Roland-Garros, along with the Tour de France, is such a strong part of French culture.

Summer really "starts" when young people pretend to study for the "baccalaureat" exam, but are really just napping in front of a boring RG game (where the French players loose in the end).

Then it "peaks" when old people pretend to understand cycle racing, but are really just napping in front of a boring race (where the French racers are ridiculous in the end.)

And yet, we watch.

For a while, we watched because, well, TV would stop all regular programming to play the endless boring games and endless boring races, so we had no choice.

Now, we have the choice, and yet... we watch.

It still fascinates me. After all this years of knowing the winner from the very beginning of the competition, we still pretend.

"The glorious _certitude_ of sport."