Why it could be game set and match for Roland Garros site

PARIS - As the world's tennis stars pound the sacred ochre surface of Roland Garros under the spring sun of Paris, a cloud of uncertainty is building over the French Open's future.

One of sport's theatre of dreams - and a fixture that to Parisians has seemed as durable as the Eiffel Tower - the Open may be hauled out of the French capital and rehoused next to Mickey Mouse if tennis bosses and Paris civic authorities fail to resolve a squabble over the venue.

The Open has been held at the Roland Garros stadium complex, named after a World War I aviator, since 1928, when it was won by the legendary Rene Lacoste. Since then, some of the greatest figures in tennis - from Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and Bjorn Borg to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and the Williams sisters - have triumphed or crashed on its notoriously eccentric surface.

The French Open is the only clay tournament on the Grand Slam circuit.

The problem, though, is that the competition has become a victim of its own success.

Nestling among tree-lined streets in Auteuil, in the nobby 16th district on the western rim of Paris, the complex is cramped for parking, court space, reception rooms and restaurant facilities. Despite several extensions over the years it covers just over eight hectares, which compares badly with its other Grand Slam rivals which range from 16 to 20ha. It also lacks a covered centre court, as Wimbledon and the Australian Open in Melbourne have, to enable play to continue in the rain.

Despite withering criticism from traditionalists, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) says it may well move home if Paris fails to ease the brake on refurbishing and extending the stadium.

Four sites are being given the eye. The least-favoured candidates are a disused racetrack at Evry-Bondoufle in the south, and the district of Gonesse, north of Paris, which is cheek-by-jowl with Charles de Gaulle Airport. The frontrunners are Versailles in the west - home to the legendary chateau of the Sun King - and Marne-la Vallee to the east, next to Disneyland. All four sites are close to motorways and have excellent rail access.

"It would be heart-breaking to move, but we have to consider it," says the FFT's director general, Gilbert Ysern, hired last year to lead the campaign. "The other Grand Slams have moved ahead of us. There is a risk that the tournament will lose its attractiveness. Roland Garros cannot stay the way it is today."

At first dismissive of the threat, the Paris city authorities are now taking it seriously, fearing a blow to the city's prestige.

The town hall last week unveiled plans that would allow a five-hectare extension, using publicly owned land at nearby sports facilities and a complex of greenhouses and allocating a hectare of land in the Bois de Boulogne, a park, that would be used as a temporary press area during the tournament. The Philippe Chatrier centre court and possibly also the Suzanne Lenglen No2 court would both be given light, retractable roofs.

In exchange for that, the FFT would pay a bigger fee to the city - it currently stumps up a lease of €1.6 million ($2.9million) annually - but the increase would not be punitive, says Nicolas Revel, an aide to Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.

"It's a real boon for Paris to have Roland Garros, but it's just as important for Roland Garros to stay in Paris," he says.

Diehards say Roland Garros would lose its charm if relocated outside Paris. They include some of the stars. "Moving would be one of the worst things in the world," Federer told the sports daily L'Equipe. "Coming back here is special. I hope to finish my career here, at Roland Garros."

French No1 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga added: "I would prefer the tournament to stay here and extend. The site is just marvellous. This is Roland Garros. If we had to move somewhere else, you could no longer call it that. It would have to be named something else."

Local residents and dissidents on the Paris council are just as firm about opposing the FFT's lobbying. "They've already had three extensions and now they want more," says a local conservation group, the Association de Sauvegarde Auteuil-Bois de Boulogne. "We refuse to sacrifice our neighbourhood for commercial reasons."

Greens worry that the Bois de Boulogne, one of the city's two "lungs" of woodland along with the Bois de Vincennes, would be nibbled away, bit by bit.

The FFT is scheduled to make a decision by next February. Ysern says Versailles, with its baroque architecture and royal past, would make a good fit with the Open, although no option can be ruled out.

Two big factors, though, are time and money. Extending the present site would cost €200million and take two years, but relocating to a new home would cost three times as much and take up to five years.

HEROIC HISTORY

* France won the Davis Cup on American soil in 1927, and in doing so set up a rematch in Paris the following year.

* The search for a suitable venue led the Stade Francais to hand over three hectares near Porte d'Auteuil to the French Tennis Federation.

T* he only condition to the offer of land was that the new stadium should be named after one of Stade Francais' most famous former members, Roland Garros.

* Garros was an aviation pioneer who, on September 23, 1913, became the first man to fly a plane over the Mediterranean. A World War I pilot, he died on October 5, 1918, when his plane was shot down near Ardennes, France, the day before his 30th birthday and a month before the war ended.