Roland Garros

I'm a big fan of tennis. I tennis at least once a week, and I watch the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbeldon and the New York Open. Tennis is as much a mental game as a physical game. It demands a lot of you.

I didn't know that Roland Garros was a French airplane builder and war hero.

He flew alone non-stop across the Mediterranean Sea in a single engine aircraft. When he landed, he only had a couple of liters of fuel left.

In the First World War he joined the French army and "after several missions he decided that shooting and flying at the same time was too difficult, so he fitted a machine gun to the front of his plane so the tasks became one and the same. In order to protect the propeller from the bullets, he fitted metal wedges to the prop."

He was shot down twice, the second time cost him his life.

I don't know what that has to do with tennis.

Probably something about being a hero.