ROLAND GARROS

May 26, 2025

Gilles Moretton

Press Conference

An interview with:

GILLES MORETTON

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) Hello, everyone. Sorry for being late, slightly. We'll talk about the tournament, but also about the rest. The Federation right now, as we speak, we have 1,600 club presidents. We did the same thing yesterday. It's a wonderful day for tennis. I'm quite delighted to seize the opportunity of this Roland Garros. It's a unique event. This is why we used the claim: Only at Roland Garros. We try to do things that are different.

I'm also delighted because I can tell you today the Roland Garros tournament in 2024 was the one that was most watched with 318 million viewers with all aggregated tournaments together.

The opening week, the week that has just finished as we speak, it was a huge success in terms of numbers of spectators. We had more than 100,000 spectators.

For the Federation, it's important for us to use all the tournament, but also this specific week, which was before, a qualification week, which was quite confidential, which is still the case for other tournaments, because the infrastructures do not allow to attract more people.

We can attract different spectators at an accessible price for nine hours of tennis, matches of high quality, because tennis is evolving in a considerable manner, in my opinion.

We can also attend practice sessions. You remember it was the case last year. I'll talk about Rafael Nadal, who would practice on the Philippe Chatrier every day. There were five or six thousand people every day. That's the case this week as well. That allows us to watch matches.

We saw the Suzanne Lenglen court that was full several times with a wonderful atmosphere, tournament-type atmosphere. That's what's so fantastic about this opening week.

I was talking about the quality of the games. We can see it with boys and girls. I think we are ramping up in terms of quality. This is why there's an intense schedule. I can see that the intensity of the preparation, we can see it, because they're coming ahead of time. They're stepping up in their game, both with women's tennis, but also with men's tennis.

Three or four years ago we wondered what about boys, it's difficult, with the Three Muskateers, Jo Tsonga, Gilles Simone, Gael Monfils and Richard Gasquet.

We need to take some time because it's a matter of cycles. We have a new cycle with young players, when it comes to French tennis. The same thing with girls. We have a bit of a letdown right now. You've seen young players that have qualities and talent. We have some from 2012, 2013. We set up measures that were presented recently in a daily newspaper on the seven to 10 year olds. It will pay off ultimately.

Four or five years ago we had 240 girls that had been found not at the national level, but regional level. Now we have 460 players that are national level. Not everyone will break through obviously, but there is some work that has been done with all the clubs. This is what we call the ETI, the technical regional teams.

We still have a lot of work to do in the field. There's a real reflection that is being done at the Federation level in terms of support and assistance. On the 11- to 14-year-old generation, we have some good, budding champions that are 11 years old. We have fewer for 14-year-olds. We work on that.

As for the opening week, we had a lot of success in terms of the public, in terms of spectators. Yannick Noah's Day was important for us, a historical day. It was the Kid's Day before, now it's the Yannick Noah Day. We created more than 300 cases of revenue to distribute to associations. We're very proud of it.

We are also delighted because of the density of the French players. We have 27 players in the main draw, 18 men and nine women. It's good for the tournament.

Yesterday's results, even if two actually lost at the end of the five-setters, Giovanni's result is interesting, and Quentin, as well. There was also the loss of some of the women players.

We try to put forward a subject that we want to put forward. We know we have a lot of work to do. A lot of things were set up. There are cycles, as I said earlier. I'm quite confident about the future.

I know we still have to do some fine-tuning. That's actually in the pipeline.

I would like to go back because I would like to make a comparison with what the Federation is doing, and what we do the tournament, with the ballkids. With Olivier Letort, we talk about a learning method for the three- to six-year-olds, and the other age group.

We use junior coaches, that's brand-new, and you should look it up, because with tennis schools we take the best and we try to bring them forward.

We have junior coaches that come and assist the younger ones. We never learn as well as when we teach others. There's a learning method that is our own that we have developed with the Tennis Galaxy. This is done with the tournament, with the ballkids.

The ballkids, sometimes they're good tennis players, and sometimes they are club members. They are wonderful ambassadors. When we experience Roland Garros, we can disseminate and convey the message and the torch of Roland Garros everywhere. It's actually a four-year mission. Some people go to clubs and try to do some detection. We're quite proud of it.

In these clubs what you should know, our priority is, all throughout the week we have a thank you to volunteers. We try to accommodate the volunteers that help us on a daily basis.

On Wednesday they would help out at a tennis club. On a Sunday when there's a team tournament, they would bring croissants and would open the club.

