The Stade Roland Garros is the place to be during late May and early June as one of tennis' most prestigious events, the French Open, kickstarts on the red clay in Paris. The only Grand Slam where clay courts are used, brings to a close the spring clay court season. It is that time of the year when the baseliners grab the eyeballs once again. The slow nature of the courts means defence is the best form of attack.

The French Open as we know it today started off as 'Championat de France International de Tennis' more than 120 years ago. The tournament, which began in 1891, was a national event till 1925. It then opened itself to international competitors as the venue of the tournament shuffled between Racing Club de France and Stade France before the action shifted to Porte d'Auteuil in 1927.

France's rapid ascension in the sport - thanks largely to Suzanne Lenglen who won six times between 1920 and 1926 - led to the need for a new stadium. The Porte d'Auteuil was hence revamped and the stadium was named Roland Garros - after the French World War I hero. Garros was also the first man to fly a plane across the Mediterranean Sea.

In the mid-1940s, the French Championships was the third Grand Slam event of the year, after Wimbledon. France's domination of the competition, however, ended with the onset of the Second World War. Post that, the event was largely dominated by emerging players from Australia and America. 1956 saw the tournament scale to a new height when it crowned its first-ever African-American winner, Althea Gibson.

In 1968 the French Open became the first tennis championship to go 'open' which meant it dissolved the distinction between amateurs and professionals, allowing both to participate.

In March 2007, the tournament set another 'first' by becoming the only tournament to provide equal prize money to the winners of the men's and women's Grand Slam events. Many other championships have since followed suit.

The time period between late 1970s and early 1980s was a magical era for tennis in general, and Roland-Garros in particular. Björn Borg won the title a record six times and delighted everyone. Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander and Gustavo Kuerten also wrote success stories on the clay court.

As compared to hard courts and grass courts, clay surfaces have considerably low speed and higher bounce. That is the basic reason why big servers and serve-volleyers find it rather hard to show any sort of dominance on clay courts. Many professional players, even those with multiple grand slam titles to their names- John McEnroe, Venus Williams, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Maria Sharapova and Pete Sampras- do not have a French Open to their credit. Pete Sampras could not even make it to the finals of the Grand Slam. Andy Roddick has not been past the 4th round here. On the other hand -Björn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Rafael Nadal, Mats Wilander and Justine Henin- have found great success at this tournament.