ROLAND GARROS

June 7, 2026

Amelie Mauresmo

Gilles Moretton

Press Conference

EMMANUEL BOUSCASSE: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the end of tournament conference with Gilles Moretton, President of the French Tennis Federation, and Amelie Mauresmo, Director of the tournament. Gilles, one word to tell us about the tournament.

GILLES MORETTON: Thank you, Emmanuel. Good morning, everyone. I think the time has come now to see what has happened during the tournament, and I think that I can conclude that it was a tournament that was extremely rich in surprises, a tournament that we have never seen before.

And before Amelie is going to give you more precise figures on this very successful tournament, because it has been a successful tournament, I would like to thank Amelie, thank all the Federation teams for organizing this wonderful 2026 edition of the French Open.

Trust me, it has been a daily labor organized by the French Tennis Federation. I'd like to recall that Stephane Morel has played a very important role here.

So in the name of the French Tennis Federation, I would like to recall a few details. I think that this Roland Garros tournament is an amazing level for the development of tennis and of sports as a whole.

First, it is a true promotion of sports in general. The level of transmitting sports as well. I think we should truly speak of Roland Garros as being the driver for the development of tennis throughout the world.

I would like to acknowledge the support of the FFT to the International Tennis Federation and its president. It is true, however, that we might have not always seen eye to eye on the Davis Cup in the past, but our role is to promote tennis, to promote sports throughout the world. I am very pleased today to see how well our Federations are developing to promote tennis throughout the world.

Look at the development of the Roland Garros Juniors Series in South America, for instance. The winner of '22 was Joao Fonseca. Let's not forget that.

Some of the players qualified in 2022 to come to Roland Garros. This year it's the case of Joao Fonseca, and the winner of 2024 has also just won the final of the junior boys tournament at Roland Garros, our young Miguel.

Beyond South America, we have the Roland Garros Junior Series in Asia, in Japan. The development has been amazing. We are so pleased to be able to offer new opportunities to young players throughout the world so that they can have access to such an event as the French Open. We really look forward to contribute to the development of tennis everywhere.

We also have many ambitions in Africa, for instance. The FFT has signed a few agreements with many countries in Africa, and we have already organized various promotion action in Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Senegal.

This is a wonderful opportunity to receive all these federations, but for us also as FFT, to learn from other federations' experience, to share our expertise in organizing tennis events, for instance. I think that this is a wonderful relation, wonderful dialogue.

This very sharing philosophy is very much at the core of our values. This is also true at national level. We have 7,000 tennis clubs. We share expertise and knowledge with their clubs in order to help them develop their actions.

Obviously, there are different stakes. We have stakes for our own country, for France. Some of these stakes are at the forefront of public health, for instance.

Let's not forget that sports unites. Not so long ago we had the major victory here in another sport, and we could see all the audience, all the spectators come together. It's a major driver of social cohesion.

French Tennis Federation is fully committed at every level. Clubs, local and regional and national level. The resources we are managing allows us to invest in a development of tennis throughout France, and here are a few priorities for our Federation.

First and foremost, to promote the access to tennis for everyone, everywhere. For the younger players, for the older players, for players with disabilities, and we'll come back to that.

It's also the development of new disciplines, such as para-tennis, for instance. We know wheelchair tennis, as well as standing tennis for people with disabilities, blind tennis, as well as deaf and hard-of-hearing tennis.

We also have an activity and development planned for development of clay courts in France. We have lost our way in terms of developing clay in the past, and we want to correct the trajectory. We are here for you. We want to have more clay courts in France.

We also want to shine the light on our major events. Roland Garros is obviously our most famous event. We also have the Paris Major in padel, the Rolex Paris Major. We are supporting all of the tournaments in France. We have more than 100 of them. At logistical level, financial level, we are supporting them.

Obviously, Roland Garros is a wonderful showcase for tennis as a whole. When we talk about different disciplines, I'd like to come back to wheelchair tennis and mention our wonderful Ksenia Chasteau and the very fine run she has had here at Roland Garros. I think she's an amazing example for each and every one of us. She's only 20 years old. She is still improving daily.

The spectacle she offered in the wheelchair tennis, but also the quad tennis, is absolutely enchanting. We are so proud of her performance in Roland Garros. Well, I said Roland Garros, but Ksenia is a standard-bearer for tennis as a whole, not only for wheelchair tennis.

The junior competition has allowed the greater audience to discover our new emerging talents, our new champions. The draw has one mission. It is transmitting tennis, but also showcasing the diversity of our disciplines.

