When asked why she thinks people who have tickets don’t always use them, Mauresmo said, “Who knows?” I’m not in their heads.
The president of the French Tennis Federation, Gilles Moretton, added: “We cannot force people to go to the stands.”
Mauresmo and Moretton said at the annual end-of-tournament press conference that more than 650,000 spectators had come to Roland Garros over the past three weeks, including during the qualifying rounds before the start of the main draw on May 26.
Moretton said a review of the entire event would begin within weeks.
“Everything wasn’t perfect. We want to improve,” he said.
A topic raised last yearbut has not seen a change this time around in the way the schedule is managed, particularly with regard to the imbalance between women’s and men’s matches during the night sessions of a match, which were used during the first week and a half of singles brackets each of the last three years.
This year there were no women’s matches and 11 men’s evening matches in European prime time. There has only been one women’s evening match in 2022 and 2023.
“The generation and depth of talent we are currently witnessing in this sport is incredible. Fans want to see the excitement and thrill of women’s tennis on the biggest stages and in prime time slots,” the women’s professional tennis tour, the WTA, said in a statement released by a spokesperson. “To continue to grow the value of our combined product, a balanced match schedule featuring both the best in men’s and women’s tennis is essential.”
Mauresmo, a former number one ranked player who won two Grand Slam singles titles, said someone from the WTA is among those “in the room” when each day’s schedule is determined, and: “I I also saw no pressure to organize (a) women’s match in the evening.
Mauresmo said his biggest concern about the women’s evening matches is that, in part because they use a best-of-three-set format – as opposed to the best-of-five used for men’s Grand Slam competitions – they could be too short. be considered worth the price of admission.
She said she did not want to schedule two evening matches – one women’s and one men’s – because play would then continue too late. Moving the start of the night session forward from 8:15 p.m. local time is not an option because fans wouldn’t arrive at, say, 7 p.m., “given the culture we have in Paris,” Mauresmo said .
The director general of the French Tennis Federation, Stéphane Morel, added that the time needed to empty the stadium after the end of the day session and then allow those with tickets for the night session to enter, takes too much time for an earlier start.
“Nothing is written in stone. Things can change,” Mauresmo said. “It’s only one match that we play in the evening, and therefore we have to make choices. That’s why this year we wanted only men to play in the evening.
AP Tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
