What a Nightmare: A Queue of More Than 460,000 People for Roland Garros
Despite the launch of the new system and a lottery in an attempt to reduce waiting times, the situation became chaotic and tennis fans are furious: “The same disaster as every year.”
Dissatisfaction around ticket sales for the Roland Garros tournament (May 25 to June 8) is growing. The organizers launched a new system intended to allocate tickets more fairly and reduce waiting times, but at least for now, it seems this method is also ineffective.
The ticket office, which opened on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m, quickly showed a massive queue of over 460,000 people.
This situation caused great frustration among many viewers, who every year face the difficulty of getting the coveted tickets and express their displeasure on social media.
Some fans even reported technical glitches, website crashes, and error messages while trying to access the platform, which added to the overall chaos.
However, the process of purchasing tickets for the tournament in Paris has changed.
The French Tennis Federation held a lottery between January 27 and February 9.
All one had to do was register on the official Roland Garros platform and hope to receive an email notifying them of the lottery win.
The lucky winners were invited on Wednesday morning to log into the platform and choose tickets according to the set limits: a maximum of four tickets for the main courts, four for secondary courts, and 15 tickets for the opening week and secondary courts between June 2 and 8.
The problem was that the queue filled quickly due to fans entering who had not received confirmation emails.
This caused anger among those who were selected by lottery, who complained that their waiting time increased significantly due to the lack of proper filtering.
Those not selected in the lottery were invited to return later through the platform as the queue progressed.
Social media feeds were flooded with screenshots of long wait times exceeding several hours, and some fans even shared stories of being logged out unexpectedly during checkout, forcing them to start over.
Since January, the ticket purchase process has been conducted in different stages.
First, registration for the lottery took place, followed by different dedicated sales, before opening to the general public last Wednesday.
The French Tennis Federation stressed that the new measures were designed to prevent scalping and reduce the presence of automated bots, which in previous years had made it extremely difficult for real fans to purchase tickets.
While the new system was intended to limit waiting times and improve ticket allocation conditions, it seems that the same complaints are repeated in the 2025 edition.
Observers note that the enormous demand for Roland Garros tickets considered one of the most prestigious events in the tennis calendar is unlikely to decrease anytime soon.
Analysts also suggest that future editions might see a combination of dynamic pricing, stricter verification and even staggered entry times to manage the overwhelming interest, though nothing has been officially confirmed yet.