Mauresmo on Evening Struggle: Stars and Match-Ups Matter

By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, June 10, 2024Picture credit score: AP

Roland Garros pulled the plug on ladies’s night time periods this yr.

Evening sightlines could not change dramatically subsequent yr both, mentioned Roland Garros match director Amélie Mauresmo.

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In her post-tournament presser, Mauresmo was requested why all Roland Garros night time periods featured males’s matches and no ladies’s matches.

Corridor of Famer Mauresmo mentioned for the reason that match solely schedules one match at night time, the choice comes down to 2 main components:

1. Does the match function a star participant who can fill Court docket Philippe Chatrier stadium?

2. Will the match be compelling and the way lengthy will it final?

“Nicely, we solely have one match, and we have now constraints given the time it takes to play a match,” Mauresmo advised the media in Paris. “I repeat what I mentioned final yr. First, we have now the massive names that we’re searching for. We’re searching for the perfect gamers to play at night time 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 night time, and due to this fact we have now to make selections. That is why this yr we needed to have solely males taking part in at night time.”

You possibly can perceive why match organizers wouldn’t desire a 68-minute blow-out that world No. 1 Iga Swiatek unleashed on Jasmine Paolini within the ultimate as the only real night time 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 ultimate set saving match level to edge Naomi Osaka within the second spherical was one of the vital pulsating matches of the match and spanned two hours, 57 minutes.

Some gamers, together with Daniil Medvedev, recommended host broadcaster Amazon dictates, or least performs a significant position, in night-session scheduling selections.

Former Wimbledon winner Mauresmo shot down recommendations that Amazon requested for a ladies’s night time match replying “No, no, no. In no way.”

So what is the answer?

Mauresmo mentioned the match has thought-about going to 2 night-session matches, because the US Open does at Arthur Ashe Stadium, nonetheless because of the notoriously tardy Parisian fan base, she suggests it may imply 1000’s of empty seats firstly, which creates one other subject.

“We requested ourselves the questions two years in the past,” Mauresmo mentioned. “We thought possibly two matches is one thing to be thought-about, however given the tradition we have now in Paris, folks do not come at 7:00 p.m. on the stadium.

“Subsequently, we’d produce other issues to face then if we had two matches.”

Requested how Roland Garros can stop 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 mentioned options are being mentioned.

“So right now, properly, I am not going to provide the miracle answer,” Mauresmo mentioned. “I am not going to be sharing the concepts we have been occupied with or I have been occupied with. We’ve to debate this. We’ve to debate. We’ve to respect sports activities, but in addition the individuals who work for operations.

“And naturally we’re not glad with what we noticed on Friday for the second semi. It may be one of many subjects, not the one subject, however one of many many subjects that we are going to be debriefing.”

Picture credit score: AP