Start with the ballot, because almost everyone does
Roland Garros does not sell tickets first-come, first-served the way a lot of events do. The French Tennis Federation runs a public ballot each autumn for the following year’s tournament: you register for free, no payment required, and a few weeks later find out whether you have been drawn a slot in the purchase window. Getting drawn is not the same as getting tickets. It is a chance to buy, on a set day and time, from whatever is released for that phase. If you want any shot at a specific match on a specific court, this is the door you go through first, and it closes months before the tournament starts.
What happens if the ballot does not go your way
Most people who register do not get everything they hoped for, and plenty get nothing. After the ballot rounds, Roland Garros runs a general sale for remaining inventory, and small batches of tickets continue to surface closer to the tournament. Both of those are more competitive and move faster than the ballot ever does. This is the stage where a lot of travelers either give up on the show courts entirely or turn to a broker, a hospitality package, or someone who already tracks the release calendar for a living, because chasing a general sale on a foreign ticketing site at 9am Paris time is not a realistic plan from the US.
The two show courts are not the same ticket
Court Philippe-Chatrier is the main stadium, the biggest clay court in the world, and the one with a retractable roof. A day session there typically covers the first matches of the order of play; a separate night session, gates around 6:30pm with play starting after 8pm, is built around a single marquee match under the lights. Court Suzanne-Lenglen, the second show court, also renovated with its own roof, sells day-session tickets only, generally covering four matches. Both are numbered, reserved seating, and both are sold as completely separate tickets from each other and from Chatrier’s night session.
Grounds pass: no seat, but the most tennis for the least money
A grounds pass gets you into the site and onto the outside courts, general admission, first come first served, no ticket into either Chatrier or Lenglen. It is the cheapest way onto the grounds and, in the first week especially, arguably the best value in tennis: with most of the draw still alive, you can walk from court to court and catch players up close on courts most fans never think to watch. It thins out fast as the tournament advances, since the outside courts see fewer high-profile matches once the draw narrows.
Day versus night, and why the clay changes everything
A day session is volume: multiple matches, more of the grounds open, more chances to wander. A night session is one match, treated as an event, with a different atmosphere once the sun goes down over Chatrier. Either way, this is Paris in late May and early June on the game’s only clay-court major, which plays slower and rallies longer than anything on grass or hard courts, and Roland Garros itself, wine, terraces, and the city on your doorstep, is as much a part of the trip as the tennis.
How to actually plan around all this
If you have a specific match, court, or session in mind, the ballot is the only real shot at a fair price, and it needs to be on your calendar the autumn before. If you are flexible on which match you see but want a guaranteed seat in a show court without gambling on a lottery, or you would rather have someone who already knows which packages, hotels, and access points exist in Paris handle it, that is exactly the kind of trip we build. Get in touch and we will map out what is realistic for the dates you have in mind.