PARIS (AP) – A glance at the French Open, the year’s second Grand Slam tennis tournament:
Site: Roland Garros.
Surface: Red clay.
Schedule: Play begins Sunday on all courts at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. Eastern). The 15-day tournament closes with the women’s singles final June 6, and men’s singles final June 7.
Top players on court Sunday: No. 2 Roger Federer vs Alejandro Falla, No. 5 Kei Nishikori vs Paul-Henri Mathieu, No. 8 Stan Wawrinka vs Marsel Ilhan, No. 3 Simona Halep vs Evgeniya Rodina, No. 7 Ana Ivanovic vs Yaroslava Shvedova.
Sunday’s Forecast: Partly cloudy, with a high temperature of 22 Celsius.
2014 Men’s Singles Champion: Rafael Nadal of Spain.
2014 Women’s Singles Champion: Maria Sharapova of Russia.
Last Year: Nadal beat Novak Djokovic of Serbia 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 to win his ninth French Open championship and fifth in a row – both tournament records – and improve his career record at Roland Garros to 66-1.
Sharapova defeated Simona Halep of Romania 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4 for her second French Open title in three years.
Key Statistic I: 62. Number of consecutive Grand Slam tournaments appeared in by Federer, extending his record.
Key Statistic II: 0. Matches won by Nishikori and Wawrinka at Roland Garros in 2014, when both lost in the first round. Wawrinka became the first Australian Open champion to exit in the first round of that year’s French Open since Petr Korda in 1998.
Prize Money: Total is 28 million euros (about $31 million), an increase of 3 million euros (about $3.3 million) from 2014, with 1.8 million euros (about $2 million) each to the men’s and women’s singles champions.
