Since its creation in 1986, the Paris Masters 1000 has taken place at the Paris-Bercy sports center.
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After 38 years at Bercy, it’s over. From 2025, the Rolex Paris Masters will no longer take place at the Accor Arena, but at Paris La Défense Arena, in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), the largest hall in Europe. This move was announced on Monday January 29 by the French Tennis Federation (FFT).
“We had to secure the event in its category, and the ATP standards have evolved, the requirements have evolved, we had to make a strategic decision, which we did“, welcomed the president of the FFT Gilles Moretton, while greeting the Accor Arena teams with whom “very beautiful pages in the history of tennis have been written at Bercy”.
“With this move to Paris La Défense Arena, we will give ourselves the means to achieve our ambitions by offering our athletes and spectators an experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
Gilles Moretton, president of the FFT
For several years, the tournament, which is one of the nine Masters 1000s on the calendar (the most important on the circuit after the Grand Slam tournaments), has been hosted at the Accor Arena in the 12th arrondissement. It benefited from an exemption to continue to benefit from the Masters 1000 label. But with a central court with 15,000 seats, two other courts 1 and 2 with a capacity of 1,000 and 600 seats, training courts installed in a inflatable bubble near the site, and a players’ rest room that was too cramped, the site no longer met ATP standards.
An obligation to keep the Masters 1000 label
Since 2022, the ATP has considerably strengthened the specifications to grant its Masters 1000 label. The tournament director, Cédric Pioline, sounded the alarm last fall, explaining that Paris could perhaps lose this label if the tournament did not meet the new ATP requirements. “What was accepted yesterday will no longer be accepted tomorrow”, he said. A mishap that occurred in Hamburg in 2008, downgraded for not having been able to meet the ATP specifications.
French tennis has therefore reacted in order not to lose this precious label, which allows it to welcome the best players in the world each year in the only indoor Masters 1000 on the calendar. “We are in a global environment that pushes us to evolve. And with La Défense Arena, we will give ourselves the means to achieve our ambitions”explained Gilles Moretton. With 23,000 seats on the main court, compared to 16,800 at Bercy, the Paris La Défense Arena also has additional courts more suited to this level of competition, justifies the FFT.
Note that this move, effective from 2025, will also increase the number of participants in the doubles tournament, with 28 teams present compared to 24 at present.