It appears the French Open will be safe from the embarrassment of being overtaken in on-site fan numbers by the BNP Paribas Open for another year, barring too much rain or a startling rash of bad food in Paris this year.
The attendance gap has been narrowing in recent years, between the BNP Paribas, which is an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 series event, and the French, which is a Grand Slam.
The Indian Wells Tennis Garden drew 456,672 last year. The French drew 463,328. That’s only 6,656 more than a tournament designated by tennis as a lesser one.
That doesn’t mean that more attendance at Indian Wells over the French would increase BNP Paribas’ tour status, nor decrease that of the French. It just makes for interesting discussion and adds credibility to the unofficial status of Indian Wells as the fifth biggest tournament in the world, after the four Slams.
But this year with superstars Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova not competing, the turnstiles in the desert have slowed a bit. Through Wednesday, attendance at Indian Wells was 345,363, or 13,698 behind last year’s at the same juncture.
In order to surpass last year’s French, attendance at Indian Wells the last four days would have to average 29,492, which will not happen because the last two days are single session days in a main stadium with a capacity of 16,100.
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