The Grand Slam Grounds Pass: The Best Value in Tennis

What you are actually buying

A grounds pass is general admission to the site. You can watch anything happening outside the main stadium, which in the first week is most of the tournament.

At the US Open that means Louis Armstrong Stadium and the Grandstand on a first-come basis, plus every field court; the one thing it excludes is a reserved seat in Arthur Ashe. Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the Australian Open each sell an equivalent, with their own line on which show courts are included.

The thing the price does not convey is proximity. On an outside court you are a few metres from players ranked inside the top hundred, close enough to hear the coaching and the breathing. No stadium seat gives you that.

Why week one beats week two

A Grand Slam has 128 players in each singles draw. On day one, 64 men's matches and 64 women's matches have to be played across two days, which means fifteen or more courts running simultaneously from late morning.

By the quarter-finals there are four matches a day, all of them on the two biggest courts. The tournament has not got better; it has got smaller, and it has moved entirely behind the ticket you did not buy.

If you are travelling a long way and can only pick one day, pick an early one.

Qualifying week is the insider pick

The week before the main draw, each major runs a qualifying tournament. Entry is free or very cheap, the crowds are a fraction of the size, and the tennis is played by people ranked between about 100 and 250 in the world - which is to say, extraordinary.

The main draw players are also on site practising, and practice courts at qualifying time are frequently more accessible than at any other point in the fortnight.

Doubles is the grounds pass secret

Doubles is scheduled on outside courts almost throughout, and singles stars routinely play it. It is faster, louder and far easier to follow live than on television, and you can usually sit close enough to see the hand signals.

If your grounds pass day has a thin singles schedule, find the doubles.

Australian Open: the most generous of the four

Melbourne in January is the easiest major to attend and the cheapest, and the ground pass is unusually good value even by grounds pass standards.

The structure runs in tiers. Opening week, covering qualifying and practice, has been sold for around ten dollars in recent editions and lets you inside Rod Laver Arena to watch players train. Main draw ground passes have started around twenty dollars for adults in the first week, with children free during opening week. There is also a night ground pass, priced from around nineteen dollars, that gets you in from five in the afternoon.

The detail that makes the Australian Open distinctive is that a ground pass includes John Cain Arena subject to availability - a genuine show court, included in general admission. No other major gives you that.

One recent change matters: daily caps on ground pass numbers have been introduced after crowding, so buying at the gate is no longer reliable. Buy in advance.

• Melbourne Park is compact and walkable, with everything inside one precinct.
• You can bring your own food in; glass and alcohol are not allowed, and a sealed water bottle is.
• January heat is genuine. A hat, sunscreen and a plan for the hottest part of the afternoon are not optional.
• The pattern regulars use: ground passes on several days, plus one arena session for the star power.

Roland Garros: the hardest ticket, and how the draw works

Paris is the most difficult of the four, and the reason is structural: the site is the most compact and demand enormously exceeds it. You cannot simply decide in April to go.

Tickets are released in phases rather than all at once, which is the thing most first-timers miss:

• The draw. Registration opens around early December for the following year's tournament and stays open roughly two weeks. Selected applicants are notified around late February and get a limited window to buy.
• Being drawn is not a ticket. It is the right to enter a sale, and the good sessions still go quickly once you are in.
• General sale. At the end of March the federation opens a further round on a first-come, first-served basis with no draw involved. If you missed the ballot, this is the main second chance.
• Later releases. Additional tickets surface closer to the tournament, including returns.

Roland Garros: what the grounds ticket gets you

The grounds ticket covers the outside courts but not Philippe-Chatrier, Suzanne-Lenglen or Simonne-Mathieu. For a first visit that is often the better buy anyway - it is far easier to get and the outer courts in week one are excellent.

Be aware that the outer courts at Roland Garros have small capacities and the site is tight, so popular early-round matches fill fast. Arriving at the gates when they open matters more here than at the other three.

Buy only through the official Roland Garros ticketing site. Tickets are digital and live in the tournament's own app, so download it and log in before you travel rather than at the turnstile on patchy data.

Wimbledon: three routes in, and only one you can plan on

Wimbledon is the only major where turning up on the day is a mainstream way in, and simultaneously the hardest place to buy a show court seat in advance. Three routes exist and they are completely different propositions.

• The Ballot. The official advance route, run by the All England Club since the 1920s. Registration opens in September for the following summer. Allocation is random, you cannot choose the match, and the tickets are strictly non-transferable - which is why legitimate Wimbledon tickets essentially do not exist on resale sites.
• Ballot returns. Unsuccessful applicants regularly report being offered returned tickets after the main allocation, apparently restricted to people who entered the ballot in the first place. It is not advertised as a route and we would not plan around it, but it is a reason to enter even if you rate your chances poorly - and attendees describe picking up show court seats this way.
• The Queue. Join on the day for grounds passes and a limited number of show court tickets. There is a queue card system, and recent years have added a virtual element through the Wimbledon app.
• On-site resale. The genuinely underused one, covered below.

Wimbledon: the Queue, honestly

The Queue is a real tradition and a genuinely enjoyable day, but it has grown enormously and the folklore has not kept up. As a sense of scale, an arrival just before five in the morning that would once have produced a queue card in the high hundreds or low thousands has in recent years produced one several times that.

That means a dawn arrival no longer reliably gets you a show court ticket, though it will usually get you onto the grounds. If a show court seat is the goal, the overnight camp is the only version of the Queue that delivers it, and that is a commitment rather than an early start.

For a concrete sense of it, attendees describe queueing roughly six hours on the opening day and coming away with a queue number in the region of nine thousand - and, notably, describing it as a good day rather than an ordeal.

