Finding an Oasis at Tennis’s Most Crowded Major

Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

PARIS — Of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the French Open has the smallest footprint, perhaps in stature, and definitely in square footage. Crammed into a triangular swath of land next to the Bois De Boulogne, the highly trafficked pathways of Roland Garros are often choked with spectators ambling toward the next match or the next jambon-beurre sandwich.

That is still the case, even after Roland Garros expanded to about 29 acres from a mere 21 (the United States Open sits on roughly 45 acres in Flushing, Queens). The added acreage comes from the elegant new Simonne Mathieu Court, which opened this year adjacent to a set of historic greenhouses, and…