The help that we bring within the realm of Roland Garros, I will get into the nitty-gritty afterwards, this goes in line with what we do the French clubs, but also abroad.

As with the previous mandate, we had via ADCP the development aid that was $33 million. That is up to $66 million now for equipment to renovate courts, to build courts, also paddle courts, to build and erect clubhouses. That's our ambition.

With this in mind, this is for the purpose to help our associations, we try to see how we can actually gear this money from 33 to 60 million in development aid.

With the four Grand Slams, we have some money that is being brought from the ITF, and that goes to countries which do not have tournaments, which do not host tournaments. I'm talking about Casper Ruud, for instance. Joao Fonseca. I could talk about Rybakina, as well. They were financially supported. But also Ons Jabeur. They were supported via financial aid that we provide to the ITF. Not talking about the ATP and WTA, which has been going on for some years now. There are discussions that are ongoing. That took place earlier with players, both women and men.

In the wake of Roland Garros, we want to help ATP and WTA, the tour at-large. I can talk about ITF, as well, for Davis Cup, for Billy Jean King Cup. What we want to do is to bring our contribution to help out girls and boys, women and men in tennis.

Amongst the aid that we bring, clay especially, with the willingness to create a game identity a la Francais. That's in the hands of our technicians. We want to find this game identity. Even though that more than 60% of tournaments are actually played on hard courts, there's a bit more than on grass and clay. But we're still a minority. We shouldn't lose our identity. This is the why, us as a foundation, we want to help our clubs to maintain traditional clay courts.

Also for maintenance. We know maintenance is very expensive. It can go from 200€ per court up to 800€ per court. Also with the arrival of high-quality artificial clay courts. There was a WTA tournament in Ruoen. In Croatia we're going to play on an artificial clay court, for instance, in September on artificial clay court.

This is the way in which we redistribute money and help as a foundation. Another important point. I know you have questions, but...

I will go back to the different practices. We have six disciplines, para tennis, wheelchair tennis. Then for the deaf and for also tennis for the blind. Yannick Noah took the helm of this discipline. This is how we try to help.

There was help that was 2.5 million, it went up to 5 million. That's to help young players with disabilities in terms of accessibility. There's real work that has been done at the Federation level to bring about help in that subject.

There's also paddle that is ramping up. We have two licenses. It's important because we did not bring the same service to paddle than to tennis right now. But very quickly we're going to merge both and we'll have one single federation.

We have 5,100 members, 230,000 members who are multi-racquet members. All in all, it's 330,000 members of paddle and tennis federations. This is how we know because they book courts.

There are also 550,000 all in all that play, that rent out courts by the hour. Between 330,000 and 550,000, that's quite a lot. When you already have 550,000 practitioners, that's quite a lot. Paddle is already among the sports that is the most liked.

We have also among 300,000 paddles. In Italy there are 11,000, in Spain there are 20,000. What we want to do is allow clubs to actually build paddle courts so we can facilitate the development.

On beach tennis, that's a discipline. I'm not going to talking about it too much. A few clubs in France, 200 practitioners. We talk about legacy and modernity at once. This goes hand-in-hand together.

A last word on pickle ball. You know that the French Tennis Federation will actually apply to have the delegation. We'll have the documents in May, June, beginning of June. We'll fill out the application form by the end of June. Afterwards the Ministry will make the decision as to who's going to be in charge of pickle ball. We know there's another Federation that is applying for it. May the best win.

For two years we've done so many things already. We have 400 clubs that have pickle ball. You've seen at the presidential stand box we'll have some pickle ball demonstrations the second week. We hope that we'll have Agassi and Steffi Graf together to showcase some pickle ball. I hope they will play on one of the courts the second week.

We can't have the French championship title, but we'll have a French Open in Aix-en-Provence. We believe strongly in pickle ball. We think it's an entertaining discipline for those don't enjoy themselves with tennis, that find a lot of technical and physical constraints with tennis. With pickle ball, they can have fun.

They can also play that in schools. It's 300€ all in all. We have the nets. We just need four racquets. We have plastic balls. I think that's actually an open door to more.

We want tennis for all, everywhere. We want a larger number to play. Out of 100 kids, 20 say, I liked it, I want to come back. This is how we invite them to be members of the club. That's for all the different disciplines that we have within our Federation.

We continue to develop them. A lot of things actually. We continue to develop a lot of things with clubs and associations.

I think I said most of it. Now I'll answer your questions, if you have any. We can talk about yesterday's ceremony with a lot of pleasure actually.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. (Translated from French.) Could you talk to us about the origins of the project. Everything looked perfect.

