Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT) announced the return of the Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas – the largest eTennis tournament in the world – for 2023. Back for its sixth year, the tournament will once again be held on the world’s most popular mobile tennis game, Tennis Clash, from Wildlife Studios, following a switch to the mobile esports format in 2022. The mobile game has more than 120m downloads and last year, more than 238,000 people from 207 territories across the world participated in the eTennis tournament organised by FFT.

“We are thrilled to announce the details of our 2023 competition alongside FFT. Continuing our last year’s successful partnership, we have created an even more exciting and engaging experience for our players. By being part of the Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas, we are committed to providing our players with the best content and experiences, offering them the chance to compete at Roland-Garros, a dream come true for any tennis fan worldwide,” Dotan Arad, General Manager of Tennis Clash, said.

This year’s event will see eight finalists compete in the Grand Final at Roland-Garros itself on Friday, May 26 with qualifiers playing for a share of the €5K prize pool. Seven of the eight places at the final will be awarded to players coming from different qualifying events. Meanwhile, the eighth qualifying place will be awarded to the winner of the 2023 Australian Open Tennis Clash virtual tournament, William Foster who also won the 2022 Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas event.

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In 2023, Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas will extend its collaboration with Women in Games – an international charity making gaming a better place for women – and introduce a new collaboration with Handigamers – a French charity helping people with reduced mobility to play video games. Both of these organisations will host closed qualifying events that will see the winners take part in a one-month remote training programme facilitated by French esport organisation, Team MCES, ahead of the Grand Final.

Ahead of the Grand Final, all eight finalists will also receive the opportunity to attend an esports workshop courtesy of FFT, ensuring every participant is prepared to give their best performance on matchday itself. FFT is committed to making gaming accessible to everyone and is proud to be one of the few organisations endorsing higher representation in all stages of its competitive environment.

In 2023, FFT will once again welcome back BNP Paribas as the presenting partner and Renault as the official partner of the event for the sixth and second years in succession respectively. Their continued support has helped to elevate eTennis as a sport and contributed to an increase of top level eTennis tournaments taking place across the world.

“We are absolutely delighted to be hosting another edition of Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas for the sixth successive year and can’t wait to see how the competition unfolds over the next few months. Last year, we saw exponential growth as a result of our switch to a mobile esport tournament using Tennis Clash by Wildlife Studios, and the introduction of our new tournament format. Through our continued expansion, we’re hoping to further build on the success of previous years and cement our status as the biggest eTennis event in the world,” Aymeric Labaste, Head of Roland-Garros International Development, said.