In the annual Grand Slam calendar, the French Open is the second major tournament. It follows the Australian Open and is normally played before Wimbledon and the US Open.
The event began in 1891 as the French Championships, originally restricted largely to players affiliated with French clubs. It became an international major in 1925 and moved to Stade Roland Garros in Paris in 1928. The tournament is played on outdoor clay, the slowest traditional Grand Slam surface.
A common mix-up is confusing calendar order with the tournament’s historical age. The French Open is older than the Australian Open as an organized championship, but the modern Grand Slam sequence places Australia first, France second, Britain third and the United States fourth. Its schedule has occasionally shifted: in 1946 and 1947 it followed Wimbledon, while the 2020 edition was held after the US Open because of the pandemic.