Le Stade de Roland Garros ("Roland Garros Stadium") is a tennis venue located in Paris, France. It hosts the French Open tennis tournament (known as the Roland Garros Tournament within France), a Grand Slam event played annually in May and June. The facility was constructed in 1928 to host France's first defense of the Davis Cup, and named for Roland Garros, a pioneer aviator (the first to transit the Mediterranean Sea by air successfully), engineer (inventor of the first forward-firing aircraft machine gun), and World War I hero (the first pilot to be called an "ace" after shooting down five enemy aircraft), who was killed in aerial combat in 1918.
The 21-acre (8.5-hectare) complex contains twenty courts, including three large-capacity stadiums; Les Jardins de Roland-Garros, a large restaurant and bar complex; Le Village, the press and VIP area; France's National Training Centre (CNE); and the Tenniseum, a bilingual, multimedia museum of the history of tennis. Court Philippe Chatrier was built in 1928 as Roland Garros's centerpiece and remains its principal venue, seating 14,840 spectators (reduced from 15,166 in 2010 to accommodate new press boxes). The stadium was known simply as "Court Central" until 1998, when it was renamed for the long-time president of the Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT) who helped restore tennis as a Summer Olympics sport in 1988. The four main spectator grandstands are named for les Quatre Mousquetaires ("Four Musketeers") – Jacques "Toto" Brugnon, Jean Borotra (the "Bouncing Basque"), Henri Cochet (the "Magician"), and René Lacoste (the "Crocodile") – who dominated men's tennis in the 1920s and '30s.
