If you are a tennis fan, you might dream of one day attending a Grand Slam tournament in person. We recently chose to celebrate a milestone birthday for the #1 tennis fan in our family by surprising them with tickets to the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris. The plan was in the works for a few years before the birthday, and there was a lot of planning and preparation that went into ensuring we were able to secure the tickets and make the trip. When tickets to the French Open go on sale, they sell out quickly. Here is an overview of what we learned about how to buy tickets to the French Open (Roland Garros), from the perspective of an overseas tourist planning to travel to Paris for the tournament.
The French Open: tournament and ticketing basics
The French Open is held annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris. The tournament is held in late May and early June; in 2024, it ran from May 20 to June 9, with qualifying rounds happening from May 20-24.
At Roland Garros, there are 2 show courts on which all seats are ticketed. Court Philippe Chatrier is center court, with a capacity of about 15,000 fans. Court Suzanne Lenglen is the secondary court, with a capacity of about 10,000 fans. These are the only 2 courts on the premises that are covered, so holding a ticket to one of them will ensure you will see some tennis, regardless of the weather. The 3rd show court is Court Simonne Mathieu, holding about 5,000 fans. The lower stands of Simonne Mathieu are ticketed while the upper bleachers are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Additionally, there are 17 outside courts that also allow seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Holding a ticket to a show court allows you to sit on the outside courts. You can also buy a grounds pass, good for any tennis on a non-ticketed court.
All tickets to the French Open are sold online in advance of the tournament. There are no walk-up ticket sales. Furthermore, 2024 was the year that the tournament adopted 100% mobile ticketing in the official app; paper tickets no longer exist. There is an official on-sale date and time (in this case, March 13 at 10 a.m. local time), and tickets sell out within a few hours. There is a limit to the number of tickets that a single buyer may purchase for the show courts, as well as a limit to the number of tickets a buyer may purchase for the final rounds of the tournament. Once purchased, tickets must be assigned by name to a visitor in the Roland Garros app. ID checks take place at the stadium gates to ensure the validity of the ticketholder.
Tickets are available for Day Sessions (on all show courts) and Night Sessions (on Philippe Chatrier only). Day Sessions on Philippe Chatrier consist of 3 matches, and Night Sessions are a single match. Each day there are 2 men’s and 2 women’s matches scheduled on each show court. Which match winds up being played at the Night Session is at the tournament director’s discretion. However, it’s typically considered to be the marquee match of the day, and in 2024, there were no women’s matches played at the Night Session. Because Night Sessions offer less value for the money, they are priced a bit less than Day Sessions. Prices for both Day Sessions and Night Sessions increase as the rounds of the tournament progress.
How to buy tickets to the French Open (as a tourist)
Here is how we recommend to buy tickets to the French Open as tourists.
- Confirm the public on-sale date and time on the official Roland Garros website, https://www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/.
- Create an account on the site ahead of time and sign up for email notifications about ticket sales. Plan to be online at least 15 minutes before the sale starts.
- Double-check the math on your time zone conversion against the start dates of Daylight Savings Time for both North America AND Europe. When we visited in 2024, the public on-sale date was Wednesday, March 13. North America implemented Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, March 10. However, although France observes Daylight Savings Time, it did not start in Europe until Sunday, March 31. So in the weeks leading up to the public sale, there was a 6-hour time change between Paris and Eastern Standard Time, where we live. That changed to a 5-hour time change during the week of the sale and returned to a 6-hour change in the weeks after the sale.
- Log onto your devices before the start of the public on-sale. Open an incognito browser window to minimize the chances of any cookies interfering. Using multiple devices will increase your chances of getting a good spot in the queue.
- If you want to purchase more tickets than one account will allow you, open multiple browser windows/tabs on each device. (Don’t forget to register for multiple accounts ahead of time.)
- About ten minutes prior to the sale, you will be asked to verify that you are not a robot by typing in a captcha code.
