PARIS — Though the 2017 French Open does not begin until Sunday, the tournament has already won a marathon match.
The proof is visible only after you leave the traditional confines of Roland Garros and pass through the gates of the adjacent botanical gardens, les Serres d’Auteuil, where a towering red, white and blue building crane sits in the midst of a vast, freshly dug pit.
After years of litigation and delays, the new and expanded French Open is at last on its way, and this construction site, which will occupy the corner of these elegant municipal gardens, will eventually become one of the most avant-garde tennis stadiums in the sport’s history.