The second Grand Slam of the 2026 tennis season is just over a month away: Roland Garros.
Any fan who tuned in for last year’s French Open will know that it will take some feat to deliver a better tournament at this season’s edition.
Perhaps the best final the event has ever seen, and arguably the greatest match of all time, took place in the form of Jannik Sinner versus Carlos Alcaraz.
A reminder of what happens when Jannik Sinner plays Carlos Alcaraz…
Sinner and Alcaraz battled for five hours and 29 minutes, with the Spaniard saving three match points before fighting back to win in five sets and seal his fifth Grand Slam title.
The women’s title bout in 2025 also lived up to the hype, in which Coco Gauff came back from a set down to overcome world number one Aryna Sabalenka to hoist her second major at just 21 years of age.
It will be almost impossible to surpass or even match the quality of the previous volume’s finals of Roland Garros, which viewers this year will inevitably expect.
However, the French Open has the chance to improve in other ways this year, but it appears the tournament director, Amelie Mauresmo, sees things differently.
Amelie Mauresmo’s worrying comments about the future of Roland Garros
The 2026 Grand Slam season got off to a phenomenal start at the Australian Open, which introduced a genius innovation: The One Point Slam.
During the week before the start of the main draw at Melbourne Park, professionals and amateurs took to Rod Laver Arena to contest just one point in a knockout tournament, with the winner receiving a total A$1,000,000.
What seemed a silly, frivolous idea to many, ended up becoming a fascinating spectacle, with Sydney amateur player Jordan Smith besting the likes of Sinner and WTA superstar Amanda Anisimova en route to securing the title and life-changing cheque.
The Australian Open is the best Grand Slam… discuss!
The One Point Slam was incredibly well received by fans on social media, and by all accounts, it was a resounding success, but Mauresmo was firm in her response when asked if Roland Garros would be introducing the new-look competition in Paris.
“I believe our DNA, our ambitions, are not necessarily to follow what others are doing, for one thing,” said the former world number one.
“It’s also not about chasing buzz at all costs. We’re more about authenticity, we’re rooted in our traditions, and we’re definitely looking toward the future as well, toward modernity, innovating in other areas.
“This is not something that aligns, for us, with the image of Roland-Garros.”
Mauresmo’s answer will please some, and bore others, but the reality is her view of ‘tradition’ in tennis is exactly what is holding the sport back.
Whether it be the One Point Slam or the addition of the Laver Cup, any suggestion to innovate tennis is constantly met with negativity and claims of ‘tarnishing tradition’.
It feels as though every other sport on the planet innovates at a rate that tennis just can’t seem to keep up with, due to its almost pretentious way of keeping things exactly as they are.
Grand Slams remain by far the biggest draw for tennis, and if the four pillars of the sport show no signs of innovative ambition, their draw power will only diminish.
Of course, the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open have made changes in recent years, such as the implementation of electric line calling and courtside coaching pods.
But they need to go much further, and ideas such as the One Point Slam are exactly what will drive tennis forward.
Roland Garros may not want to copy the One Point Slam, but for Mauresmo to dispel the idea of following suit as ‘chasing buzz’ is a worrying sign for the future of the tournament.
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