The Second Grand Slam of the year, the French Open Championships, took place at the Stade Roland Garros, Paris from May 17th to June 5th 2011.
The Mens Defending Champion was the clay court specialist Rafael Nadal, and the Women's Defending Champion was Italian Francesca Schiavone who won her first Grand Slam Title at Roland Garros in 2010.
Last year Nadal played one of the best defensive performances of the Championships to beat Swedish player Robin Soderling 6-4/6-2/6-4 in two hours eighteen minutes to reclaim his Roland Garros crown.
In the Men's tennis event Nadal was hoping to retain his title but his most serious rival was Novak Djokovic who has been in sparkling form this season. In Madrid he destroyed Nadal's unbroken winning record on clay courts by beating him in the Final of the Madrid Open.
In the Women's tennis event World Number 1 Caroline Wozniacki was in good form but Schiavone was anxious to retain her tennis title. Australian Open Winner Kim Clijsters was also a serious contender to take her second Grand Slam Title of the year.
Venus Williams was due to return to the Grand Slams at the French Open after she retired during the Australian Open in January with an abdominal injury.
But her participation looked doubtful after she withdrew from the warm-up tournament the Brussels Open because of injury.
Williams has played every single French Open since 1998 and reached the Final in 2002 when she lost to her sister Serena. It looked as though neither sister would play in the 2011 French Open as Serena was still recovering from a foot injury and health problems.
For 2011 the tournament prize money for the singles champions had been increased from $1.4 million to $1.7 million and the organisers had announced the total prize money would be $25 million.
Despite speculation in recent years that the tournament would move to another venue it has been decided it will remain at the historic Roland Garros.
The stadium is rather small so it is going to be expanded and refurbished to improve facilities for both tennis players and the public.
Future plans include covering the current Centre Court so evening matches can take place and building a new 5,000 seater show court.
Next years tournament in 2012 should be very competitive on both the men's and women's side with Roger Federer making an impressive come back to form at the end of 2011, wining the end of season tournament in London. On the women's side Petra Kvitova has been the rising star and should make things tougher for her rivals like Caroline Wozniacki and Li Na.
VTennis.co.uk go now for further information on Caroline Wozniacki and Petra Kvitova or for more biographies of the Worlds Top Tennis Players.
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