By Gabrielle Lewis BBC Sport

The centre court at Roland Garros holds over 15,000 fans

Over the last 112 years, the French Open has become one of the most romantic international tennis championships in the world.

The sport itself was imported from England towards the end of the 19th century and rapidly grew in popularity, with a one-day national championship established in 1891.

The inaugural winner at the Stade Francais club in Paris was an Englishman, recorded only as H. Briggs, while Fran�oise Masson won the first ladies competition in 1897.

But the championships lacked the prestige of having the world's best players taking on the home stars, a problem that was comprehensively resolved when it became an international event in 1925.

Golden era

The tournament's resumption following the First World War witnessed the birth of a golden era in French tennis.

MEN'S OPEN ERA CHAMPIONS 1968 Ken Rosewall 1969 Rod Laver 1970-71 Jan Kodes 1972 Andres Gimeno 1973 Ilie Nastase 1974-75 Bjorn Borg 1976 Adriano Panatta 1977 Guillermo Vilas 1978-81 Bjorn Borg 1982 Mats Wilander 1983 Yannick Noah 1984 Ivan Lendl 1985 Mats Wilander 1986-87 Ivan Lendl 1988 Mats Wilander 1989 Michael Chang 1990 Andres Gomez 1991-92 Jim Courier 1993-94 Sergi Bruguera 1995 Thomas Muster 1996 Yevgeny Kafelnikov 1997 Gustavo Kuerten 1998 Carlos Moya 1999 Andre Agassi 2000-01 Gustavo Kuerten 2002 Albert Costa

Suzanne Lenglen, who had won the title as a pre-war 15-year-old, took the tennis world by storm when she added six of the seven championships between 1920 and 1926.

The Davis Cup success of the French Musketeers, Jacques Brugnon, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet and Ren� Lacoste, over America in 1927 required a new stadium to be built to host the following year's return tie.

So, having alternated between the Racing Club at Croix-Catelan and Stade Francais' courts at the Faisanderie in St Cloud's Park, the championships found their spiritual home at the Porte D'Auteuil.

Housed on a three-hectare site provided by the city of Paris, the arena was named after France's heroic wartime aviator, Roland Garros, with Cochet winning the first men's title on the new Centre Court in 1928.

The championships were dominated by American and Australian players following the Second World War, with French names rarely featuring on the roll of honour.

Among them were teenage prodigies Australian Ken Rosewall and American Maureen Connolly, who swept all before them in 1953.

Another landmark was reached in 1956, when Althea Gibson became the first African-American player to win a Grand Slam event, defeating Angela Mortimer in her only appearance at the tournament.

Going open

Amid the militant uprising and strikes taking hold of the nation, the clay court championships opened its doors to professionalism in 1968 and, 15 years after winning his first title, Rosewall became the first to claim the French Open's 15,000 francs prize money.

WOMEN'S OPEN ERA CHAMPIONS 1968 Nancy Richey 1969-70 Margaret Smith-Court 1971 Evonne Goolagong 1972 Billie-Jean King 1973 Margaret Smith-Court 1974-75 Chris Evert 1976 Sue Barker 1977 Mima Jausovec 1978 Virginia Ruzici 1979-80 Chris Evert-Lloyd 1981 Hana Mandlikova 1982 Martina Navratilova 1983 Chris Evert-Lloyd 1984 Martina Navratilova 1985-86 Chris Evert-Lloyd 1987-88 Steffi Graf 1989 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 1990-92 Monica Seles 1993 Steffi Graf 1994 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 1995-96 Steffi Graf 1997 Iva Majoli 1998 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 1999 Steffi Graf 2000 Mary Pierce 2001 Jennifer Capriati 2002 Serena Williams

Six years later Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert began their reign over the championships.

Borg's record-breaking six titles, between 1974 and 1981, were only bettered by Evert's seventh in 1986.

Evert's battles with Martina Navratilova were true classics, but the home nation's attention was on Yannick Noah, whose success in 1983 ended France's 37-year wait for a champion.

In 1989, a diminutive American by the name of Michael Chang became the youngest men's singles winner at 17 years and three months.

Another record came the following year, when Monica Seles took the first of her three successive women's titles at the age of 16.

Another teenager, then world number one Martina Hingis, bore the brunt of the Roland Garros fervour when she served underarm to Steffi Graf in the 1999 final.

Graf went on to win her sixth French Open title, her last before bowing out of the game, and Hingis was booed off Centre Court.

The following day, Andre Agassi crowned a comeback from a slump in his career to win the title and become the fifth player in history to have won all four Grand Slams.

The French Open headed into the third millennium with a three-year refurbishment project that began straight after the 1999 championships.

It was fitting, then, that in 2000 Mary Pierce became the first Frenchwoman since Fran�oise Durr in 1967 to win the Suzanne Lenglen Cup.

Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten is now the man to beat on the Paris clay, he won the man's championship in 1997 and then captured back-to-back titles in 2000 and 2001.