This year, Longines is the official timekeeper of Roland Garros for the eight year in a row. To mark another successful partnership with the most important tennis tournament on clay, the Swiss watchmaker launched a new watch called Conquest 1/100th Roland Garros. It is a timepiece with a precise quartz caliber with a chronograph that features the same traits as other pieces that the brand has recently launched for the various sporting events it sponsors.
The new watch by Longines cannot be marked as a special or as a revolutionary piece, but it is still a very nice looking watch that can be used as a sporting utility or as a dress piece. It comes in a stainless steel housing of subdued size. Its diameter measures to just 41mm which is pretty small when considering the contemporary trends.
The rear side of the case reveals the event that inspired the launch of the piece- the case back is engraved with the name of the famed tennis tournament. This rear section is screw-in and the construction also includes a screw-in crown with protective shoulder, as well as a sapphire crystal with double glare-proofed coating. Thanks to the manner the watch was built, it features pretty impressive water resistance. The watch can withstand water pressures in the depths up to 300 meters (990 feet).
The Longines piece that was made for this year’s edition of the famed tennis tournament in Paris features a rather distinguished looking anthracite dial with a single applied Arabic numeral which sits at the very top. There are also 11 more appliqués used for hour markers and they are all coated with luminous matter in order to provide enhanced legibility. The face includes three sub-counters. The top two are used to measure elapsed time of the chronograph feature. The right one is a 30-minute sub-dial, while the left one is with divided to 12 hours. The third counter at the bottom of the face is utilized for small seconds.
Other important elements of the dial are its rhodium-plated flange, a date aperture at the four o’clock position, rhodium-plated and limunous-coated hour and minute hands, as well as orange pointers used for the chrono feature. It is important to point out that the watch feature two central second hands. The orange one is actually used to show 1/100th parts of a second, as it is possible due to the precision of the watch’s stop watch feature.
The chronograph can also show multiple intermediate times. All of this is enabled with its L440 movement. It is a modern type of quartz caliber which was made for the brand by ETA, the sister company with the same owner as Longines– Swatch group.
The steel watch with a fixed bezel is paired with the bracelet in the same material as the housing. The three-link attachment where the central link is the widest fastens with a triple safety folding clasp and includes a push-piece opening mechanism.
All in all, it is a fairly nice looking watch. However, its features are exactly the same as for example the piece that the brand made for alpine skiing season and it is a shame that the watchmaker did not made some adjustment in terms of functions and not only in the terms of the model’s appearance.
