For someone who watches tennis, attending a Grand Slam in person is for sure a bucket list experience. If doing a similar thing at some point is on your list as well, I’ll take you through some ideas, pictures, and tips & tricks based on what I experienced while attending Roland-Garros (also known as French Open) in 2022.
Also, keep in mind that everything here applies to my experience for Roland-Garros 2022, small details might have changed for the current edition.
First of all, good news! Getting a ticket to Roland-Garros is super achievable compared to other Grand Slam tournaments (especially Wimbledon for example).
To buy a ticket (from a website), you have two options:
- The official Roland-Garros ticket portal (at the time of writing it would be the one here)
- Using a 3rd party ticket seller
I’m a fan of the first option, the main arguments being: feeling completely safe by buying it directly from the source and most probably the cheaper price, as many resellers add additional costs to the initial ticket. However, this also comes with the disadvantage of lower chances to get a ticket as many people try to book one at the lowest price (obviously duh!).
So to save you some time (‘cause we all need that), I won’t be talking about any 3rd party reseller, as I can’t give advice on things I didn’t experience, but stay with me for the story on the official website experience.
Roland-Garros 2022 was on my list one year in advance so first of all I had to frequently check the website to find out the official sale date for the tickets. Once the date/time for the sale had been confirmed, I entered the website hoping to get some of those tickets for me and my friends. That date in 2022 was 8th of March.
Joining the website on the day, introduced me to a queue, with a limited number of people having access to the actual ticket platform at the same time. You were allowed to navigate the ticket portal and buy your tickets for a specific amount of time (it was something like 10 minutes, but can’t really remember exactly), and then someone else would be allowed to enter the site and so on. Once my access has been granted, already many tickets have been sold. So here comes a tip: prepare a list with different options you are ok with and their priority, it may be short of time to sync on the sale time with all your friends for the backup plan.
My plan was to attend Roland-Garros for one full day and I had 3 different days allocated as potential options, depending on what I found available.
As you would probably expect, there are different ticket options for you to buy, some of these options being based on the time you want to attend: day or evening/night. There are three main stadiums at the Roland-Garros tournament: Phillippe Chatrier, Suzanne Lenglen, Simonne-Mathieu, and many other secondary courts. There is a dedicated ticket for each of the main courts, which gives you access to that specific main court only and access to all the secondary courts included, or you also have a cheaper tickets option to buy the entry for the secondary courts only (all of them in the same ticket).
However, keep in mind that the most popular players are usually playing on the main courts, especially Phillippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen. The advantage of keeping an eye on the secondary courts is that they are also a good place to watch practices (since entering the stadium is included in all the tickets), where many players come to train and give you the chance of seeing some of your big favorite players super close. Also, the main courts seats are dedicated to people who have a ticket for them (so you will attend a specific match for sure as long as you have a ticket for that court), while the secondary court seats are on a first come first serve (no pun intended haha) basis, it’s very easy to miss a match due to full capacity being reached. And last but not least, each court has different sections so you might pay a different price depending on how well you want your view to be for the match.
The option I went for was getting tickets for the 3rd Round of the tournament:
- Suzanne-Lenglen / Day Session – this included 3 matches played in that day – 115€
- Phillippe Chatrier / Night Session – this included 1 match played in that day – 86€
The prices are not for a high-range area (if I remember correctly the Philippe Chatrier one was the second cheapest one actually), however, the view was decently good at all times.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in 2022 the sale was limited to 4 tickets. My group of friends was actually 4, so it was great having more people in the website queue, as I was buying 4 tickets for Suzanne-Lenglen and one of my friends the 4 tickets for Phillippe Chatrier.
The tournament
If everything goes according to the plan, you go to Roland-Garros and see some super nice tennis matches! The courts are located in beautiful Paris, with easy access from metro stations (lines 9 and 10), around a 10-15-minute walk from the closest stations. Depending on your itinerary and how you plan the rest of the Paris trip, you might want to look for accommodation that gives you fast access to these lines.
Going to the stadium in the morning gets crowded early, with a big line forming closer to the area. There was a separate line for people having both day and night session tickets (which went quite fast, ~10 minutes), however, the day-only session queue looked like a 2-hour one. Keep in mind to get to the stadium as early as possible to enjoy the day at its maximum, you don’t want to waste your morning in the queue.
Tip for starting your day, check the tournament website while going to the stadium. There you will find the schedule for the practices happening throughout the day and you may know where to go to see some of your favorite players closer.
Also, the practice courts are a great chance for getting a picture/signature from the players. However, keep in mind that this can be tricky as well. On the day I joined the tournament, there was Rafael Nadal training on one of the secondary courts. The seats were almost full (as I was mentioning, they are first come first serve on secondary courts), even though I arrived early (1-2 hours in advance to the first match) and Nadal was training 3 hours later! If I would have wanted to go the toilet after 1 hour, I’m quite sure I would have had 0 chances of returning back and finding a place, so basically missing Nadal’s training.
