ROLEX RETURNS TO ROLAND-GARROS AS PREMIUM PARTNER AND OFFICIAL TIMEKEEPER Geneva, Switzerland, Friday 28 May 2021 – Over the next two weeks, the best tennis players from across the globe will contest Roland-Garros, the second Grand Slam® tournament of the year. Rolex once again returns as the tournament’s Premium Partner and Official Timekeeper. With origins dating back to 1891, Roland-Garros is one of the sport’s most famous tournaments, renowned for its red clay courts. As the only Grand Slam event played on the surface, Roland-Garros presents a unique challenge to competitors. The slower pace of play and higher bounce demand extreme levels of accuracy and endurance, qualities that resonate with Rolex’s own quest for perpetual excellence – in its watchmaking and all other endeavours.
For more than 40 years, Rolex has enjoyed a deep association with tennis, one forged in 1978 when it became the Official Timekeeper of the sport’s oldest and most revered tournament, The Championships, Wimbledon. Since then, the brand has established a strong presence in the game and developed lasting bonds with some of its greatest talents, including Swiss maestro Roger Federer, the 2009 Roland-Garros men’s singles champion, and American Chris Evert, who 35 years ago won the last of her record seven women’s singles titles at the Paris showpiece. Rolex partners all four Grand Slam tournaments and the major organizations that administer the game worldwide. Roland-Garros has been the stage where several Rolex Testimonees have triumphed, including: Swede Björn Borg, the first player to win six titles in the French capital, four of them consecutively (1978–1981); Li Na, who 10 years ago became the first Chinese woman to win a Grand Slam singles crown; and Federer, whose aforementioned 2009 victory completed his career Grand Slam.
A CHAMPION’S RETURN One Rolex Testimonee who has enjoyed more recent record-breaking success at Roland-Garros is Poland’s Iga Świątek, who announced her arrival among the game’s elite ranks at last year’s edition. Aged just 19, she became the youngest women’s champion since 1992 and made history as her country’s first ever winner of a Grand Slam singles title. She secured her place in the tournament’s record books in style, unseeded and without the loss of a single set over the entire fortnight.
The Pole returns to Paris aiming to become the first woman to win back-to-back Roland-Garros titles since fellow Testimonee Justine Henin won three consecutive crowns between 2005 and 2007. Świątek has enjoyed a rich vein of form since the beginning of this season. She reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, at which Rolex is also the Official Timekeeper, before going on to win her first nonGrand Slam WTA title at the Adelaide International and her first WTA 1000 event at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Her big-game experience will prove vital in the quest to retain the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen.
ROLEX TESTIMONEES Joining the defending champion at this year’s tournament will be several Rolex Testimonees, some looking to create their own slice of history at this fabled tournament, while others return as past champions, hoping to replicate the form of previous years and lift the trophy once again. In 2017, just two days after her 20th birthday, Jelena Ostapenko became the first Latvian to win a Grand Slam event, and the first unseeded woman to triumph at Roland-Garros since Margaret Scriven-Vivian in 1933.
Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain likewise secured her maiden Grand Slam title on Court Philippe-Chatrier, dropping just one set in the first round in 2016 en route to becoming only the second Spanish woman to win the singles crown. In the men’s draw, Roger Federer returns to Paris for the first time since 2019, continuing his quest to claim a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title, while twotime finalist (2018, 2019) Dominic Thiem of Austria will hope to go one step further this year and claim his second Grand Slam title, having won the 2020 U.S. Open. Similarly, Stéfanos Tsitsipás will be seeking to build on his semi-final appearance last year and his recent victory at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the first ATP Masters 1000 title of his career, and become the first Greek player to win a Grand Slam singles title.