The clay-court major in Paris
The French Championships, as the tournament was then usually called in English, were held in Paris in the late spring of 1967, at the Stade Roland Garros. The stadium was named after a French aviator and had been built in the late 1920s so that France could host the Davis Cup. By the 1960s it was the home of the only Grand Slam event played on clay.
The year is easy to misunderstand. The twist in the title is that 1967 was the last season in which the major tournaments were closed to professionals. From 1968 the French Championships became the first Grand Slam event to be played as an open tournament, so the 1967 edition sits at the end of one era and just before another.
The champions
In the men’s singles, Roy Emerson of Australia beat his compatriot Tony Roche in the final. The score is generally given as 6-1, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2. It was Emerson’s second French title, after 1963, and one of many major wins in a career that was unusually productive in the amateur period.
In the women’s singles, Francoise Durr of France beat Lesley Turner of Australia in three sets, the first set going to Turner and the second and third to Durr. For a home player to win at Roland Garros was a notable result for the French crowd.
Other titles were decided in doubles and mixed, but the singles are the ones usually remembered.
What was missing from the draw
The tournament was an amateur event. Players who earned money from the game, whether through a professional tour or by accepting prize money, were barred from the Grand Slams. A group of the best players of the era had turned professional and so could not enter, including Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, both of whom were probably among the strongest players in the world in 1967.
That means the 1967 champions were winners of a field with notable absences. Emerson’s record in the amateur game was real, but historians often note the caveat that the strongest professionals were playing elsewhere. This was not a secret at the time. Many in the game had been calling for the rules to change for years, and the tension between “shamateurism” (amateurs receiving payments under the table) and honest professionalism was a regular subject in the press.
Why clay plays differently
The surface at Roland Garros is crushed brick, often called red clay. Compared with grass, which was the surface at Wimbledon and several other major tournaments of the time, clay changes the match in several ways:
- The ball bounces higher and slower, so the pace of a rally is reduced.
- Players can slide into shots, and long baseline rallies are common.
- Serve-and-volley tactics, which were so effective on grass, are generally less effective, because the slow bounce gives the receiver more time.
- Matches often take longer, and physical stamina counts for more.
For this reason, players with a strong serve and quick net game often found clay difficult, while those who were patient and consistent from the baseline tended to do better. Emerson was an all-round player with fitness and a solid game, which helped across surfaces. The different demands of clay and grass are one reason a player who is at the top of the sport on one surface may not be on another.
The approach of open tennis
By 1967 the pressure for change was strong. The sport’s governing body, the International Lawn Tennis Federation, had resisted open tennis for years, but several national associations favoured it. In Britain, the Lawn Tennis Association took a decisive step toward admitting professionals later in the year. In the spring of 1968 the French Championships were the first major to be played as an open event.
When that happened, the best amateurs and professionals were able to meet in the same draw for the first time in the modern game, and Rosewall won the men’s title in Paris. This is a later development, mentioned here only to place the 1967 edition: the field in the previous year did not include him.
Why the 1967 tournament is still worth knowing
The 1967 edition is a reminder that tennis history is not a simple line of champions. The records of the amateur years are real, but they must be read alongside the fact that the best players were often shut out. It also shows how much the game changed in a short time. Within about a year of that Paris final, professionals were entering the major events, prize money was becoming a regular feature, and the sport’s calendar and status were beginning to look much more like the modern one. The context of the wider year, including the Wimbledon championships a few weeks later, is part of the same story.