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) The origin has to do with the spirits we have within the Federation, with the employees, the elected member and Amelie. We wanted to work on this.

We went to see Rafa with Amelie. We had met him two years ago, but on a different topic. We have joint projects together. We wanted to know how he's feeling about this and we wanted to make the right choices. We didn't want fireworks or anything. It was teamwork.

I would like to commend the work of Amelie of course, but the whole of our team, because we built this together. Everything you saw yesterday, we built together.

Rafa didn't know much, to be straightforward. Maybe his very close team members knew one thing or two, but very little. He didn't know about the plate, I'm sure, because I saw how emotional he was.

We listened to what he said to us in December. We wanted to do what he wanted. He is who he is. When he's on the court, he came across a lot of members of staff here. Everything that was said yesterday was true, saying hello, good-bye. We wanted this to be right. What was on the T-shirts was an idea from the team. Everyone was able to take part in this. The footprint was important. There is the statue.

Having him on the court was important. We've talked a lot as to where we would put the plate. We had debates. His family was also an important part.

In using the presidential seats for his family, we used half of it. This is something we achieved together, which is probably why it was so emotional because it was simple. It was great, but also very simple.

Q. (Question in English.) I want to ask you about the scheduling of the matches. Right now we are starting off and it seems like the women are playing in the first matches when the stadium is rather empty, then never playing at night. I'm just wondering, I know you're not the tournament director, but surely you have some input in this and some thoughts on that. Is it important for you to feature women more? You have so many good male French players, not so many good female French players. Would it be helpful to feature women's tennis a little more and encourage more girls and women to play?

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) I won't speak on behalf of Amelie, but I will answer your question.

You're talking about the schedule. The schedule is one key point on the tournament. Sometimes we have to think about what could be the better for spectators. That's why sometimes we have to make some choices.

I would give you an example. I'm not going to answer on the female point, but I'm going to give you an answer on the semifinal last year.

Regarding some other tournaments, they do it differently. The semifinal last year, male semifinal last year, we had a choice between two games. Regarding TV worldwide, we had the question to change the schedule, semifinal last year, if you do remember.

On the sport, we are going to stay on the sport point of view, and we have to keep who is playing first, who will play second.

Amelie will answer. But the main point is that the sport first on the schedule. Sometimes we need to put, I mean, for the night session, we need to put the better match, we think, could be for the spectators.

Maybe we will have a few, I have no idea, a few female matches on the night sessions. We'll see. Depends on the schedule, who is playing who, who will be the best match.

Q. (Question in English.) But as the person who is in charge of promoting tennis in France, do you think it makes your job harder that the decision is always that the better match is the men's match?

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) It might be sometimes a female match. It might be. It depends on the schedule. If it is, we will put the female. I'm talking only about night sessions. I heard what you said about first match starting on the center court.

You will see maybe it will change in the next few days. It was the case yesterday. Maybe it will change.

Q. (Question in English.) I don't think it helps that you're saying 30 times in a row that the men's match is the best match of the day if it's an independent choice every time. The let rule, you are not using the automatic electronic machines since last year. I'm wondering why this is, how you explain the loss of accuracy and taking the technology away from the court?

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) I think on the net point, we didn't use it last year.

Q. (Question in English.) Why?

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) Because it was broken, simply. I'm not sure we're using it this year. We're not. Because it worked last year.

Regarding your question the linesmen, too?

Q. (Question in English.) I didn't ask about them. Sure, why you're keeping them.

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) This is important for us. Regarding what happened in Madrid and what happened in Rome, the system used by the ATP and not yet by the WTA, seems to be not perfect. We know that it's 10% errors possible, 10%. That's what we know.

Regarding clay, we think that it's very important, because sometimes, you saw it with Medvedev in Madrid I think, he took the picture.

Q. (Question in English.) Zverev.

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) We think it can happen and it did happen already. It's more human. First of all, we need those people working all year long in our tournaments promoting tennis in small clubs, being there for club matches. If we stop having those linesmen, referees, we feel it's not too good for tennis in France maybe. I think it could be the same for other countries.

I can understand not on clay, but on fast surface, with no mark, could be helpful. Like Wimbledon, it's so fast now. I think it's helpful. For Roland Garros, we want to keep our linesmen as long as the players agree with that.

Sometimes the players say we don't want no more. Maybe we will have to change.

Q. (Question in English.) Crowds last year, last year there were some rowdy spectators. I guess we want good atmospheres. Where do you see that balance on wanting passionate crowds? When do you think it goes too far?

