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Far more than a mere tennis tournament, the French Open provides a vivid microcosm of Paris, and a tourist eager to understand this city could do a lot worse than spend a day or two strolling the grounds of Roland Garros Stadium. For two weeks at the end of May and the beginning of June, this multi-layered event manages to compress into a 20-acre enclave at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne all the essential Parisian hallmarks – haute cuisine, insistence on linguistic correctness, copious wine, rampant commercialism and pure artistry, on court and off.

Every year the tournament’s poster and its program cover are the work of a celebrated artist. In fact, many of the affiches from earlier decades have become collector’s items. In 1989 when the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted an exhibition entitled “The Modern Poster,” the catalogue cover was a poster by A.M. Cassandre originally done for the 1932 French Open. The 1991 poster reproduced a watercolor by the later Joan Miró, and as it was the 100th anniversary of the French Open, Roman Opalka painted a mural on the wall behind Courts One and Four, integrating into it the names of the 2,973 men and women who had played at Roland Garros.

At the U.S. Open, great passels of spectators show up in T-shirts and shorts, tennis shoes and headbands – as if they hoped to sneak into the main draw and play.

But in Paris, particularly in the pricier seats on Court Central, fans look as though they have come straight from a diplomatic reception at the Elysée Palace. Regardless of the weather, which at this time of year can range from gelid to torrid, many men wear dark suits, starched shirts and ties, and the women have that half-staved, enameled appearance of haute couture mannequins. Even the hired help is well turned out. Hostesses in the V.I.P. Presidential Tribune area for the elite wear Christian Dior outfits designed by Marc Bohan. Ushers in the bleachers wear pink ensembles from Galeries Lafayette.

Billboards and signs seem to suggest a fashion convention more than an athletic event There are plugs for jewelry, luggage, leather goods, Swiss watches, skimpy bathing suits and filmy lingerie. Court Central is surrounded by a collage of promotional strips for upscale apparel – Céline, Boss, New Man, Ray-Ban, Olympia shoes, and Petit Boy children’s clothes. Fans arriving for the 1991 men’s final were given vials of a new perfume, and one year Hermès Eau de Cologne passed out boxes of scented facial tissues and urged people to cast ballots and help choose the player “who showed the greatest qualities of moral behavior as well as sportsmanship” and wore the smartest clothes.

The obsession with brand names and labels is by no means confined to the periphery of the French Open. Matches are often swayed by a player’s loyalty to distinctly French products. In 1988, Sports Illustrated described the men’s championship as a one-on-one battle between competing mineral waters. Henri Leconte “is a Perrier freak, Mats Wilander a noncarbonated Evian man. On clay, non gazeuse will win more often than not.” It certainly did in that case; Wilander crushed all the bubbles out of Leconte.

Many players would argue, however, that the court surface – pulverized brick dust – determines the winner in most matches. Generally conceded to be the most demanding tournament on the circuit, the French Open is the only Grand Slam event – Wimbledon and the U.S. and the Australian Opens are the other three – that is played on slow red clay. While there is no evidence that the 19th-century author François-René Chateaubriand was a tennis enthusiast, he might well have been describing the grueling progression of matches at Roland Garros when he wrote that although crimes are not always punished, mistakes are. Few points in Paris are won outright. Most end only after 20 or 30 strokes when one player has maneuvered another into a morale-killing, soul-destroying error. Matches routinely run on for more than three hours, and it’s not uncommon to see competitors forfeit from exhaustion and be carried off the court, their legs cramped and covered with powdery clay, looking as though they have been batter-fried.

Yet the players tend to complain less about the taxing conditions than about that which the Parisians appear to value even more than art or style – to wit, their lovely language. Since English is the universal language of the international tennis tour, players simply cannot comprehend why the French refuse to use the most commonplace terms of the game. Why, for instance, do they insist on calling the Grand Slam le Grand Chelem as if it were an august Middle Eastern potentate? Why do they refer to top-spin as life (pronounced leafed), to a tie-break as un jeu décisif, an ace as un as, a dropshot as an amorti, the net as let filet? Why, in short, don’t they simply speak English?

One year, Mark Edmondson, a burly, combative Australian, was furious when a French umpire refused to give the score in English. “I know you speak English,” Edmondson shouted. “Just tell me whether it’s my advantage or his.” The umpire feigned complete incomprehension until Edmondson called him an arrogant pig – at which point the Frenchman proved himself perfectly bilingual by slapping the Australian with a penalty for verbal abuse.

Finally, though art, fashion and the French language all must grant place of prominence to the ultimate national fetish – food! Roland Garros boasts dozens of restaurants and private dining rooms, and on every court, in eerie out-of-the-way corners, the aroma of roasting meat laces the air. The sounds of silverware on china, of Champagne corks popping and of waiters shouting orders add a curious undercurrent to the cheering crowds.

Fans who don’t care to waste time waiting for a table and consuming a four-course meal line up at the booths that sell crepes, gauffres, cheeses, yogurt, strawberries and cream, and pan bagnats. A number of peculiarly French products don’t sound especially appetizing. There are Popsicles with the brand name of Zit and an effervescent soft drink called Pschitt. But chacun à son goût.

Although spectators seem to have insatiable appetites, the players, coaches, officials and press more than hold their own. In 1991 Sogeres, le Restaurateur Official des Internationaux de France, put out a press release bragging that it had served 35,000 meals to members of the tournament’s infrastructure. This included 12 tons of vegetables, 3½ tons of fresh fruit, 11,500 yogurts, 12,000 eggs, 50,000 bottles of mineral water, 605 pounds of salmon and 121 pounds of foie gras. It forbore mentioning exactly how many bottles of wine had been drunk, but the previous year 45,000 glasses of Champagne had been consumed just at V.I.P. parties.

As Yannick Noah, the 1983 men’s French Open champion, once lamented when the bleachers remained half empty for his match, which was scheduled at lunchtime, “The French like their tennis, but they love their cuisine even more.”

For curious tourists, it isn’t so easy to separate the tennis from the food, the high fashion from the linguistic imperiousness, the artistry on court from the art off court. In the end it’s all of a piece – part and parcel of spring in Paris.