{"id":611775,"date":"2026-04-16T23:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611775\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:57:09","slug":"french-open-bans-cameras-in-player-areas-after-melbourne-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611775\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open bans cameras in player areas after Melbourne criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organisers of the French Open have promised that their players will enjoy camera-free privacy in a space of their own, following criticism the Australian Open copped earlier this year from top stars.<\/p>\n

After Coco Gauff’s off-court racquet-smashing at Melbourne Park<\/a> was caught on camera and went viral, the American superstar, Novak Djokovic and Jessica Pegula all hit out, with Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek asking: “Are we tennis players or animals in the zoo?”<\/p>\n

Without mentioning the Australian Open and the US Open, where Aryna Sabalenka had also been caught on camera smashing a racquet, French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo insisted on Thursday that tennis needed to “maintain respect for privacy” and reserve a secluded area for the players’ sole use.<\/p>\n

“Players need a private area, something which will not change,” Mauresmo said. “No cam access.”<\/p>\n

The Paris organisers also won’t be following the Australian Open’s creation of an instant millionaire, not interested in emulating the “AO 1 point slam” novelty contest when local amateur Jordan Smith beat Jannik Sinner, amongst other luminaries, on the way to the jackpot.<\/p>\n

“Our ambition is not to repeat everything that’s done elsewhere,” Mauresmo said.<\/p>\n

“This is not something that corresponds to us, to the image of Roland Garros.”<\/p>\n

Roland Garros will also continue to go its own way on refusing to use the electronic line-calling which is now employed as a matter of course at Wimbledon, the Australian Open and most major events.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, French Open prize money has been increased by about 10 per cent for an overall pot of 61.7 million euros ($101.5 million) \u2014 a bump-up of 5.3 million euros ($8.7 million) from 2025.<\/p>\n

The men’s and women’s singles champions will each receive 2.8 million euros ($4.6 million) and the runners-up 1.4 million euros ($2.3 million), while semifinalists will get 750,000 euros ($1.2 million) and first-round losers 87,000 euros ($143,000).<\/p>\n

Beyond Roland Garros, the Place de la Concorde will again show matches on a big screen for free in Paris during the second week in June, and the tournament will pay a special tribute to two of its departing favourites, home veteran Gael Monfils and Swiss 2015 champion Stan Wawrinka.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organisers of the French Open have promised that their players will enjoy camera-free privacy in a space of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[5844,297184,64,63,18937,1805,1806,2636,3592,297183,24143,588,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-611775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-abc-sport","9":"tag-amelie-mauresmo","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-coco-gauff","13":"tag-french-open","14":"tag-grand-slam","15":"tag-iga-swiatek","16":"tag-novak-djokovic","17":"tag-racquet-smashing","18":"tag-roland-garros","19":"tag-sport","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}