As a conclusion, dear Amelie, almost in the wake of this 2026 edition of the French Open, we wish to go further. Roland Garros is not only limited to three weeks. I salute you, Amelie, for this opening week, by the way.

What an incredible idea to showcase players during the opening week. What an amazing idea to come back to the history of all the players, which allows us to have a very close dialogue with our players on various issues that you are well aware of.

We will continue doing that. We will continue being the players' partners to make tennis an always-evolving sport, evolving obviously in a better way. I want players to understand our role in the development in tennis.

We are a nonprofit organization. We contribute to the development of tennis in France obviously, but also throughout the world. We also do it financially, because we finance part of the ITF and WTA.

After Roland Garros, we will have the Roland Garros Tennis Club where we will welcome all the competitions that take place in France.

On a sadder note, on last Friday the second men's semifinals didn't take place. We have announced that the spectators will be fully refunded, and all of them will have early access to tickets for the 2027 edition of French Open. So all the spectators who sometimes travel a long way for that semifinal, will have early access to tickets for the next edition of the French Open.

AMELIE MAURESMO: Thank you, Gilles, and good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. We are presently starting this last day of the tournament with the ladies' doubles. In fact, it has started.

It's now time to have a look at the figures and take stock of this latest edition. Thank you, Gilles, for your trust, first of all.

One word about the edition, as you said, it was a success on many headings. It was also full of surprises and also very full of emotions, because with everything that happened, all the surprises we had, we saw the audience, the spectators, really happy. Over 727,000 spectators, it's a record figure, who came through the gates and had an exceptional experience.

The players were happy about the service in Roland Garros, how we take care of them. Mirra yesterday said she felt comfy, cozy here in Roland Garros, and this is one of our prides.

We are happy that this magic of the French Open operates with the players and spectators, and it also enables people to live these emotions through their TV screen. To us, this is really very important. It is the core of our work.

I would like to say how proud I am to be at the head of this tournament with you and Stephane and with all the teams because, honestly, we had a lot of challenges this year, whether it be weather, changes in the program. Everybody worked for it, and there was a lot of solidarity on a daily basis so that everybody could end up being happy.

Obviously, we had the support of our partners, who are very loyal. I would like to thank them all, thank the teams, thank the partners.

What I would like to highlight, as well, is obviously the identity of this tournament. Roland Garros, the French Open, has a special identity, as it is a committed tournament.

Thanks to Gael's event, and we thank him. Thanks to the Yannick Noah Day. We managed to raise over 600,000 euros for charities. As far as charity and accessibility is concerned, for the opening week you mentioned we had 138,000 people who came into the stadium. With tickets under 30 euros, more people came and discovered tennis and inclusion as well, blind people, people with vision impairment and hearing impairment.

When I talk about changes, this year we wanted to enhance the experience of people coming to the stadium, so we wanted to have a strong point with gastronomy with the Garden of Chefs. People really enjoyed it. We can still improve, but we had very positive feedback from this.

Also, we talked about accessibility. The Concorde Tribune on the Place de la Concorde is free. I believe that on Friday over 11,000 people came, even though, as you said, this second men's semifinal didn't take place.

So we wanted this public to be really happy, and this is a great key point for us. Obviously, let me finish with the sports aspect.

We had a lot of surprises, a lot of emotional moments, incredible matches. We had 31 matches played in five sets. It's one of the three or four record editions as far as this is concerned.

New faces, youngsters coming up. After all the emotions we had with Stan, Gael, Caro, and the tributes that were given to them, as soon as there was an opening in the draw, everybody got in -- or at least not everybody, but those who know tennis knew Mensik, Fonseca, Jodar, people like that came in, and well done.

The two finalists, yesterday the winner, she's just 19. Mirra represents the future of tennis. Maja, the enormous surprise of this edition, who said she gave everything in the final, but I believe it was an incredible run she had.

I talked about emotions in Roland Garros. You always have emotions.

EMMANUEL BOUSCASSE: Questions in French or English.

Q. Good morning, everyone. One word about the heat wave of the first week. Would you be ready to publish every day the data of the indicator you used to show if you're going to give the ten-minute break? We know in Australia they publish their thermal stress indicator at five levels. Your seminar is at the end of June. Are you thinking about it?

AMELIE MAURESMO: We could think about it if the conditions continue. Now, you have to know that the indicator changes every minute. The umpire of the tournament gets it on his screen every minute.

We might publish it, but to be honest, we never got close to the 30.1, which would be the first step that would give the ten-minute breaks, or 32.2, if I'm not mistaken, which stops all matches on the other courts and where we can only play on the covered tennis courts.