- Your device will automatically refresh and be assigned a random place in the queue when the sale starts. Do NOT refresh your device manually.
- You will be asked to log into your Roland-Garros account once your queue wait is over and you join the live sale.
- Have a plan for what tickets you want to purchase before the sale starts so that when your time comes to purchase, you can quickly navigate to the desired dates and categories. Consider backup courts or rounds of play in case tickets to your desired matches sell out.
- When your turn in the queue arrives, select the date and session you wish to attend. You’ll be taken to a page with a graphic of the court where you can pick the section where you want to purchase tickets. The row/seats will be automatically assigned.
Our experience buying tickets to the French Open as tourists
We wanted Philippe-Chatrier tickets for the first day and night session of Round 3, and if we had a second opportunity to buy (since our first order would meet the maximum limit of 8 show court tickets per customer), we wanted tickets to the night session on the last day of Round 2.
In 2023, tickets were much more difficult to obtain than they had been in prior years. We expected the competition to be even worse in 2024 as this would likely be the last French Open that Rafael Nadal would play.
So we had multiple browser windows open on multiple devices including laptops, iPads and phones. Our best device earned a spot around 6500 in the queue. Our second-best device had a spot around 118,000, and our highest queue number was around 450,000. We had multiple windows open on each device and found that although the windows were incognito, the Roland Garros website treated them as a single place in line, and the queue numbers moved in sync with one another.
When we got into the sale (after about 45 minutes for queue spot 6500 – the queue moved at a rate of about 10,000 spots per hour for the first hour of the sale, and picked up a bit from there), there were still Category 2 and 3 tickets available for the Round 3 day session, and Category 1, 2 and 3 tickets available for the Round 3 night session. We selected the best available. Also, we decided to get grounds passes for Round 2, “just in case”. We made the purchase, getting a text message verification request from our credit card provider to confirm the purchase.
Although the two browser windows we had open duplicated one another’s queue spot, once our first purchase was made, we switched to the second browser window. It had automatically logged into our Roland Garros account when we logged in on the first browser. We logged out and tried our luck logging back in using a different Roland Garros account, and to our surprise, it worked. In effect, because we had multiple browser windows open, the website allowed us to use our best queue position for multiple Roland Garros accounts. So we were also able to purchase Category 2 night session tickets for the last day of Round 2. By this time, only Category 2 and 3 seats were left.
More tips from the 2024 Roland Garros ticket sale
Prior to buying our 2024 French Open tickets, we spent a lot of time scouring online forums and blogs to pick up any advice or insight we could find regarding how to buy tickets to the French Open. After the sale, we followed up on those same sites to see what kind of experience other patrons had. Here is what we found.
⦁ The number of people in the queue for tickets peaked around 700,000, no doubt driven by rumours that the 2024 French Open would be Nadal’s last.
⦁ 45 minutes into the sale, the men’s final was sold out and the women’s final was nearly sold out.
⦁ 90 minutes into the sale, the finals, semi finals and quarter finals were all sold out. Rounds 1-4 still had some availability.
⦁ After the first 100,000 places in the queue had entered the sale, the official website posted a message saying that all individual tickets were sold out and only grounds passes remained. Premium offers were still available.
⦁ Multiple people reported clicking too quickly once their turn to buy came and being kicked out of the system under suspicion of being a bot. Act fast, but not too fast… just in case.
Key dates and times for the 2024 Roland Garros ticket sale
These key dates and times will change from year to year, but here is what we experienced, to give you an idea of the sequence of events around the sale.
⦁ Premium ticket sales – February 28 – March 4
⦁ Hospitality ticket sales – March 4
⦁ Persons with disability/wheelchair seats – March 6
⦁ Email reminder about general public sale – March 10
⦁ General public sale – March 13
⦁ Official resale – May 10
What if I don’t get tickets to Roland Garros?
