European Open Fans Pay €46 for Blocked Views After Brussels Arena Switch

TL;DR: The European Open moved its centre court from the ING Arena to Palais 5 at Brussels Expo on Friday, and the first day in the new hall produced two complaints at once: fans said some seats offer a heavily obstructed view despite costing €46, and Tallon Griekspoor told the chair umpire the new court felt three times as big as the old one. The move was announced in September to free the ING Arena for weekend concerts, but no price adjustment was made for the affected seats, and the semifinals and Sunday’s final will still be played at Palais 5.

A tournament does not usually make its biggest news by changing buildings, but Brussels managed it. The European Open is an ATP 250 event, the kind of week where the tennis is supposed to be the story, and Friday gave it a different one: a planned, announced, logistically sensible venue switch that still left paying spectators staring at a wall, a pillar, or the back of a stand instead of a tennis court. The organisers did not spring the move on anyone. They did, however, charge full price for seats that do not deliver a full view, and that is the gap the backlash fell into.

What actually changed on Friday?

The centre court moved about 350 metres. For the first four days, matches were played at the ING Arena, also known as Palais 12, on the Brussels Expo site. Starting on Friday, the quarterfinals, semifinals and final moved to Palais 5, another hall in the same complex, with a seating capacity of about 5,700. Tennis TourTalk reports the whole changeover, courts, operations and broadcast equipment included, was done in a single night.

The reason was the concert calendar. The ING Arena is booked for performances over the final weekend, with French rapper PLK on Saturday and rap duo Djadja and Dinaz on Sunday, the day of the final, plus Duran Duran on October 26. A tennis tournament and a concert schedule collided in the same complex, and the tournament gave way. That part was public in September, and nobody in the Friday coverage disputes it.

Why are fans angry if the move was announced?

Because a known move and a good seat are different things. Tennis Temple reports that while part of the crowd praised a rather successful setup, other spectators sharply criticised very poor visibility from certain stands. The image that carried the complaint was a fan photograph on social media showing a heavily obstructed view of the court, with the poster saying the seat cost €46. TennisUpToDate carries the same photograph and the same figure, and quotes a French-language post calling it dishonest not to sell such seats at a reduced-visibility price.

The pricing is the sharp edge of the story. Tennis Temple is explicit that no price reduction or price adjustment had been planned to compensate for the configuration in Palais 5. Fans are not arguing that a tournament should never change halls. They are arguing that a seat with a blocked view should not cost the same as a seat with a clear one, and that selling it at full price without a warning is the problem. That distinction is what turns a logistics note into a fan-relations row, and it is also what makes this a story beyond Brussels: every indoor event with temporary stands faces the same choice, and most of them price the bad seats accordingly.

What did the players make of the new court?

Griekspoor gave the complaint a second voice, from inside the ropes. The Dutchman, ranked No. 60, was playing second seed Jiri Lehecka in the quarterfinals on the new court, and after losing the first set he complained to the chair umpire. His words, as reported by Tennis Watcher, were direct: it is three times as big, a completely different court, and he understood the move but asked why the dimensions were not the same.

He then did what complaining players do not always do: he won. Griekspoor took the second set, broke at 3-2 in the third, and closed out a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win on his second match point to reach the semifinals. The result matters for the framing. The court did not cost him the match, and his complaint reads less as an excuse than as a professional noting that a new hall is not the same as a new court, even when the surface is laid the same way. A bigger hall changes the sightlines, the sound, and the feel of the space, and a player who won his first two matches in the old building felt the difference immediately.

Who is still playing, and where?

The semifinals keep the venue at the centre of the weekend. Top seed Arthur Fils faces Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff, and third seed Francisco Cerundolo faces Griekspoor, with the final on Sunday. Fils beat Alex Michelsen 6-4, 7-6 in a tight quarterfinal, Struff beat the last Belgian in the draw, Zizou Bergs, 6-3, 7-6, and Cerundolo beat Clement Chidekh. All of those matches, and the final, are at Palais 5.

That schedule is why the story will not fade by Sunday. Every remaining match is played in the hall fans are complaining about, in front of the same stands, with the same pricing. If the final produces another obstructed-view photograph, the tournament will have had two days to address it and will not have the excuse of surprise. If it produces a classic, the venue row becomes a footnote. Either way, the final is now a test of the building as much as of the players, which is not what a tournament wants its showpiece to be.

What does this say about mid-tournament venue switches?

That announcing them is not enough. Brussels did the hard part, moving an entire tournament operation overnight across a complex, and then stumbled on the easy part, telling ticket buyers which seats see the court and pricing them honestly. The contrast with the rest of the week’s tennis is instructive: this is the same event where David Goffin’s farewell kept being postponed in front of a home crowd, a reminder that Brussels crowds will forgive a lot when they feel looked after. A €46 seat with a blocked view does the opposite. It tells the buyer the event took the money first and worried about the view later.

The wider tour has seen this shape before, when a ball striking a spectator led to a disqualification and a debate about court safety and when a season ended early through injury and absence. Late October has also produced quieter drama elsewhere, including Khachanov saving five match points to reach the Almaty quarterfinals. Those stories were about what happens on court. This one is about what happens in the stands, and it is a useful correction to the idea that a tournament is only its draw. The draw is fine. The seats are the story, and the tournament has until Sunday’s final to answer the only question fans are actually asking: if a seat cannot see the court, why does it cost the same as one that can?