French Open 2020 has finally kicked off and is being held between Sunday September 27, 2020 till Sunday 11th October 2020. Read this article to find  out how to watch French Open 2020 live streaming and TV of finals to be held on 11th October 2020.

The French Open 2020 has begun and it features a lot of top players such as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Thiem, Zverev etc. Nadal defeated S. Korda to enter the quarter finals. Djokovic will be playing against Karen Khachanov. 

In the women's top seed Simona Halep was defeated at the hands of Iga Swiatek. Petra Kvitova will play Zhang on Monday.

French open Venue:

  • French Open is being at Roland Garros in Paris but without any fans due to coronavirus pandemic. However, we can still expect a lot of action and drama as usual.

How to watch French Open 2020 live:

There are couple of ways you can do it

  • If you are an Eurosport subscriber, then you can watch it live here. However, the subscription will cost you £6.99 per month or £39.99 a year. Also, you can watch Europsort on Amazon Prime Video and you can make use of 7 day free trial.

How to watch French open for free:

  • Fortunately, ITV is broadcasting French Open or Roland Garros tournament for free. You can watch it on ITV4 if you are in UK or Ireland. You can watch it online here.
  • If you are not in UK then you will not be provided access to watch. You can use VPN (Virtual Private Network) workaround to achieve the same. A VPN establishes  a private connection between your phone/laptop and the internet, so that the service you are using does not come to know about your location or activity. All the information being exchanged is entirely encrypted.
  • You can use VPN such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, IPVanish or any other VPN of your choice in order to watch the live stream

Roland Garros tournament

The French Open (in French, Championnats Internationaux de France de Tennis de Roland-Garros ) - named in honor of the French aviator Roland Garros -, is a tennis tournament that makes up the Grand Slam played since its inauguration in 1891 under the organization and the protection of the French Tennis Federation (FFT).

French Open

Roland Garros is the main tournament held on clay in the world and the second in chronological order of the Grand Slams after the Australian Open, being in turn the predecessor of the Wimbledon Championship and the United States Open and the only one of the four big tournaments held on this surface.

The tournament takes place over two weeks beginning at the end of May in Paris, France at the facilities of the Stade Roland Garros complex, this being the main venue of the tournament since 1928. The final of the same is held on the track Philippe-Chatrier center with a capacity of 15 059 spectators, the largest among the nineteen courts that the venue has.
The construction of it was due to the feat of the four French players who managed to win the Davis Cup on American soil in the 1927 edition. René Lacoste, Henri Cochet, Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon, known as "The Four Musketeers", have commemorative statues in memory of the event.

It is one of the most important tournaments in the world and one of the oldest, being recognized in the first place in the aforementioned characteristics in competitions on brick dust due to its Grand Slam status. The surface provides a type of slow play. In case of reaching the five sets in the men's category, a tiebreaker is not played in the fifth and final but must be won by a difference of two games. This and other qualities lead it to be considered the toughest and most demanding tournament in the world due to the physical and mental demand for the player, along with Wimbledon.

The tennis player who has won the tournament more times in the men's individual category, with twelve victories, is the Spanish Rafael Nadal - during the Open era -, followed by the French «Max» Décugis - during the previous period and under his name of the French Championship. -, with eight wins; October November while individual female category is dominated by American Chris Evert who proclaimed seven - time champion in the Open era.

In 2020 a remodeling of the complex has seen the light. The improvements include a general improvement of the facilities as well as the increase in the capacity of the central court, which has now had a retractable roof - similar to the one already used in the Caja Mágica in Madrid - to prevent accidents. Usual inclement weather in recent years.

Background

Most historians affirm that tennis originated in France in the 12th century, when a ball was struck with the hand in the likeness of the popular and famous Basque ball of the time. It wasn't until the 16th century that something similar to a racket began to be used, although this was more similar to a paddle, and the game began to be called tennis. With great popularity in England In the US and France, this new sport was only played indoors in enclosed venues where the ball could hit the wall, reflecting a new similarity to Basque sport. The fact that it was widely practiced among royalty and high birth, among which King Henry VIII of England stood out - a great fan of this game -, led historians to classify those first practices today as real tennis or real tennis.