Practical things people who have done it pass on: the queue is extremely well organised and the stewards are helpful, you can leave briefly without losing your place, there is a supermarket within a short walk for supplies, and following a live queue update account on the morning tells you how it is actually moving before you commit.

The kit that gets mentioned every time is the same short list: something to sit or lie on, a camping chair if you can carry one, your own food, and something to read. People who enjoyed the queue almost all mention getting talking to the people around them; people who did not are usually the ones who brought nothing and stood.

Wimbledon: the resale is the best-value ticket in tennis

This is the single most useful thing in this guide. Once you are inside on a grounds pass, you can join the resale for show court seats returned by spectators who leave early.

It opens in the mid-afternoon, and the prices are nominal - recent editions have put Centre Court returns at around fifteen pounds and No.1 and No.2 Court at around ten, with every penny going to the Wimbledon Foundation. The charity raised well over a quarter of a million pounds this way in a single recent edition, which tells you how many people use it.

Mid-afternoon at Wimbledon is also when the best matches are still running. A grounds pass plus a resale ticket is, by a distance, the cheapest route to a Centre Court seat that exists.

The one caveat: you must already be inside. The resale is for people on the grounds, not a separate queue from the street.

Two more things regulars pass on. The grounds open around three hours before play starts on the show courts, and that gap is some of the best time of the day - outside courts, practice courts and an almost empty site. And food inside is expensive with long queues, so a great many people bring their own and eat it on the hill, which is a large part of the atmosphere rather than a compromise.

US Open: Fan Week is free, and most people miss it

New York runs the best free week in tennis. During Fan Week, the qualifying tournament and the practice days are open to the public at no cost - 128 men and 128 women playing for the final main draw places, with the main draw stars practising alongside them.

The catch is registration. In recent editions a free Fan Access Pass has been required for entry, registered online in advance and carried on your phone. Children under eighteen have been able to enter with a registered adult rather than needing their own.

Compare that with a main draw grounds pass, which on the resale market can run into the hundreds, and the value is obvious. Fan Week is the same site, the same practice courts and a fraction of the crowd.

US Open: the grounds pass once the main draw starts

The US Open grounds pass is the strongest of the four during week one, because the site is the largest and two substantial show courts are included.

Louis Armstrong Stadium and the Grandstand are both available on a general admission, first-come basis, alongside every field court. Only Arthur Ashe requires its own ticket.

The practice courts sit just west of Ashe and are the best place on site to see top players at close range. Mornings before play starts are the productive time. If autographs are the aim, regulars suggest a white cap or shirt and a permanent marker rather than paper, which blows around and signs badly.

Getting there, the advice is unanimous: take the train from Manhattan rather than driving or taking a cab. It is faster and markedly cheaper, and it drops you at the gate. Sealed water bottles are allowed in, which over a full day in late-August heat is worth knowing.

Buy direct and buy early. Grounds passes are capacity-limited and the secondary market on them is punishing - and be careful reading prices online, because the eye-watering figures quoted for grounds passes are usually resellers rather than face value.

Attendees consistently make two points that are worth more than any of the official guidance. The first is that, unlike Wimbledon, the outside courts here rarely fill up, so getting genuinely close to a seeded player is easy rather than a scramble. The second is that the day and night session split applies to seated tickets, not to the grounds - a grounds pass holder is not turned out at the changeover, so the full day is yours.

A related piece of received wisdom: if you are buying a seat rather than a grounds pass, think hard before choosing Arthur Ashe. It is enormous, and regulars argue the tennis is better watched from almost anywhere else on site. If you do take a stadium seat during the day, the position of the sun matters more than the row number.

Ticket tactics that regulars use

Across all four, the same handful of moves separate people who get in cheaply from people who overpay:

• Go to qualifying. It is free or near-free at every major, and it is real tennis.
• Buy direct, and buy the moment sales open. Every secondary route costs multiples of face value.
• Pick an evening or night session where one exists. Melbourne's night ground pass is the clearest example of the same site for less money.
• Treat Wimbledon's resale as the plan, not a bonus. Grounds pass in, resale at three.
• Check the order of play the night before and pick a court rather than a match. Scheduling moves; a good court does not.
• Buy the cheaper day, not the cheaper seat. A first-Tuesday grounds pass beats a second-week upper tier on every measure except bragging.
• Be sceptical of resale listings for Wimbledon in particular, where only debenture tickets can legally change hands.
• Check face value before you believe a price. Much of what looks like the going rate online is reseller pricing, and the official number is frequently a fraction of it.
• Remember a show court ticket includes the grounds. If you do get one, arrive when the gates open rather than for your match - you are paying for the whole site either way.

Practical things that make the day work

A grounds pass day is a long day outdoors, and the people who enjoy it most plan it like a hike rather than a theatre trip:

• Arrive at the gates when they open. The first hour has the shortest queues at the best outside courts.
• Pick a court and stay, rather than chasing the order of play around the site. The constant walk is what exhausts people.
• Seating on outside courts is first-come and you cannot re-enter mid-game, only at the change of ends.
• Check the bag policy before you leave - every major restricts size, and the bag drop queue can cost you an hour.
• Sun protection matters more than you expect. Most outside courts have no shade at all.
• Bring an empty bottle. All four majors have water points, and on-site drink prices are what you would expect.

Which major, if you are choosing

They are genuinely different days out. The Australian Open is the most relaxed, the cheapest, and the most generous with what a ground pass includes. Roland Garros is the most compact site and the hardest ticket relative to capacity, and needs planning from the previous December. Wimbledon has the Queue and the resale, which together make it the easiest major to attend on the day and the best value show court seat in the sport. The US Open is the biggest site, has the best free week, and in the main draw's first week is arguably the best pure grounds pass in tennis.

If it is your first and you want it to be easy, go to Melbourne. If you want the most tennis for the least money, go to New York during Fan Week.