pleas and the surprising number of current French players on the tour such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Alizé Cornet, and Michaël Llodra looking warmly to the idea of moving (Tsonga openly suggested the move to Versailles would be great), it seemed ultimately that Paris' push in the last few days was all that was needed to keep French Open at Roland Garros.

Roger Federer was the one who made the most accurate and concise analysis days prior to the tournament. He said that players and fans felt crowded and squeezed at Roland Garros, and there was a real need for more square meters. Nevertheless, he added that from an emotional point of view, he loved Roland Garros and that his feeling was that ultimately the tournament would stay there.

It turned out that Federer was correct in his prediction. Bound to tradition and the fear of separation leading to the loss of years of emotional ties built to the current site were deep down at the source of last weekend's vote. In the years to come, perhaps even a few decades, history will judge whether the historic decision of February 2011 was the right choice or not.