Q. You said that you wanted people to understand that Roland Garros is a driver for tennis. Do you think that the players hadn't realized that? Well, what was the mindset at the end of meeting with the players.

GILLES MORETTON: We're not sure they're there yet. This is not the logic of some financial tournaments where we saw the tournaments being sold, some shareholders getting money. We are not there.

A tennis player is a tennis player. He does not, unfortunately, or she, does not, unfortunately, have all the data. So it's a good thing to have a discussion, a dialogue with them.

We are aware of the role of the federations. Our thinking of the challenges, there are global challenges for health, for sports. I believe people have to be aware of what the federations are and what they do.

Unfortunately, for the moment, we're not there yet. Our ambition is to support tennis throughout the world, with juniors in particular. This is what we do here in our country, and we want people to know it.

We get it known even more when you see a Fonseca or a Miguel tomorrow or people coming maybe from Asia or Africa. We would love to have juniors here, as in Africa, as I said, to give more opportunities to youngsters.

Not only opportunities, but to show them that through this channel, they can go up and play in a Grand Slam tournament, and we can create a vocation. This is very important.

It's important for players to know it, and maybe this is not the case. Our common position with Amelie, as former player, is to be close to them in our discussions, and it's what we wish for the future.

Q. So my first question would be on the night sessions. The first week they were ending extremely late on France television. Don't you think that it would harm the night sessions that aren't broadcast on Amazon? My second question is on the qualifications and the opening. It was wonderful. Many people were in attendance, but I've heard feedback that many features were not open, food trucks were not open, et cetera. Shouldn't we organize the opening week a little differently?

AMELIE MAURESMO: Well, obviously I'm pretty sure we will look at that in the future. The opening week was extremely successful. It is true that the entire stadium is not open for opening weeks, but 90% of the stadium is open.

We will consider opening 100%, but it's going to take a little while to fully debrief after the tournament before we take this kind of decision, but it is an option, absolutely.

In terms of late matches, it is true that many matches on the Lenglen court ended quite late, but I think that's great, isn't it, because everyone has the opportunity of watching a great match. This actually underlines the role of our broadcasters.

It's not always the same spectators, so it's important that the offer is as diverse as the audience.

Q. First of all, I would just like to also repeat how successful I thought that that qualifying week was. I think it's wonderful that you put it on the big stadium. It's really been a success. I work for the Tennis Podcast. We've heard from our audience that the upgrade facility you have for those courtside seats where people can fill seats has been really appreciated. It's clearly been a huge success, this tournament. I've been to many of these press conferences with you in the past, and we've spoken about night sessions, so I'm not going to go over much of it. However, I've attended a lot of them this week, and they are wonderful events. They're great shows. They elevate the sport. I attended the Naomi Osaka against Aryna Sabalenka match. It was wonderful. But that being the case, given the fact that that is the only match that has featured women in more than three years, would you accept and agree that it is negative for women's tennis that they haven't featured in any of those for three and a half years?

AMELIE MAURESMO: So you're not going to ask a question (laughing)?

Q. I understand the reasons that you've given in the past about length and so forth, but would you agree that it is negative for women's tennis that such a great session doesn't feature women very often?

AMELIE MAURESMO: I would like to remind you also, and I'm doing this probably every year, that two women's matches and two men's matches are happening on center court, on Philippe Chatrier and on Suzanne-Lenglen, and all the other courts that we have, including our big courts every day.

Just so that you know, in France the biggest, how do you say, audience is not the night session, by far. It's the day sessions.

I mean, we're going to continue to try to satisfy as many people as possible with many factors that we have to put together before making the scheduling decision every day, day or night.

As I said, the length or potential length of match is one of the factor that we have, that we have to acknowledge also. The show is there. There's no question on this.

Q. It's a slightly different show, isn't it? It's one match where the whole world's attention is on that one match for a night session. It's in a different part of the time zone for America, for instance.

AMELIE MAURESMO: Yeah, actually this year and in the last few years, even the matches that are probably lasting a bit longer on every court, it wasn't actually -- we see that especially, I mean, taking out quarters, because Tuesday and Wednesday it's only Chatrier. But until then, I think pretty much every day Lenglen finished, maybe not every day, but at the same time or after Chatrier. It's good, actually.

Q. Just as a follow-up, just on Lenglen, will you maybe feature night sessions on Lenglen in the future, do you think?

AMELIE MAURESMO: We are also having these possibilities. When we talk about this internally, we face a little bit of an issue given the size of our whole stadium and the capacity to get more people in, because it would mean another 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 people.

Our facility, as of today, is not expandible for now. Yeah, every year we challenge these issues, yeah.

