French Open breaks attendance record

PARIS — A tournament record 675,080 spectators attended the French Open and more than seven million people saw the men’s final on television, the French Tennis Federation said on Friday.

The number of fans attending was up 6.6 per cent over last year.

The peak audience on French national television for the men’s singles final between champion Carlos Alcaraz, who is Spanish, and Alexander Zverev, who is German, reached 7.34 million viewers for an audience share of 40.6 per cent last Sunday.

The FFT did not provide French national TV viewing figures for the women’s final between Iga Swiatek of Poland, who won her fourth French Open and fifth Grand Slam title, and first-time major finalist Jasmine Paolini of Italy.

There was a peak audience of 1.5 million people in Poland for the women’s final, the FFT said, and 2.2 million viewers on broadcaster Eurosport in Germany for the men’s final.

There were more than 1 billion video views on the tournament’s various platforms, more than double the 477 million views from 2023, and in excess of 83 million page views on the official Roland Garros website.