The bilingual website of Roland Garros is clearly positioned as the online contribution of a 360-degree branding effort. Its color palette and texture are based on the ubiquitous terre battue of the Paris tournament. The clay is indeed the whole mark of the French Open. It tends to stick to everything, and can rise in tornado-like columns of dust that darken the blondes and blind the paparazzi. It seriously marks the rebounds of erratic balls. Coloring the website with it greets the fan with sheer nostalgia.

The site brings the venue to the viewer with features such as video cams and a virtual tour. At the time of this review, games and cams were still inactive and occupied by placeholders, but most static pages were up, providing a plethora of information: venue map, directions and tickets, TV schedules, history, and prize money. If there is one fault of the site it is the several broken pages throughout the site. Pages that don’t exist are acknowledged with an option to “Try another serve?” (“Essayez une autre rubrique?”). The site organizers must be concerned about the ability of their servers to handle the stress caused by bandwidth-hungry features at the height of the tournament.

The site Shop option transfers the virtual shopper to madeinsport.com, which opens in a new window and follows branding guidelines similar to the official site. It is a state-of-the-art shopping site but, unfortunately, there is no natural way to go back to the Roland-Garros site, such as clicking on the logo.

Like many major sporting events, Roland-Garros has become a major international brand. Apparently, the event's organizer, the French Federation of Tennis, has spared no effort to reinforce Roland-Garros' brand positioning with this excellent online presence. It is a grand slam. Editor