Q. Coming back to the first question of my colleague, the tournament started with more or less serious threats. The boycott was pronounced.

AMELIE MAURESMO: It was another life, I think.

Q. Do you think that in a year from now or the last three weeks, we might have players brandishing these threats, or do you think the famous 15% or whatever might be solved by then?

AMELIE MAURESMO: Well, I'm not worried about that, because as Gilles said, we are discussing and communicating. It's true that Stephane hasn't had much time. He tried to make headway, and we will continue looking at the content of the discussion with the players or their representatives.

But we're going in the right direction. I believe that these figures are not the ones we should really look at, but we'll have that discussion with the players about the 15, 20.

I believe that everybody had to make a step in the other's direction, and we'll have to change the mentality. So we'll need goodwill from everyone.

I'm a real optimist, I must say. I believe that Grand Slams and players, Roland Garros and players, are partners. We are trying to give emotion to everyone, and we should get there.

GILLES MORETTON: Let me add that I agree with Amelie, and we are only talking in the name of Roland Garros, a clay tournament. We are really intent on improving the future of tennis, listening to the players, discussing with them, sharing.

We are not always in agreement, but we are in a win-win logic, if you want, with the players and everyone. So I'm not worried either about this issue and about next year or other events that might take place. As far as Roland Garros is concerned, we are intent on listening, we've opened doors, gates.

Our model is very special, as I said in the beginning. Our model is not that of other tournaments. We have the specificity. Each Grand Slam is special. We have our specific data, and we want to make headway in this dialogue that has been installed, which is a good dialogue with the players.

Now, it's been on the table for a long time, and you have to give us time.

Q. If I may pick up on this issue, once again, tennis is an individual sport. Some might call it individualistic. When you look at players like Jessica Pegula or Coco Gauff, how can you tell them that the money they feel they deserve through their play is being redistributed to youngsters who might one day play in Roland Garros? Don't you think you are being utopic in betting on the altruism of players in an individual sport?

AMELIA MAURESMO: That's not the only thing.

GILLES MORETTON: Well, you might talk about the money for first rounds of the quallies and the first rounds of the tournament. You can talk about many things, but that's not all. There is dialogue. Some things we can hear. Players have other satisfactions. Some may have other desires. So long as we establish this contact with the players.

As you said, it's an individual sport with many different stakeholders, many actors. We have to talk to everyone. Everybody has to agree.

But this is what we want. So there's no way we won't open the doors.

AMELIE MAURESMO: Picking up on this, we increased by almost 10%, the prize money, so you can't just look at the federal model. Things are progressing at all levels, but people have to be open on both sides.

Many players are very satisfied about what's happening. You know the figures. The only thing to do is to give these figures. The Grand Slam partners represent about 50% of the prize money of a top-100 player throughout the year over a period of only eight weeks for those who go all the way, except if they come out of the quallies, like Chwalinska for this tournament. Many things are real, but we'll talk about it with them, and that's the way we will go about it.

Q. Talking about the program, do you think it would be a good thing to have two big matches on Chatrier to satisfy the broadcasters?

AMELIE MAURESMO: It's not our desire to have two matches in the night session, because tennis is an uncertain sport in terms of length of matches, so we have talked about it at length.

We would talk about time slots that could be very long. Then you have the issue of recovery for the players and for the general public. If a player was to start his or her match at 11:00 p.m., it wouldn't be satisfactory.

So all this has to be taken into account.

Q. One more question about the use of the roof. From what I understand, last year you had to be very cautious and use it as little as possible, but what is the rule? There were moments when you closed the roof when it might potentially rain, and then you closed the roof, and it didn't rain. Some matches were played with the roof open when there was a huge sun on the court. Playing under a roof when it's not raining might be an issue.

AMELIE MAURESMO: The only match when we closed and it didn't rain was that of Felix. Once the roof is closed, even if the sun comes back, we leave it closed. It takes about 12 minutes to close the roof. Obviously, we try to anticipate that as much as possible, because the idea is not to interrupt the game.

For players, the players agree that they can continue while the roof is being closed, but the idea is not to interrupt the match, so we tried to anticipate.

When the weather forecast says it's going to rain in ten minutes, then Remy, the referee of the tournament, makes the decision of closing the roof, and it did happen that once it didn't rain, despite the forecast.

Weather is not an exact science either. I believe it happened once or twice. I believe that it was a good thing that we had closed the roof.

So we make our decisions with the data we have at a given moment.

EMMANUEL BOUSCASSE: Thank you, Amelie. Thank you, Gilles. Thank you, all.