Longines Conquest 1/100th Roland Garros Celebrates the French Open

If you follow lots of sports, you've probably seen the Longines winged-hourglass logo on TV quite a lot recently. Not only is the Swiss watch company the official timekeeping partner of horse racing's triple crown races, culminating with this weekend's Belmont Stakes; it is also the official timer of the French Open, the second tournament in tennis's Grand Slam championships that is also in full swing right now. This year, in tribute to the clay-court tennis classic, Longines introduces a new timepiece in its Conquest collection: this week's Watch to Watch, the Longines Conquest 1/100th Roland Garros. Named for the famous tennis stadium in Paris that hosts the French Open annually (Longines has been the timing partner since 2007), the Conquest 1/100th Roland Garros contains a proprietary Swiss quartz chronograph movement (Caliber L440, developed by ETA, the movement maker that is Longines's sister brand within the Swatch Group) that can measure multiple intermediate times and display recorded intervals to 1/100th second. (This same movement was used in Longines's Conquest 1/100th Alpine Skiing watch, introduced last year.) The movement has a microcontroller that allows the watch to be reset instantly and enables the display of intermediate times. The central hand that indicates the 1/100th-second times, as well as various indices on the flange, are in an orange color meant to evoke the red clay of the Roland Garros tennis courts.

The dial, in an anthracite gray color that contrasts with the orange highlights, displays the hours and minutes by means of rhodium-plated hands coated with Super-LumiNova; the subdial at 6 o'clock is for small seconds, and the subdials at 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock record chronograph minutes (30) and hours (12), respectively. The date is in a window at 4 o'clock. The case, 41 mm in diameter and made of stainless steel, has a nonreflective sapphire crystal in the front, and a screw-down caseback with an engraved Roland Garros logo on the opposite side. The crown screws down and is protected by two stell "shoulders," and the case boasts a water resistance of 300 meters. The Longines Conquest 1/100th Roland Garros comes on a steel bracelet with a triple safety folding clasp and push-piece opening mechanism. It is a limited edition of 1,000 pieces and priced at $1,650.