By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, June 10, 2024
Photograph credit score: AP
Roland Garros pulled the plug on ladies’s evening periods this 12 months.
Night time sightlines might not change dramatically subsequent 12 months both, stated Roland Garros match director Amélie Mauresmo.
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In her post-tournament presser, Mauresmo was requested why all Roland Garros evening periods featured males’s matches and no ladies’s matches.
Corridor of Famer Mauresmo stated because the match solely schedules one match at evening, the choice comes down to 2 major components:
1. Does the match function a star participant who can fill Courtroom Philippe Chatrier stadium?
2. Will the match be compelling and the way lengthy will it final?
“Nicely, we solely have one match, and now we have constraints given the time it takes to play a match,” Mauresmo instructed the media in Paris. “I repeat what I stated final 12 months. First, now we have the massive names that we’re searching for. We’re searching for one of the best gamers to play at evening within the night.
“Then the time that the match will final, that is what we try to assure for the spectators within the night. However nothing’s engraved in stone. Issues can change. It is one single match that we play at evening, and subsequently now we have to make selections. That is why this 12 months we wished to have solely males enjoying at evening.”
You’ll be able to perceive why match organizers wouldn’t desire a 68-minute blow-out that world No. 1 Iga Swiatek unleashed on Jasmine Paolini within the remaining as the only evening session match—notably since Mauresmo banned booze gross sales inside stadiums after Belgian David Goffin reported a fan spit at him.
Othe different hand, Swiatek’s spirited comeback from 2-5 down within the remaining set saving match level to edge Naomi Osaka within the second spherical was probably the most pulsating matches of the match and spanned two hours, 57 minutes.
Some gamers, together with Daniil Medvedev, instructed host broadcaster Amazon dictates, or least performs a significant position, in night-session scheduling selections.
Former Wimbledon winner Mauresmo shot down options that Amazon requested for a ladies’s evening match replying “No, no, no. By no means.”
So what is the resolution?
Mauresmo stated the match has thought-about going to 2 night-session matches, because the US Open does at Arthur Ashe Stadium, nevertheless as a result of notoriously tardy Parisian fan base, she suggests it may imply 1000’s of empty seats at first, which creates one other challenge.
“We requested ourselves the questions two years in the past,” Mauresmo stated. “We thought possibly two matches is one thing to be thought-about, however given the tradition now we have in Paris, folks do not come at 7:00 p.m. on the stadium.
“Due to this fact, we might produce other issues to face then if we had two matches.”
Requested how Roland Garros can forestall the debacle of a half-empty stadium for the Alexander Zverev v. Casper Ruud males’s semifinal which got here on Friday after Carlos Alcaraz’s epic five-set win over Jannik Sinner, Mauresmo stated options are being mentioned.
“So as we speak, nicely, I am not going to provide the miracle resolution,” Mauresmo stated. “I am not going to be sharing the concepts we have been eager about or I have been eager about. We have now to debate this. We have now to debate. We have now to respect sports activities, but additionally the individuals who work for operations.
“And naturally we’re not happy with what we noticed on Friday for the second semi. It should be one of many subjects, not the one matter, however one of many many subjects that we are going to be debriefing.”
Photograph credit score: AP