J'aime la terre battue.

Wimbledon is amazing. The tradition, the gorgeously quick points, the beauty of the all-whites on the grass.

The US Open is ours. It is simply and perfectly American. The crowds are rolicking, the night matches energized, and the hard courts are as fair a surface as any in the world.

The Australian Open is the forgotten slam with the season having just begun, but the players have to work through phenomenal heat and sun to win there for two weeks.

But Roland Garros is my favorite grand slam tourney. The points are grueling, and the matches bordering on interminably long, but they can be absolutely gorgeous. Often the points are long enough that you can see players begin to build a point one way and get a chance to switch strategies within the very point turning a corner to corner backhand rally of a dozen strokes into an up the line battle on a whisker's bredth.

The smudges of clay on the shorts, the influence of the Spaniards, the coming of summer here in the States. All of it signals the start of grand slam season for me. With less than a month between finals, Roland Garros and Wimbledon create a near-perfect, whiplash-inducing change of surfaces with an entirely new cast of characters taking over on the quicker grass of the All-England Club.

But first they have to fight their way through to Court Philippe Chatrier, and I would enjoy nothing more than spending the next two weeks parked in front of my television watching a half dozen hours a day.

Sadly, my last week of school and the little lack-of-cable problem that I have will prevent that, but beware that I'm booked for the mornings of June 10th and 11th.

Please, help me keep an eye toward the heavens to get a replay of Federer-Nadal in the final, would ya?

Oh, and it's not the French Open. Friggin jingoistic francophobes.