Tuesday, December 5th, 2017...2:21 am
French Open
The French Open is the second of the four main tournaments talked about earlier in the blog. It is played for two weeks during late May until early June. The French Championships began in 1891, but were only allowing members of French clubs to play there. Up until 1897, there were only men tennis singles and doubles players that competed. It wasn’t until 1902, where mixed doubles was added to the events and 1907 before women’s doubles was an event. Only French club members were allowed to play at these tournaments until 1924.
Since there was such a long time before non French members could compete in this tournament, a separate tournament was created in 1912 until 1914 for international players. They brought back the championship after WWI was over from 1920-1922 and was located in Brussels, Belgium. The tournament was called World Hard Court Championships. This championship was ended due to the Paris Olympic Games and also the French Open was allowing players worldwide to compete there. By 1968, the French Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to allow professionals and amateurs to compete.
Court number 2 at the French Open.
More information and picture from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Open
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