Vive Le Tournoi

It's funny with the names of things, streets or buildings or stadiums. It's easy to forget that these names came from somewhere and that they often have great meaning (well, maybe not so much with American stadiums these days). The names just become proper nouns to us, ones that stand in our minds for places that we frequent or that we hear about, and nothing more.

On this day in 1915, during the First World War, the famous French aviator Roland Garros was shot down behind enemy lines and had to make an emergency landing in Germany. Garros was taken prisoner, but ultimately escaped his prisoner-of-war camp and made it back to France via Holland and Belgium. He re-enlisted in the French Army and was shot down again on October 5, 1918 near Vouziers, Ardennes, just one month before the end of the war. He did not survive the crash.

Garros was possibly the world's first fighter pilot and a source of great inspiration to the French during the Great War. He had achieved considerable fame prior to the war when, in 1913, he became the first man to pilot an aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea. It is a testament to his renown in France that ten years after his death a new tennis stadium was christened in his honor. The Stade de Roland Garros was built to host the Davis Cup rematch between the U.S. and France in 1928. But of course, it is better known as the site of a tournament that most people know as the French Open, but that is officially called the Tournoi de Roland Garros - the Roland Garros Tournament. It makes you wonder if the guy ever even played tennis.