Four courts, four different days out
Roland Garros is not one stadium with one ticket type. It is a walled complex of courts, and which one your ticket puts you in front of changes the day more than almost any other choice you make. Buy for Court Philippe-Chatrier and you get a single seat, a roof over your head if it rains, and the day’s headline match. Buy a Grounds Pass and you get the run of a dozen outside courts where you can wander between matches and stumble onto a seeded player up close for the price of standing room. Neither is the wrong answer, but they are not the same trip, so here is what each court actually gets you.
Court Philippe-Chatrier: the main stadium, with a roof
Chatrier is Roland Garros’s center court, holding around 15,000 people, and since 2020 it has had a retractable roof that closes in about fifteen minutes if the Paris weather turns. That single change removed the old French Open gamble of a rained-off day, and it also opened the door to a night session: since 2021, one marquee match has been scheduled under the lights on Chatrier most evenings of the tournament, separate from the day session and sold as its own ticket. A Chatrier seat, day or night, is the closest thing the French Open has to a guaranteed big match, because the tournament schedules its top seeds and best storylines there first.
Court Suzanne-Lenglen: the workhorse show court
Lenglen seats just over 10,000 and sits a level below Chatrier in prestige but not in tennis quality. It carries a heavy load of top-16 seeds and marquee women’s and men’s matches across the whole fortnight, and its slightly smaller bowl means you sit closer to the court than at Chatrier for a similar type of match. A lot of experienced Roland Garros visitors will tell you Lenglen tickets are the best value in the building: real stars, a proper stadium atmosphere, and usually an easier ticket to secure than Chatrier.
Court Simonne-Mathieu: the greenhouse court
Opened in 2019, Simonne-Mathieu is the newest show court and the one people photograph the most. It holds about 5,000 spectators and its four stands are built into and around glass greenhouses in the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil, so you are watching tennis with tropical plants as a backdrop. It is smaller and more intimate than the other two show courts, gets a genuine share of good matches, and is worth seeking out even if a star name is not scheduled there that day, purely for the setting.
The outside courts and the Grounds Pass
Beyond the three show courts sit the numbered outside courts (Courts 2 through 14 and others), covered by the Grounds Pass, along with one stand of Simonne-Mathieu, the practice courts, and the fan village. Seating on the outside courts is unreserved and first-come, first-served: you queue, you get in while there is room, and once a court fills you wait for someone to leave. Ground passes are genuinely good value in the first week, when the full draw is still alive and it is common to catch a seeded player on an outside court with no separate ticket required. By the second week, the field has narrowed to the show courts and the outer courts shift mostly to qualifying, doubles, and junior matches, so a Grounds Pass is a first-week play more than a second-week one.
How to pick your day
Work backward from what you actually want to see. If a specific player or a title match matters most, that points you to Chatrier, ideally a day you can confirm is inside the round they are expected to reach, or the night session if one is scheduled. If you want a full day of tennis and the chance to see several matches rather than one, Lenglen or a Grounds Pass day in the first week does more for the money. If the setting is the draw, put an afternoon on Simonne-Mathieu on the list regardless of who is playing. Most of the trips we build end up mixing at least two of these: a reserved show-court session for the marquee match, and a Grounds Pass day to wander the outside courts and feel the tournament as a whole.
Working out which court fits your dates is exactly the kind of thing worth a conversation before you buy. Take a look at the French Open page, or reach out and we will help you match the right court to the right day.