After various evolutions where a racket such as ILA was finally added and as it is known today, in addition to moving the game abroad, the first tennis club was founded in Leamington Spa in 1872, as reported by a publication of the time. Five years later the Wimbledon Championship was born in London, the oldest of the current tournaments, which also served to standardize the rules of tennis.

Tennis was also very popular in France, where the French opened a competition in 1891 and named it the French Championship or French Open, thus joining the already existing Wimbledon Championships and United States Open, and the which joined the 1905 Australian Open. These became over time the most prestigious events in this sport, remaining under such condition today, and being known collectively as the "Great Slams " or the "Big Four".

 French Championship

The precedents of the prestigious French tournament thus date back to 1891 when a national tennis tournament was launched in France - and specifically in the city of Paris - governed by the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques (USFSA), federation in charge of organizing sporting events in the country at the time. In its beginnings, the tournament could only be played by tennis players who belonged to the French sports club of Racing Club de France, the tournament facilities being the venue.

Baptized as the French Championship, it had as its first champion -to surprise and despite being a French domestic tournament- the British H. Briggs in the individual modality, who could participate due to his status as a member of the club to defeat his teammate the French P. Baigneres and local B. Desjoyau and T. Legrand in the form of double. Under an amateur character, there were five participants in that edition, and there is little repercussion that has been increasing over the years.Continuing with its desire to gain more projection and importance in a sport brought to the country by the British,  were allowed to participate in the 1897 edition, date on which Françoise "Adine" Masson prevailed his compatriot P. Girod by 6-3 and 6-1. The mixed doubles modalitywas added as of the 1902 edition, while the women's doubles was played for the first time in the 1907 edition.

As an anecdote of the female modality, it should be noted that in its first edition only three players participated, who had to comply with highly regulated clothing requirements. The first winner "Adine" Masson came to conquer the tournament on a total of five occasions being the most successful player in the tournament until she was surpassed in 1926 by her compatriot Suzanne Lenglen. However, Lenglen's record was already considered of greater importance years before to surpass it because he had to win it in each of the editions, unlike the first one who saw how in some of the editions it had no rival as it was the only one registered in the championship.

Roland Garros

Thus, exclusivity for its members was continued until the 1925 edition of its participation rules were regulated, opening these to any foreign player. For this reason, the event changed its name to the one that still exists today: French International Tournament of Roland Garros, also known as the French Open and popularly by its abbreviation of the Roland Garros Tournament, the latter being its most widespread name. in most languages.

Parallel to the first editions of the championship, the World Hard Court Championships was held at the sports facilities of the Parisian Stade Français club, which in turn alternated as the headquarters of the French Championship with the facilities of the Racing Club. Its clay courts hosted from 1912 to 1923 in an interrupted way an event that is sometimes considered by some critics and fans as the precursor to the prestigious French international tournament. The winners of this tournament include those considered as former world number 1s New Zealander "Tony" Wilding and American "Bill" Tilden, which saw how it reached its conclusion in 1924 due to the 1924 Olympic Games held in the French capital.

Continuing the former French Championship under its new name, it saw its category as a championship increase - receiving such designation by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) now known as the International Tennis Federation (ITF) - while allowing already mentioned participation of foreign fans. The venue for the new 1925 edition was the site of the Stade Français facilities located in Saint-Cloud. the two scenarios alternated until the year of 1928.

Facilities

Former venues 

Since the French international tournament saw the light in 1891, it had four venues until before settling in the current Stade Roland Garros.

  • Île de Puteaux, played in sand laid on a bed of rubble in the French communeof Puteaux, in Paris.
  • Facilities of the Racing Club de Francesports club located in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris on a surface of clay or brick dust.
  • For a year in 1909, it was played at the Société Athlétique de la Villa Primrose in Bordeaux, under the already characteristic clay that would not abandon the tournament from now on.
  • The Paris Tennis Club, in Auteuil, being the oldest of the locations until it was moved to the new venue opened in 1928 in commemoration of the conquest of the Davis Cupthe previous year by the four historic French tennis players.

Roland Garros stadium

The current championship venue is known by the name of Stade Roland Garros in honor of the former famous aviator enthusiast of the sport Roland Garros.

Track Philippe Chatrier

Center court

Track Suzanne Lenglen

The Suzanne Lenglen track or stadium, second in importance and capacity of the venue, was named in honor of the former player and most successful individual female winner, the French Suzanne Lenglen, who won the title six times. The extenista also holds the absolute record of titles by adding all categories with a total of fifteen in the period between 1919 and 1926.

