Roland-Garros 2025: Bringing the passion and drama with new cameras for storytelling at the French Grand Slam By Heather McLean Wednesday, May 28, 2025 - 14:10
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For Roland-Garros 2025, new host broadcaster Whisper is using technology to enhance its own strength in storytelling for the F d ration Fran aise de Tennis (FFT).
Sebastian Tiffert, account director at Whisper, says the production company actively uses technical innovations to enhance the storytelling, to make either the emotion more visible, or to bring the viewer closer into the match, and really build this closer link in between the players, the match and the audience .
He adds: This is the main thing we hope to achieve with any new camera position we have, or any new camera which is around the venue or around the player courts. The question is, how can we make the story better and how can we tell the story better? How can we transport the emotion of the players better to the audience?
Camera plan
On building the production plan to enhance that storytelling capability, Tiffert says: The person who has developed our live production plan, Dominic Gresset, he was looking into the camera positions that can make a difference: how do I get a better vision? how can I get more versatility into my camera position? So we can use it for different things.
Read more Roland-Garros 2025: Whisper on getting into the psyche of the FFT as the new host broadcaster for the French Grand Slam
For instance, on the Court Philippe Chatrier we now have one ultra motion and two super slow motion cameras. We optimised the positions to get more shot versatility and capture the athleticism and player emotions better. Another thing which I think is really important for the emotional part of storytelling is that we now have a handheld camera at the player benches, which [is the result of] a long discussion with Amandine [Tyl, FFT] and Dominic meeting the people in charge at the FFT to convince them that we wouldn't disturb the players, but it really would add to the coverage. So this is really, really nice; I think this will be great for the audience because in between changeovers we'll be able to get closer to players without disturbing them.
In terms of coverage on the Suzanne Lenglen court, which is the second biggest court, we added another aerial camera a spidercam onto the court coverage, which brings of course brings fantastic versatility to player entrances to capture the shots from all different angles.
Main match camera on Court Suzanne Lenglen at Roland-Garros 2023
Dramatic views
The FFT has also been able to grant the host broadcaster with more behind the scenes access, and is bringing more shots of Paris to the Grand Slam's international audience, head of production and broadcast services at the FFT, Amandine Tyl, says. As part of the storytelling, we know that the coverage of behind the scenes is really key for broadcasters as well, so we have tried to improve the behind the scenes coverage in the venue. Also we are an international event and Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, so we wanted to bring a little more of Paris into our coverage, which is dedicated mainly to an international audience. This is something brand new for us.
So we have two beauty cameras in Paris this year, continues Tyl. One will be next to Op ra Garnier overlooking Op ra Garnier, the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, as well, so some iconic places of Pari. This camera is available during the whole tournament. And we will have another beauty camera in Place de la Concorde, because there is an FFT fan zone there.
So we will cover this area as well to bring Paris into the coverage of the tournament, continues Tyl.
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Tyl admits that the FFT has taken inspiration of the spectacular views of Paris garnered by OBS during the Olympic Games last year. Honestly, yes, thanks to OBS, but I think we were already aware that we were needing some Paris shots.
She says that Whisper, being a UK-based company, has also inspired those dramatic views of the city. What is interesting [is to have] input from a non-French company coming to you. [Whisper] came with their international view of Roland-Garros; we are delivering not only for the French audience, but mainly for an international audience. So it was interesting to get the flavour of an international audience saying, hey you guys, you have the most beautiful city in the world and you're not showing it at all, I mean come on, do something! . And we saw during the Olympics that part of the coverage was not only the sporting events, which is of course what everybody is expecting, but also this wonderful coverage of Paris that we had. So we took inspiration from the Olympics.
Outside court coverage
The outside courts have not been forgotten, adds Tyl. Now we have a pool of RF roving cameras which are able to move from one court to another depending on a broadcaster's request or the interest for a specific match. If a Chinese broadcaster wants to broadcast a match with a Chinese player, then we have the availability now to add an RF camera for the coverage of that court.
We have tried to improve the overall coverage, not only focusing on the main courts of course the main courts are the flagship of the tournament but also making sure that the outside court coverage can be improved because we know that all our broadcasters are broadcasting everything on their OTT platforms. We want to make sure that we can cover everything that is happening in the venue during the three weeks of the tournament, and even a little bit outside in Paris.
Remote production
The production is being carried out remotely. Supporting Whisper in its endeavours is EMG