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) You're talking about the French players playing?

Q. (Question in English.) Yes.

GILLES MORETTON: (Answer in English.) It was the same in Australia. I was in Australia.

We have some people, they love tennis, and they know tennis very well. They know when to stop. They are not doing anything. That's the way French people are. I'm sorry. They support their players.

Maybe they make too much noise. We feel like that atmosphere is good for tennis. If it goes too far, we will have to say something. I hope it not bother too much the players.

That's the way it is.

Q. (Translated from French.) I would like to circle back to two points you raised during your presentation when you were saying this was a letdown for French female tennis. We haven't had a French winner since 1983 for men and since 2000 for women. Is there a link with the clay courts that you were mentioning? Is there a lack of funds to have enough of them? Would that be an explanation as to the lack of results? Players are not trained from a young age on clay.

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) I do not think this is an issue that we're having with clay. If we were to look into our own weaknesses, I think we've put the journey of girls and boys on an equal footing. But they're actually a bit different because their families play an essential role. There's also how intense the work they put in is.

We've compared young female players when they're 11, who are in line with foreign players. There's a difference being made between 11 and 14. We have in our departments and committees, good institutions. We are now adjusting the settings. We have started working on this, which is why I was mentioning cycles.

When we were detecting young women at the national level, when they're in the CFEs, we have 18 of them in France, young people are in the club, they're 10 or 11, and they practice so much that they cannot find a partner at their level, so they come to national training centers.

This is a work in progress. We are going to get there. I'm not sure that clay is the cause of all of this.

Q. (No microphone.)

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) I was mentioning a game identity earlier. This is something we've lost. I think the way our game is shaped is related to clay. We are trying to maintain this, support it more.

It is difficult at the local level to build this. 99% of our clubs belong to local institutions. Building a clay court means it needs to be maintained, which is why the choice is being made for hard surfaces, because it is slightly more expensive to build, but maintenance costs almost nothing.

This is a lot of work to make sure that they do maintain the courts. The surface we had before, the concrete courts, we want to replace with other surfaces, this is something we want to help with.

Q. (Translated from French.) Today we are seeing a lot of T-shirts that were on the court. When you say they're spending eight hours here, do you know where they go, what they do? What is a typical day?

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) They come for about eight hours. 60% of them are French, or 70%. Maybe this is not exactly right, but we will get back to you with the exact figures.

They come from the whole of the country. They spend the whole day here. They go back home at night. The night sessions are bringing in new spectators. They're coming for the show, like countries where you can witness two or three games and finish at 2 a.m.

This is interesting because we have people who can find out about tennis through the night sessions. People coming to see the games are for most of them licensed player in a club in France.

They will not stay if they don't like the game they're watching. For instance, on Philippe Chatrier, Suzanne Lenglen, they will leave if they do not like the match. They will leave. This explains why we have empty stadiums sometimes.

This is something we want to work on, which is why Amelie talked to you about this with having the semifinals not happening at the same time.

For example, if you have one client you could invite to one semifinal, you could invite them to both of them. If it's too long, if they're not passionate about tennis, they will leave.

We shouldn't have done it. This is something we've done, these T-shirts. Some people are trying to make money out of it, with the Merci Rafa, the Thank You Rafa. It's a bit of a shame, but we did not think of getting the T-shirts back at the end of the ceremony. I really appreciated the fact that about 98% of people wore the T-shirt for pay tribute to Rafa.

Let me circle back to the only Roland Garros that we have. This is something absolutely unique, which is why we may have this phenomenon happening with people selling and buying the T-shirts.

Q. (Translated from French.) Tennis is quite a paradox because all countries hosting a Grand Slam tournament have issues with players, they're not competitive enough. How do you explain this?

GILLES MORETTON: (Translated from French.) Except for Wimbledon, we are Federations, so our mission is for this sport to develop in our country. We know the highest level is only point three or point four percent of it all. We are working with the clubs, with para tennis. For the high level, this very niche high level. There are cycles going on. We work in the same way.

There are some adjustments we can make. I've given you quite some details with the work we're doing with our technical and regional teams. Tennis is changing at the moment. We are talking about female players in France and our approach as to getting us to reflect around our practice, the role of parents. There is a number of things.

It's true for us, but also for other Grand Slam tournaments, there are some ups and downs. Maybe we will come back stronger. Let's not forget that our five Grand Slam titles, the five last Grand Slam titles, were in female tennis because we talk a lot about Yannick Noah, but the five last titles were with women. Thank you very much. Have a good tournament, everyone.