With the 2024 season finally approaching, fans are already eyeing their French Open tickets for the new year. With the excitement in this year’s competition where Carlos Alcaraz won his first, there’s more anticipation for the French Open than ever.
October, however, was more disappointing for those loyal fans with French Open tickets, as the legendary player, the ‘King of Clay’ Rafael Nadal, announced that he would not return to play another French Open.
It marked the end of an unmatched career for the Spaniard and Roland Garros, and fans are now slowly accepting that they will never see the maestro on the courts again.
Earlier, reseller platforms such as Seatsnet saw early responses to French Open tickets in 2024, when rumors hinted at Nadal returning to play in 2025.
But come October, everything changed.
While the world readies for life without Nadal, the spotlight now goes to Novak Djokovic, the last survivor of tennis’s Fab Four.
While the elder statesman tries to anchor a fightback in 2025, the onus is on the youngsters.
Federer Pips Alcaraz for 2025
Roger Federer has naturally been headlining the media drive ahead of this weekend’s Laver Cup.
Heading to Berlin for this year’s iteration, tennis fans are set to be treated to a host of superstars clashing and combining to produce some top tennis.
However, the 43-year-old has not solely focused on this particular event; he is now looking ahead to what the future holds for tennis in his absence.
Speaking on The AO Show, the Swiss superstar was enlisted to preview his event, the Laver Cup.
With a star-studded lineup for Team Europe this year, the hope is that they can reclaim the title from Team World. Carlos Alcaraz will certainly spearhead their efforts.
When chatting about the Spaniard, Roger Federer predicted how he might perform in the next Grand Slam, the 2025 Australian Open.
He noted: ‘Of course he can. If you win all the other different majors, you can win Australian. Especially in Australia, I think he will be physically perfectly prepared.
‘It’s not like Wimbledon where maybe you have to skip the French Open if you want to give yourself the best chance or if clay is not your best surface. He will have a really good chance of winning.
‘The big matches are played at night, which makes it a bit slower for him. I think down the road, he will win an Australian Open; the question is when. He has the most incredible career already, and it’s fantastic that he has four slams already without talking about all the other stuff he has achieved.’
With Alcaraz’s habit of retaining what he’s won, the odds are favoring him to retain his French Open title this year as well if he gets a good start with the Australian Open.
While Nadal’s fandom is slowly depreciating, an all-new fan base is starting to see shape, according to reseller platform Seatsnet. Fans are now aggressively hunting French Open tickets beforehand.
The Australian Open will start on January 12.
Richard Gasquet To End Career at French Open
Once known as the “little Mozart of French tennis,” Richard Gasquet is set to end his career without a major to his name.
Now 38, the French player renowned for his exceptional one-handed backhand told L’Equipe newspaper Thursday that he will end his career after the French Open in front of his home fans.
“I’ll be stopping at Roland Garros next year,” Gasquet said. “I think this is the best time for me to do it. It’s the best tournament to do it. It’s wonderful, and we’re lucky as Frenchmen to be able to retire in such unbelievable places.
The end is always complicated, as all the former great players have often told me. You never know when, how, where. As far as I’m concerned, it was obvious.”
Gasquet, who reached a career-best ranking of No. 7 in 2007, was once regarded as a potential Grand Slam winner but could never get past the semifinals at any major.
He reached the Wimbledon semifinals twice and was also a semifinalist at the US Open. He claimed 16 Tour titles, most recently last year in Auckland, and was a member of the France team that won the 2017 Davis Cup.
Following in the footsteps of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon, he is the third member of a gifted generation of French players that emerged nearly 20 years ago and includes Gaël Monfils, to call it quits.
Gasquet, who has dropped to the No. 133 ranking, said he would never have imagined playing for so long after starting when he was 3 years old with his father, Francis, who ran a tennis club.
“I play against 18-, 19-year-olds, which is weird,” he said. “Nineteen years younger sounds crazy. Very few players make it to 38.”
Gasquet, who has played 1,005 matches since turning professional, won his tour debut at 16 at the Monte-Carlo Masters in 2002. A few years earlier, when he was 9, Gasquet was on the cover of Tennis Magazine, which asked in a headline: “The champion that France is waiting for?”
When he turned pro, Gasquet was compared to another emerging player, Rafael Nadal.
But as his Spanish rival established himself as one of the all-time greats, Gasquet, who never beat Nadal in 18 matches, could not live up to the great expectations that had been placed on his shoulders.
“It’s wonderful to have been compared, for a little while, to Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest sportsmen in history,” Gasquet wrote in his memoirs. “Deep down, I take it as a huge compliment. But how much it hurt me!”
Nadal’s shadow remained to the end. A few hours after Gasquet announced his retirement, it was Nadal’s turn to announce his departure from tennis.
Gasquet said he plans to start studying at a management school and would like to train young players.
“I’ve had a great career as a player, and now I need to shape the one after that,” Gasquet said.
With Gasquet’s announcement, reseller Seatsnet predicts that more locals will look for French Open tickets to see their hometown hero bid farewell to the courts.