Darkness falls on the French Open

The uncertainties surrounding the second Grand Slam of the calendar year has taken a further hit by the failures of the tournaments organisers over the past week.

The unfortunate weather has not just opened Roland Garros to questions over its future but it has also not been helped by the Championships decision makers.

Despite its long history and prestige within tennis, it is clear that the Slam is lagging behind its three contemporaries.

Its limitations over expanding, has meant the venue of Roland Garros, with the famous red courts of Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen, may come to a sad end.

The structure of both are said to not be strong enough to take the weight of a retractable roof which both the Australian Open and Wimbledon have added and there are now plans to have one placed on the Arthur Ashe stadium so the US Open can join the list.

Another problem for Roland Garros is the lack of land available as they are currently 10 aches short of Wimbledon’s 18. The inability to expand and enhance the experience for the public is why they are now seriously considering locating to other places within the capital, with Disneyland being named as a potential site.

Black out

The Championships cause has not been helped by the peculiar decisions made by the referee this year, which has caused much bemusement with the players.

The most significant incident, which highlighted this, was Wednesday’s match between French favourite Gael Monfils and Italian Fabio Fognini (pictured).

At 9.40pm with the match tied at 4-4 in the deciding set and with darkness closing in the tie looked to be ending for the night.

However with the crowd roaring on for their hero to continue and finish off the second round encounter the organisers, who looked to call it a day, were swayed and pretty much forced them to continue.

Although pleasing for the fans, the players were left to battle it out in the darkness, as they traded many uncomfortable rallies with only the only the stadium television screens as the source of light.

With an extra two games completed they finally walked off at 10:00pm, with the match level at 5-5.

This type of treatment was a disgrace and it was not the only big mistake as on many occasions players were out playing in heavy rain when they should have pulled off. The clay is known for withstanding rain but this year the organisers took this to new levels.

With all this going against the French Open, this year more than ever has demonstrated that the Parisians need to sharpen up or else they will fall even further behind.