The (false) suspense will soon end. According to our information, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) plans to announce Monday January 29 the name of the site which will host the Rolex Paris Masters from 2025. After 38 years of presence at the Accor Arena, the Masters 1000 directed by Cédric Pioline is preparing to leave Paris intramural for… Paris La Défense Arena.
The end of a long lease in the 12th arrondissement of the capital, where we have lived for the last few months with a taste of bitterness. After presenting their project in the spring and then responding to requests for modifications to comply with the imposing specifications required by the ATP (with the exception of a smaller capacity of seats planned on a short annex), the managers of the Accor Arena and the Paris City Hall (owner of the walls and main shareholder) have not had any further news until the 2023 edition.
Where the two parties exchanged… through the press. Tired of hearing from the voice of the president of the FFT Gilles Moretton (who obtained from the executive committee of the federation the exclusive management of the negotiations on the file) that the tournament is largely not up to standard (it currently benefits from a exemption) and that the places will remain too cramped whatever happens, Nicolas Dupeux (DG of the Accor Arena) and Pierre Rabadan (deputy for sports) were annoyed by the situation in the columns of Parisien-Aujourd’hui in France.
“We even went beyond their expectations in terms of feasibility,” explained Rabadan. The event has found its economic model, with an attendance record (which was beaten in 2023 with 170,000 spectators). So it’s a format that works. But since then, no more news… So we wonder. The federation can change its setting or its strategy, but let us not believe that it is because we did not know how to react. »
The FFT did not warn Bercy
The manager of the venue voted second venue in the world (behind Madison Square Garden in New York) by the specialist magazines Venues Now and Pollstar also insisted on “an emotional story”, saying he was surprised by the lack of correction of the FFT, which “had almost made his decision” without ever coming back to them. Nothing changed after Novak Djokovic’s seventh victory. Radio silence.
For the FFT, which brandished the threat of a loss of Masters 1000 status, exile to the entire West, on the other side of the ring road, is justified by the space in the largest hall in Europe, the possibility of better managing spectator flows or modularity. But no plan has yet filtered through to get a precise idea of the proposed configuration.
“We would have all the facilities necessary to organize a Masters 1000 like this, in the format we know with the heights and standards,” Pioline whispered in November. We would meet all the necessary criteria (…) The world is changing and what was accepted yesterday will no longer be accepted tomorrow. »
Incidentally, Paris La Défense Arena has been managed since 2022 by former Olympian gymnast Frédéric Longuépine, who was in charge of managing the general administration and general public commercial activities of Roland-Garros in the early 2000s before stints with PSG and the Girondins de Bordeaux.
On the Nanterre side, where we are used to positioning ourselves on large markets, we remain extremely discreet. But unlike Bercy, where next week’s diary has no tennis on the agenda, we definitely heard about the date of January 29…
