France 2024

On a sunny and warm day, I went to Roland Garros to watch the wheelchair tennis. I used the seat I'd pre-booked on the Suzanne Lenglen Court to see the British player, Ben Bartram, lose to the young Japanese second seed, the second set being a tie-break. Then I saw Gordon Reid win his singles quite comfortably on Court 9, and later on, saw Reid and Alfie Hewett, the eventual gold medallists, win their doubles on Court 14 after it had taken a long time to empty the open stands after a French player finished his match.
The grounds at Roland Garros are very nice although, as at Wimbledon, there is not much shade outside of the two show courts. The grounds have sixteen courts although Courts 15 and 16 were not being used.
As at the badminton tournament, all the introductions were done in English despite the event being held in France with French being one of the official languages of the Games together with English.
There were longs queues at the food and beverage outlets. At one Coca Cola kiosk, the staff poured bottled drinks into reuseable cups. No cash was taken and Visa cards had to be used, Coca Cola and Visa being main sponsors of the Games. The payment for the drink of 7 Euro was taken on one handset with the credit of 2 Euro for using a reuseable cup being given on another handset. This all took time with a long queue waiting.Weiterlesen