Tennis fans around the world are enjoying the clay-court action in France, with one of tennis’ four biggest tournaments up and running as of Sunday.

So far, the biggest names have all made it through, despite a few close calls, which means that Rafa Nadal’s quest for a 12th French Open title is still alive and well.

I’ll be rooting for the real prince, Roger Federer, as well as the indomitable Serena Williams, but that’s beside the point.

A special shout-out to unseeded Capetonian Lloyd Harris, who won his first-round match, and will now face 13th seed Borna Ćorić tomorrow.

Forbes decided to crunch some of the key numbers from the French Open, so let’s take a look at a few of those:

4: The new Simonne-Mathieu Court is surrounded by four greenhouses, which house 1,000 plants from four different continents. The court, named after a former French Open tennis champion and World War II heroine, will open to the public on June 21, the first day of summer.

263: The number of ball kids, aged 12 to 16, working the courts during Roland-Garros.

480,575: Spectators who visited the French Open last year, which was a record.

€42,661,000:  Total prize money pot, which is 8% higher than last year.

€2,3 million: Prize money for the women’s and men’s singles champions, an increase of 4.55% on last year.

The pros all say that winning is the first prize, but a few million euros never goes amiss.

Just making it to the tournament itself brings a hefty payday:

€46,000: Prize money for first-round losers, an increase of 15% on last year. Just like the other three tennis majors (Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open), French Open organizers have significantly boosted prize money in qualifying and the early rounds in recent years in order to lift the income of those trying to make a living on the lower ranks.

5,667: The number of tennis rackets the tournament’s official stringers will be re-stringing during the event. Tennis players typically take six to eight freshly-strung rackets with them onto court.

50,472: The number of tennis balls, made by French tennis equipment company Babolat, used during the 2018 tournament.

That last number will sting for anybody who grew up searching for lost tennis balls in the neighbour’s yard, at great risk of physical harm.

Federer should start his round-of-64 match against German Oscar Otte at around 2:15PM today, so mark that down if you enjoy watching pure class in action.

[source:forbes]