You might need to sacrifice some time and see other practices (which I did) if you want to see some of your favorite players up close, but trust me, it’s worth it, it’s just incredible to see top tennis players playing so close to you and seeing their strength, power and coordination. The good part on the day I attended was that on the same court, before Nadal, Paula Badosa and Marin Cilic had a training session as well, which was great ‘cause I really wanted to see them both (+ also had the super lucky chance of getting their autographs).
So I started my day with some practice sessions from players I really wanted to see, then moved on to the matches part of the day session on Suzanne-Lenglen (however I missed one of the 3 matches happening on the main court while waiting for Nadal’s practice). You can enter the court whenever there’s a pause during the match (before the players switch sides) and you’re not forced to stay for the full match, that depends on how you want to balance seeing more players/matches on different courts. The stadium looked incredible, and it was dreamy seeing players like Stefanos Tsitsipas or Daniil Medvedev in a live match.
Something I should mention as well is that the area is not composed of tennis courts only. Spending the day there is like being in a small city, with many food courts, tennis items shops, big screens and bars. The food prices were reasonable, 10-12€ for different things like Salads, Burgers or others. So in between matches and sessions, you have some time to enjoy the area, maybe shop for some things or eat.
It was just time for the evening session sooo changing the courts and entering the biggest main court in the tournament: Phillippe Chatrier. Definitely a much bigger court wit more seats and a higher “wow” factor. This “wow” became even bigger by appearing on the big screen in the arena, here’s my thank you to the guys recording that day! (picture below)
Fun fact about that evening, during that same day, there was also the Champions League final happening in Paris as well at the same time with the tennis match (so from time to time, I admit, I moved my eyes to the phone to see what’s happening there as well).
One thing you should be aware of here is that there was a really hot day, but a really cold evening. Don’t forget to have a jacket for you if you’ll be staying for the full day at the tournament, you’ll get from T-shirt to “I need a jacket” really fast.
Pics from Phillippe Chatrier
Tips & tricks
- Have a backup plan and many options for tickets you are ok with buying before joining the tickets platform, some options you may want to buy will be sold out if you’re not lucky.
- Go to the tournament as early as possible, you don’t want to waste time in the queue and not maximize the practices and matches you see.
- Search for the practices calendar for the day before going to the tournament area, the practices are your best chance of seeing your favorite players close and getting a selfie/autograph.
- Get both a jacket and some sunscreen (you may get from strong sun to cold evening really quick).
- Have some tennis balls and markers with you to hopefully get some autographs.
- Enjoy your time at the tournament!
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This article does not contain any paid promotion on hotels / rental car companies / restaurants etc., everything is documented based on my experience.
Super nice! La mult ani! Keep it going!
Mersi mult!
Foarte bună descrierea, se potrivește și cu experiența mea, mai veche, din 2017. Am fost doar o zi la finala feminină (de tristă amintire pentru noi ????), dar mi-a plăcut foarte mult atmosfera oricum. Plus că, am avut ocazia să o văd pe Bianca Andreescu înainte să devină cunoscută, în finala de junioare la dublu. Tot pe un teren secundar. Plus niște meciuri demonstrative foarte spectaculoase, tot acolo. Deci, recomand și eu terenurile secundare, poți să ai surprize plăcute.
Aș adăuga și eu câteva sfaturi care mi-ar fi prins bine atunci:
– Ai zis și tu, dar vreau să insist pe crema de soare. Mai ales dacă mergi în pantaloni scurți, cum am fost eu, nu iese bine.
– Aș recomanda și o șapcă/pălărie. Bineînțeles, ai opțiunea să iei și de acolo, și te alegi și cu un suvenir (nu foarte ieftin, ce-i drept ????)
– Dacă cumva nu prinzi bilete la terenurile principale, și totuși vrei să vezi meciurile, recomand totuși să iei bilet cu acces general. Principalul motiv e că poți să le vezi pe ecranele mari din complex. Și, oricât de ciudat ar părea, e foarte greu să vezi meciurile în afară (sau am avut eu ghinion). În ziua sferturilor, am căutat baruri, cafenele unde să se dea meciurile (și asta chiar în zona arenei), timp de zeci de minute. Și când am găsit o cafenea cu televizor, nu avea nici un post pe care se transmiteau meciurile ????. Am sfârșit uitându-mă pe telefon ????.
Golden comment here! Mersi ca ai impartasit detalii multe din experienta personala, ponturi foarte utile!
Foarte tare articolu’! Chiar vorbeam acum doua zile cu Diana ca am merge o zi la Roland Garros. Il voi reciti anii urmatori ????
Top, chiar recomand!