Amelie Mauresmo has defended the scheduling of women’s matches at Roland Garros as there is yet to be a women’s night session match so far.
In a fairly heated press conference Amelie Mauresmo has defended the scheduling of women’s matches at this year’s Roland Garros.
This year has seen there be no women’s matches in the night session on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
It’s a move that has been criticised by Ons Jabeur in a press conference where she accused the tournament of limiting opportunities for young girls.
Mauresmo responded in the press conference dismissed the claims and defended the move, “Are you talking about Ons Jabeur? As for the scheduling, night-session scheduling, nothing new under the sun as compared to the previous editions,” the tournament director said in her press conference.
“We have one single match per night session. It hasn’t changed. Accordingly, we won’t change everything again. The play time also is taken into consideration, potential play time, obviously because we can’t plan ahead, be it for women’s tennis or men’s tennis. But we have to take it into consideration as to the 15,000 spectator coming in for the night session.
“Since men’s tennis is played at the best-of-five sets, three sets will be played at a minimum. It’s complicated for us to do otherwise.”
Things got heated between journalists and Mauresmo when the former world number one insisted the scheduling made women not worthy, “That’s not what we’re saying. I have to stop you right there,” Mauresmo stated when questioned on the stance.
“For me, the message that I always said, and I will repeat, as I said, the conditions did not change from having one unique match in the evening. For me, the message is not changing, and it has never been that the girls are not worthy to play at night. It’s never been this. I will not accept that you carry this message. That’s really clear to me. What I’m saying is I’m talking, and we’re talking, ’cause I’m not the only one to make the decisions, we are talking about potential.
“In this perspective, it is hard to say that the two sets can go really fast when you have three sets minimum. I don’t know, one hour and a half, two hours, maybe more. I don’t know. That’s the lens for me. For me that’s the lens of the matches. It’s not the level they reach right now. I’m not talking about this.
“That’s what you think the message is. That’s your interpretation.”
There has been lots of debate about having only one night session match while the Australian Open and US Open have two.
However, Mauresmo has once again defended the decision to only have one night session match, “About the choice of having one match? The evening. I talk about it every year, but I can say the things again this year. We decide to keep the three matches in the day,” Mauresmo passionately explained.
“When you put those three matches, the easy way would be to have the two matches in the evening. Then we wouldn’t have this conversation. But in my opinion, if we don’t want to finish too late, we cannot have the five matches in the day. As I said, for people here in Paris, they come out of work, they usually come to here, Roland Garros, 7:30, 8:00.
“To hope to try to have a full house in the evening is 8:00, 8:30, beginning of the night sessions. If we have two matches in the night sessions, it doesn’t work in terms of how late the players are going to finish. That’s my opinions. But if we start earlier, it’s going to work in terms of… The stands are going to be empty in most of the first match.
“In my opinion, that’s what we think. So we keep this one match in the evening. It’s not ideal. We cannot check every box because we have many, many things to think when we are doing these choices.”
Tomorrow’s night session match is once again a men’s match as Novak Djokovic will take on Filip Misolic in the evening session.
It’s a debate that will go on forever but it’s clear that Mauresmo and the French Federation are prepared to die on this hill.
