When tennis fans think of Paris, we think of red clay, Roland Garros, the City of Light in springtime—and a few boos and hisses from the fans, directed at any player who displeases them.
But the French capital also welcomes the sport a second time, on the other side of town in the Bercy neighborhood, where the ATP’s final Masters 1000 of the season has been held each fall since 1986. Next year that will run come to an end, when the tournament moves to the bigger, newer La Défense Arena, in Nanterre. La Défense promises more courts and more modern facilities, and it seems doubtful that the players will miss Bercy’s Accor Arena, an ’80s-era concrete pyramid that just turned 40.
The vibe at Accor is certainly different from Roland Garros. The event is indoors, in clubby darkness, rather than outdoors, in Parisian sun. The surface is hard instead of clay. No one in the stands is wearing an orange-ribboned panama hat. Music blares before matches and during changeovers—still verboten at Roland Garros. And the Eiffel Tower doesn’t linger picturesquely in the background. If “PARIS” wasn’t emblazoned in giant white letters at the back of each court, you might not have any idea where you were.
