Every year the Roland Garros tournament gathers its cohort of fans: they buy seats for the fortnight, but sleep in the tent at the nearby Bois de Boulogne, they hunt autographs of players in the aisles or worship great champions like John Mc Enroe…
At Roland Garros, child autograph hunters run into security guards. Players are less and less accessible with closer and closer protection, especially for stars like André Agassi. Mr. LELOUCH, head of security, explains how the men in charge of security organize the players' movements. A young boy shows the results of his trophies.
The Roland Garros stadium is just a stone’s throw from the Bois de Boulogne, where a campsite welcomes tennis enthusiasts during the tournament. A couple of German tourists set up their tent. They bought their tickets for the Internationals on the black market at a very high price. Five people from the Creuse also stay in the campsite, but they are not spectators, they work to supply the players' drinking bins. Among them, Pascale, who came especially to see the players, including Mary Pierce, "even more beautiful in real life".
Celine, 22, a physiotherapy student, divides her time between tennis and English lessons. She evokes her "love story" for tennis champion John Mac Enroe: "It’s a god". She went to Roland Garros where she gave him a stuffed animal. The walls of his room are covered with tennisman posters.