Searching for the Best Seats of Grand Slams

Best Seat

The definite of “best seat” is subjective.
My definition of best seat is in the following order

Behind base line
Corner of baseline and side line (in Ashe Stadium, this is behind or next to players’ box)
The sides where we have shade most or all day and also meet above two criteria

To make discussion simple, I will cover 8 main stadiums that I have attended list in the table below. All the stadiums are the two largest stadiums in respective tournament except John Cain Arena (JCA) which is 3rd largest at Australian Open (AO). 2nd largest stadium at AO is Margret Court Arena (MCA) but I have not attended a match in MCA.

Tournament	Stadium	Seats Capcity
Australian Open	Rod Laver Arena	14,820
Australian Open	John Cain Arena	14,053
French Open	Philippe Chatrier Stadium	15,225
French Open	Suzanne Lenglen Stadium	10.068
Wimbledon	Center Court	14,979
Wimbledon	Court 1	12,345
US Open	Arthur Ashe Stadium	23,771
US Open	Louis Armstrong Stadium	14.000

Seats capacity numbers are from this Wikipedia link.

Locating best seats in the stadiums

Each grand slam has its own way of numbering seats.
I will start with the area to locate the seat.
US Open and Australian Open are similar, where the an area is called “section”.
French Open use “access” number and Wimbledon uses “gangway”.

Once the area is identified, each area has a row number and a seat number.
Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open use letter to define row.
French Open uses number to define row.

Based on the stadium and area of the seat, row A or row 1 is NOT the first row.
Click on stadium link where virtual visit is avialable.

Stadium	Side of Chair Umpire	“Best Area”	Front Row
Rod Laver Arena	Right	Section 9 to 11 (baseline) Section 8 and 12 (corner)	A
Rod Laver Arena	Left	Section 1,2 and 18 (baseline) Section 3 and 17 (corner)	A
John Cain Arena	Right	Section 11 to 16	G
John Cain Arena	Left	Section 1 to 6	G
Phillipe Chatrier Stadium	Right		?
Phillipe Chatrier Stadium	Left		?
Suzanne Lenglen	Right	Access 8 to 14	2 (middle) 1 (4 seats at corners)
Suzanne Lenglen	Left	Access 4 and 17	2 (middle) 1 (3 seats at corners)
Wimbledon Center Court	Right	Gangway 201, 212 (baseline) Gangway 101, 114, 115 (corner)	A
Wimbledon Center Court	Left	Gangway 106, 108, 110 (baseline) Gangway 107, 109, 111 (corner)	A
Wimbledon Court 1	Right	Gangway 18, 20 (baseline) Gangway 16, 22 (corner)	A
Wimbledon Court 1	Left	Gangway 2, 36 (baseline) Gangway 4, 34 (corner)	A
Arthur Ashe Stadium	Right	Sectction 1, 3,to 6, 66 and 67 (baseline) Section 7-11 (corner)	E *
Arthur Ashe Stadium	Left	Section 31 to 40 (baseline) Section 26 to 30 (corner)	E
Louis Armstrong	Right	Section 1 and 18 (baseline) Section 2 and 17 (corner)	E
Louis Armstrong	Left	Section 9 and 10 (baseline) Section 8 and 11 (corner)	E