Roland Garros: The Tournament Direction Defends the Night Schedule
PARIS – French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo has confirmed that there are no plans to modify the format of the night matches at Roland Garros. However, she admitted that the current situation is not “ideal”, as men’s singles matches dominate the prime time slot on the Philippe-Chatrier court.The tournament organizers have faced criticism this year for the scheduling at Roland Garros. The night session, an event with separate tickets, has only featured men’s singles matches in 2025, following the trend of previous years. This has led players like Ons Jabeur and Coco Gauff to question the scheduling.
The president of the French Tennis Federation, Gilles Moretton, commented that the choice was based on “putting the best match… for the spectators [in the evening].” Mauresmo has supported this decision, indicating that the choice of the night match is influenced by the estimated playing time, considering that men play matches in the best of five sets and women in the best of three. Mauresmo stated that the night schedule has not changed compared to previous editions. “We have only one match per night session. It hasn’t changed. Consequently, we are not going to change everything again,” she explained.We decided to keep the three matches during the day. If we put two matches at night, it wouldn’t work in terms of the time the players would finish.
Amelie Mauresmo
The potential playing time is also considered, for both women’s and men’s tennis, taking into account the 15,000 spectators attending the night session. Since men’s tennis is played best-of-five sets, a minimum of three sets will be played. “It’s complicated for us to do otherwise,” Mauresmo added.
Mauresmo emphasized that this does not mean that women “are not worthy of playing at night.”A suggestion, including by Gauff, was to change the night schedule to two matches, but Mauresmo dismissed it.
Three matches are played on the Chatrier court during the day session, usually with a women’s singles match opening the event in front of not fully filled stands, and then a night match. The decision on which match goes in the night schedule is made between the FFT and the broadcasters, while the players also offer their preferences.
“We decided to keep the three matches during the day,” Mauresmo said. “If we put those three matches, the easiest way would be to have the two matches at night. Then we wouldn’t have this conversation.”Mauresmo concluded by saying that she understands the conflict of the situation. “It’s not ideal. We can’t tick all the boxes because we have many, many things to think about when making these decisions.”