You had the general public sale noted in your calendar, set your alarm for the wee hours of the morning, and got up to join the queue when the sale began, but you still didn’t get tickets. You’re not alone! In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to get tickets to the French Open at Roland Garros. (Our 2024 experience was all the more competitive because it was rumoured to be Rafael Nadal’s last time competing at the French Open. Once he does indeed retire, things may cool off a bit – or not.) Here are a few ways you can still try to buy tickets to the French Open.
Official resale
Scalping is against the law in France, and the only way to legally resell French Open tickets is to turn them back into the tournament. Upon doing so, a seller will recoup 90% of their original cost, and the tickets will be placed back up for sale on the official platform at their original face value. In 2024, the official ticket resale began on May 10 and stayed open until the end of the tournament. All tickets turned back into the tournament before May 10 were posted for sale on that date at 10 a.m. local time.
The process looked exactly like it did for the original sale. Prospective visitors logged into their Roland Garros accounts prior to 10 a.m. and were then randomly assigned spots in the queue to purchase any tickets available. Although the initial inventory quickly sold out, patrons continued to re-post tickets for sale in the weeks leading up to the tournament, and throughout the tournament itself. (There was even a brief burst of activity after Rafael Nadal was eliminated in the first round, and many fans’ visions of seeing Rafa win one last French Open were laid to rest!)
Fans who report being persistent about checking the official website multiple times per day generally reported luck being able to secure tickets if they were flexible about the venue and date. Don’t give up hope on this option too easily. Because the order of play is not set until the day prior, many tickets are posted at the last minute, once fans know for sure who will be playing.
Hospitality offers
If you are traveling to the French Open from overseas, you might not want to risk waiting until you’re in Paris to secure tickets. In this case, you might consider buying tickets via a hospitality offer. These tickets go on sale before the main ticket sale but still had some availability after the main sale ended. Prices are steep, starting around 300 euros per person. For evening sessions on our dates, when we paid 110 euros and 130 euros for night sessions in the second and third rounds, hospitality tickets were around 700 euros per person. The price includes early entrance to the stadium, Category 1 seats, a catered meal and drinks, and a Roland Garros-branded gift.
Had we failed to secure French Open tickets during the general public sale (either seated or grounds passes), our plan was to buy hospitality tickets to at least ensure having some tickets in hand. We had then planned to diligently watch the resale platform, and would have re-posted the hospitality tickets for sale had we been able to secure regular tickets. We did see hospitality tickets pop up regularly during the resale period, and they did not last long before being purchased, indicating strong demand even for these premium tickets.
Travel offers
There are also some travel agencies that partner with Roland Garros to offer travel packages. These bundle tickets to the French Open with hotel stays and optional additional attractions (admission to the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe etc.) These offers go on sale before the general public ticket sale, and were sold out by the time the general sale began. They are offered at premium prices, but if you don’t want to risk not getting tickets during the general public sale, they might be a worthwhile option for you.
Online forums
Technically, the only valid French Open tickets are the ones sold directly by Roland Garros. But fan-to-fan resale is possible. Every ticket must be assigned to its holder by entering their name, date of birth, and email address into the Roland Garros app. If you can find someone willing to let go of their ticket that you trust to complete this assignment, you can buy a ticket from them. Obviously this approach presents an element of risk. But in our research, we came across many buyers and sellers engaging in private transactions. And we sold tickets ourselves, passing along grounds passes we no longer needed (at face value) to another family. Generally speaking, the sellers we saw were willing to sell their tickets for face value or a small upcharge (though we did also find a few who clearly scalp tickets for a living). A few places we recommend checking are Reddit, TripAdvisor, and Mens’ Tennis.
In conclusion…
We hope that this has helped you to better understand how to buy tickets to the French Open, and will help you to navigate future ticket sales. Have you bought tickets to the French Open and visited as a tourist? Do you have any tips to share? Let us know in the comments below.
[…] How to buy tickets to the French Open (Roland Garros) as a tourist […]