With a capacity of more than 10,000 spectators, was built in 1994, receiving its current name only three years later.

Track 1

The so-called Court 1 or track 1 is the third stadium of the enclosure, occupying the same position in both importance and capacity. In its annexes there is since 1989 the famous Place des Musketeers (in French, Place des Mousquetaires ) in honor of the four famous tennis players. It contains four bronze statues that flank the center of the square, the site of a 1927 Davis Cup monument they conquered and the next five successfully defended.

The track - with a capacity of approximately 3,800 spectators - is located at the eastern end of the venue, very close to the central track.

Adjoining tracks

The rest of the enclosure has up to a total of sixteen tracks called lower capacity annexes. During the first days of the tournament in which the number of matches is very high, all of them are used in their entirety, which allows a comfortable and fast course of the tournament.
Organized the players according to their number of "seeded" of the tournament, they compete for the successive courts until its completion that takes place in the center court of the enclosure.

Their numbering includes tracks two through twelve, and from fourteen to eighteen, completing a total of nineteen tracks to which three more should be added for other practices. Their curiosity is that there is no clue number thirteen for reasons of superstition. The ability thereof varies around hundreds of fans.

Modernization project

In 2009 the French Tennis Federation (FFT) denounced the poor condition of the French Open venue compared to the rest of the Grand Slam tournaments. As a result, the French commission hired architect Marc Mimram - designer of the Deux Rives Footbridge, a pedestrian bridge located in Strasbourg - to design a significant expansion of the Roland Garros complex. The complaint involved two basic points in the future tournament at its current location: the addition of a complete lighting system and a retractable roof on the Philippe-Chatrier main court, among other measures.

The differences in this regard during 2010 between those involved and the council of the Municipality of Paris, caused the FFT to announce the possibility of considering an alternative plan that would consist of moving the French open to a new place. The announcement prompted the proposal of up to a total of fifty-five new venues to host the tournament on the outskirts of the city.

In February 2011 the decision was finally agreed to keep the French Open in its current location near Porte d'Auteuil. The headquarters will have its renovation approximately in 2016 after having approved the modernization project by the French Federation. Notable developments include the demolition of Court 1 to house a completely new track with a capacity of 5,000 spectators. Additionally, the renewed makeover and improvement of the accessories in particular, and of the entire stadium in general, of the Court Philippe-ChatrierIt will be completed by the installation of a retractable roof against inclement weather. The capacity will undergo another improvement, being increased by approximately 60% compared to the current one.

 

Surface characteristics 

Courts (or tracks) of clay slows the ball producing a high jackpot of this compared to other surfaces such as grass or carpet, cement and synthetic -denominadas these last three or rápidas- as hard surfaces. For this reason, the courts known under the nickname of "red clay", due to their characteristic tonality, reduce the advantage of the great servers whose style of play is based on the serve-volley tactic, allowing the baseline players to be the dominators of this surface.

A clear example is demonstrated in the great former American tennis player Pete Sampras, —winner of fourteen Grand Slam tournaments and a player known for his powerful serve—, who was never able to win the French Open, being the only one of the four greats to win. resisted. He is joined by many other great players who have won a Grand Slam tournament and who have not won the French tournament, where Lindsay Davenport, the Swede Stefan Edberg, the German Boris Becker or the Swiss Martina Hingis stand out, which he shows once plus the difficulty and prestige of the tournament.
In contrast, players whose playing styles are more demanding and suitable for this slow surface such as Rafael Nadal and Chris Evert reaped great results in the tournament.

These characteristics are the opposite of the next Grand Slam tournament on the calendar, the Wimbledon Championship. Under a grass surface, it makes the biggest difference in conditions for the player. Their great differences make winning both championships —and more consecutively— is considered one of the great challenges and achievements in the world of tennis. In the open era of tennis, only four men were able to win the French Open and the Wimbledon tournament in the same year: the Australian Rod Laver, the Swede Björn Borg, the Spanish Rafael Nadal and the Swiss Roger Federer, all of them former numbers. 1 worldwide.

The particularity of the surface makes it considered by tennis players as one of their favorites since it offers more possibilities and greater play than fast courts where there are hardly any long exchanges of blows.

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