Tennis world tour roland garros
Players get a certain number of guess passes but “if Roger Federer requests passes for Tiger Woods or US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, he is unlikely to be refused,” says our guide.
While Alexander Bublik practises on the sacred terre battue, our guide Alicia ushers us to courtside seats and reels off some fascinating facts about the new construction.ĭid you know that the new Court Philippe-Chatrier contains 3,700 tons of steel (half that of the Eiffel Tower)? Or that it retains 15,000 seats to preserve the much-treasured intimacy of the competitive stage?Īlicia also points out the FFT Presidential box, where guests such as the King of Spain, Bill Clinton, Usain Bolt and Nicole Kidman have added celebrity lustre to the on-court business.
Outside the courtside entrance, a man mops away red clay dust inside, we note the staircase which leads to the players’ locker rooms, with a wall illuminated with the names of legendary Roland-Garros champions. We meet in the Perrier salon and after a few tweaks by stylists to render the stars camera-ready, we set off towards entrance 33-1 of Court Philippe-Chatrier and reappear, as if by magic, at the very entrance used by players to walk onto the main show court. The Perrier team invited to accompany a group of Chinese guests, which included a famous actor and a well-known model, on their tour. The day for VIP guests starts with a tour of the venue. Magritte included the bowler hat in more than 50 paintings to represent “everyman”, and you could say the panama hat here represents “every fan” on a fantastical outing to the world’s premier clay-court event. The cloud of hats suspended on string calls to mind the surrealist René Magritte’s famous bowler hat (showcased memorably in a retrospective for the Belgian artist at the Pompidou Centre a few years ago). It is this whimsical installation that sets the tone for guests of the tournament’s partners – Emirates, Lacoste, Rolex, Peugeot, Perrier et al – as they arrive for a day like nothing else in the world: a VIP experience of Roland-Garros.