The grand final of the tennis esports 2022 Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas has now concluded, with William Foster (Fozzy, pictured right) from Great Britain securing victory to become the fifth ever winner of the tournament.
Fozzy, who overcame 238,000+ other entrants from the qualifying stages to claim the eTennis world champion crown, defeated Anass Benghazi (Anteo, pictured left) from France in a best-of-five final, winning 10-5, 10-4, 9-11 and 10-3.
The final, which took place in a dedicated gaming area located at the top of the Philippe-Chatrier court, saw eight finalists who qualified from one of four qualifying events compete against each other in a best-of-one, round-robin competition.
The finalists included representatives from five countries, including Great Britain, France, Columbia, Germany and Iran. Following the conclusion of the round-robin tournament, the four best players progressed to the semi-final stages of the competition, where they played a best-of-three match.
Fozzy and Anteo then competed in the final, before being presented with the winner and runner-up trophies by Gilles Moretton (pictured centre), French Tennis Federation (FFT) president, and their prize money of €3,500 and €1,500 respectively.
Prior to the grand final, FFT hosted an esports workshop for the eight finalists. The workshop began with a cognitive test and physical training, hosted at HumanFab, an Innovation, Health & Sport Lab based in Paris. This was followed by a welcome speech at Roland-Garros by Gilles Moretton, FFT president, and Vincent-Baptiste Closon, global head of partnerships, events and sponsoring for BNP Paribas before finalists took part in a media training session led by journalist Barbara Klein.
To end the workshop, the eight finalists took part in a Tennis Clash training session, before playing a game of urban tennis at Roland-Garros.
“I am extremely proud and happy. It was an honour to compete in the grand final inside the Philippe- Chatrier court. The tournament was an incredible experience and I will never ever forget it.”
William Foster
The event was broadcast live on Twitch by popular streamer Rivenzi, who was accompanied by fellow French streaming compatriots LittleBigWhale and Ponce. The show also saw special guests Alizé Cornet, the current number one female French tennis player and Jules Marie, a French professional tennis player and vlogger, join the stream for discussions about eTennis and their own careers.
The live stream achieved a peak viewership of 8,100 in total, while also achieving an average viewership of 5,300 during the three-hour stream.
In 2022, the event saw BNP Paribas support as title partner for the fifth year in succession and also welcomed Renault as the new, official partner for the competition. It also saw the introduction of a number of changes to the format of the tournament. This included hosting a female-only qualifier in partnership with Women in Games France and a switch to a mobile esports format by partnering with mobile tennis game Tennis Clash from Wildlife Studios.
It resulted in a record-breaking number of participants signing-up for the tournament, with 238,000+ entrants from 207 territories around the world competing in the event and more than 1.66m matches being played.
“I am extremely proud and happy. It was an honour to compete in the grand final inside the Philippe- Chatrier court. The tournament was an incredible experience and I will never ever forget it,” said William Foster, 2022 Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas champion.
“Congratulations to William Foster for winning the 2022 Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas,” added Gilles Moretton, FFT president. “We were amazed to see how tough the competition was this year and we even saw a record breaking number of participants enter the event from all over the world.
“In 2022, we made huge steps to make our competition more accessible to everyone, which included guaranteeing at least two women had the chance to compete in the grand final for the very first time through our collaboration with Women in Games. As the only Grand Slam to organise an eTennis tournament, we are honoured to fulfil our mission to promote tennis and eTennis worldwide. We are also proud to share this ambition with our partners BNP Paribas and Renault, and look forward to developing the event further in the future.”
For more information about the Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas, visit https://www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/page/roland-garros-eseries-by-bnp-paribas.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
