French Open: Event director Amelie Mauresmo defends lack of ladies’s matches in night time classes | Tennis Information
Amelie Mauresmo has defended the French Open’s coverage of prioritising males’s matches over girls’s in its prestigious night time classes.
Roland-Garros chiefs are as soon as once more underneath fireplace for snubbing girls within the primetime slot underneath the lights on Courtroom Philippe-Chatrier.
WTA stars Coco Gauff and Ons Jabeur have this week criticised the schedulers for not showcasing girls’s tennis, with the latter saying: “I do not suppose they’ve daughters.”
However event director and former world No 1 Mauresmo insists males’s matches take precedence as a result of they’re longer, giving spectators extra worth for cash.
Ons Jabeur has referred to as for extra night time classes for girls’s matches on the French Open
“We’ve got one single match per night time session. It hasn’t modified. Accordingly, we cannot change every thing once more,” she stated.
“The play time is also considered, potential play time, clearly as a result of we won’t plan forward, be it for girls’s tennis or males’s tennis.
“However we have now to take it into consideration as to the 15,000 spectators coming in for the night time session.
“Since males’s tennis is performed on the best-of-five units, three units shall be performed at a minimal. It is difficult for us to do in any other case.”
All six night time classes this 12 months have been males’s matches – together with British No 1 Jack Draper’s four-set, three-hour win over Frenchman Gael Monfils on Thursday night time.
Mauresmo stated the French Open “will not change every thing once more”
There have been solely 4 matches from the ladies’s draw held within the slot because it was launched in 2021.
Pressed as as to if the message coming throughout was that girls are “undeserving”, Mauresmo snapped: “That is not what we’re saying. I’ve to cease you proper there.
“For me, the message will not be altering, and it has by no means been that the women are usually not worthy to play at night time. It is by no means been this. I can’t settle for that you just carry this message. That is actually clear to me.”
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