Roland Garros was a French World War I aviator.
He was born in 1888.
He attended HEC Paris commercial school and then began his career as an aviator in 1909.
In 1911 he began participating in European air races such as the Paris-Madrid and Paris-Madrid-Paris.
In the same year he flew at a height of 5,610 meters, breaking the record of the time.
He became the first to cross the Mediterranean Sea starting from the coast of southeastern France to Tunisia without stopping.
With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the French Air Force. Initially it undertook surveillance and reconnaissance missions. At a later stage he became a fighter pilot.
He also tinkered with the mechanism for synchronizing the plane’s propeller and its front machine gun to avoid being hit by bullets.
In 1915 his plane was shot down and he was captured by the Germans.
In 1918 he managed to escape and rejoined the French Air Force.
He was killed the same year when his aircraft was shot down.
In his honor the international tennis tournament as well as the tennis court in Paris were named after him.
[Source: el.wikipedia.org, http://www.sansimera.gr]
