Roland Garros or the French Open 2021 starts today, and both Polish and Dutch tennis players are represented. Among them are such well-known players as Iga Świątek – last year’s winner – and Kiki Bertens. Perhaps they will end up playing against each other directly. In the past, however, Polish and Dutch players have also been successful as a pair. You may remember that, in other tennis tournaments, multiple doubles events were won by the Dutch-Polish tandem Tom Okker and Wojciech Fibak.

Tom Okker was born in Amsterdam in 1944 and was active as a tennis player from the mid-1960s until 1980. He won 40 singles titles and 78 doubles events, and was ranked world No. 3 in singles in 1974 and world No. 1 in doubles in 1969. Fibak was born in Poznań in 1952 and won his first tournament in 1976. Throughout the 70s and 80s, he won 15 singles and 52 doubles, ranking world No. 10 in singles in 1977 and world No. 2 in doubles in 1979. He was particularly successful in the late 70s with Okker, who together won 17 doubles. Fibak’s last victory in a doubles final occurred in 1987, which he achieved with another Dutchman, Michiel Schapers.

Good luck to all Polish and Dutch players at this year’s Roland Garros tournament!

*I originally wrote this post for the social media outlets of the Dutch Embassy in Poland. This was post no. 16.