On May 22, west of Paris, at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, where the Roland Garros stadium is located, the next Grand Slam tournament will begin, and qualifying.

Many may assume that the stadium is named after a famous tennis player of the past.

Yet Roland Garros has never been a top level tennis player. He never claimed what we now call the “Bodyguard Cup”. His recordings were made not on ships, but on battlefields. He was an adrenaline junkie, stuntman and passionate French Air Force pilot. He died in aerial combat in 1918. Ten years later, a stadium will be built that will link the name of the pilot with tennis.

Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros, as his full name, was born in Saint-Denis, Réunion on October 6, 1888. When he was 12 years old, due to pneumonia, his parents sent him to Cannes to recuperate. Doctors advised him to go in for sports. He took up cycling, in which he excelled in the school championship, as well as football, rugby and tennis.

But the sport was about to fade into the background when, in 1909, he attended an eight-day air show in Reims. He immediately realized that the adrenaline he was looking for could not be found in the saddle of a bicycle, not on a field or court, but on the air.

In the same year, he began his studies and quickly found himself at the helm of a “gadfly” monoplane (the “Beauty” series). In 1910, he will receive a pilot’s license and begin to take part in competitions. Heaven was his… A year later, he flew his plane to an altitude of 18,410 feet and “broke” the record of that time.

In 1913 he would become the first pilot to cross the Mediterranean. He covered 800 km in seven hours and 53 minutes. His piloting skills and daring feats in an age of slow communication quickly made him famous throughout the world.

Risky pilot with four falls

When World War I broke out, Roland Garros joined the French Air Force. The first attempt to shoot down a German aircraft failed due to the instability of the front cannon of the helicopter. The daredevil pilot met with engineers from a French aircraft company to figure out how to solve the problem. Finally, the machine guns were placed between the propellers of the fighters, which made the shots confident. At the insistence of Garos, steel shields were placed on the propellers to repel bullets.

On April 1, 1915, Garros became the first pilot to shoot down an aircraft with a cannon mounted between the propellers.

In the coming days, he will shoot down two more aircraft, but on April 18 his own will be shot down, and he himself will be captured. He escaped from a POW camp three years later, in 1918, after being sent a map of Germany in the hollow handle of a tennis racket. He will immediately return to the French Air Force and achieve another downing on October 2. The legend surrounding the fearless fighter says that he shot down two planes that day, but the second has not been confirmed.

Many believe that Roland Garros was the first “flying ace” (Aces High) (i.e., the pilot who shot down five enemy aircraft), but this is not true, since, according to official data, he shot down only four.

The last downing of a Roland Garros aircraft took place on October 2, 1918. Three days later, his own plane was also shot down, and the fighter, the day before his birthday, died. The downing of the French pilot’s plane is attributed to Herman Gambitz, a German “ace aviator” who is credited with seven downed aircraft.

But the name of Roland Garros was to remain forever thanks to tennis and the famous French stadium. In two days, the courts and stands of Roland Garros will be filled with tennis players and spectators. But only a small percentage of them may know that the “godfather” of the stadium escaped from the POW camp thanks to a card hidden in the handle of a tennis racket.