French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo has stated that there are no intentions to alter the current night match format at Roland Garros. She conceded, however, that the situation is “not ideal,” particularly concerning the fact that men`s singles matches predominantly occupy the prime evening slot on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Tournament organizers have once again faced criticism from players this year regarding the Roland Garros schedule. The night session, which requires a separate ticket, has exclusively featured men`s singles matches in 2025, continuing the pattern from previous years. This has prompted players like Ons Jabeur and Coco Gauff to publicly question the scheduling decisions.
French Tennis Federation president Gilles Moretton previously commented this week that the scheduling aimed “to put the better match … for the spectators [at night].” Mauresmo reinforced this viewpoint, explaining that the selection for the night slot is influenced by the expected duration of play. Men`s matches are played best-of-five sets, while women`s are best-of-three.
“For the scheduling, night-session scheduling, nothing new under the sun as compared to the previous editions,” Mauresmo remarked on Friday. “We have one single match per night session. It hasn`t changed. Accordingly, we won`t change everything again.”
She further elaborated on the consideration of match length, stating, “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 the 15,000 spectators 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.”
Mauresmo clarified that this reasoning should not be interpreted as suggesting women are “not worthy to play at night.”
A suggestion, put forth by Gauff among others, proposed scheduling two matches in the night slot, but Mauresmo has dismissed this possibility.
The daily schedule on Chatrier includes three matches during the day session, typically starting with a women`s singles match when crowds are smaller, followed by a single night match. The choice of which match receives the night slot is made jointly by the FFT and broadcasters, although players` preferences are also considered.
“We decide to keep the three matches in the day,” Mauresmo 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.”
However, she argued against this, stating, “But in my opinion, if we don`t want to finish too late, we cannot have the five matches in the day. … 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.”
Mauresmo acknowledged her understanding of the dilemma.
“It`s not ideal,” she concluded. “We cannot check every box because we have many, many things to think when we are doing these choices.”
Marcus Bellamy