{"id":698724,"date":"2026-05-28T05:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698724\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T05:53:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:53:19","slug":"wta-tour-meets-with-french-open-organizers-over-lack-of-womens-matches-in-night-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698724\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Tour meets with French Open organizers over lack of women\u2019s matches in night sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 After two years without a women\u2019s match in a French Open night session<\/a>, despite lobbying from broadcasters and some players, WTA Chair Valerie Camillo became the latest stakeholder to directly advocate for scheduling women\u2019s matches in primetime at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

Camillo, who was hired in late October to head the women\u2019s tour, had a meeting with French Open organizers, including tournament director Am\u00e9lie Mauresmo, in the days before the main draw began.<\/p>\n

In a statement sent to The Athletic, the WTA said Camillo requested the meeting during her regular travel to the tournament \u201cto discuss the extraordinary level of competition and excitement across the women\u2019s game this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two (Camillo and Mauresmo) met and held an open and productive conversation. During the meeting, Valerie raised the scheduling of women\u2019s matches in the tournament\u2019s night sessions. Over the past five years, four of the 50 night-session matches at Roland-Garros have featured women, including none in 2024 or 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French Tennis Federation (FFT) did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting.<\/p>\n

The scheduling of women\u2019s matches has long been an issue at Roland Garros, which since the introduction of a night session in 2021 has scheduled just four of them in that slot, effectively shutting women out of primetime of what the tournament bills as \u201cone great match\u201d per day.<\/p>\n

The most recent women\u2019s match featured on Court Philippe-Chatrier at night was in 2023, between Sloane Stephens and Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

In news conferences across the past several tournaments, Mauresmo has said that her reason for almost exclusively scheduling men\u2019s matches at night centers around quantity, not quality of play. Men\u2019s matches are best-of-five sets at Grand Slams, while women\u2019s matches are best-of-three, meaning, hypothetically, viewers at home and in person get more bang for their buck if the match goes longer. But women\u2019s matches can stretch as long as three hours; men\u2019s matches can last just 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

Women players also face a double dose of inequality at Roland Garros, where they frequently open play on the tournament\u2019s main show court, Philippe-Chatrier. The session begins at noon, which is routinely the time of day the stadium is at its emptiest. That affects both the in-person atmosphere for the players and the quality of the television product for viewers at home.<\/p>\n

The French Open has stood firm on its decision to schedule men\u2019s matches at night despite past requests from stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Last year, the tournament\u2019s broadcasting partner in France, Amazon Prime, asked the tournament<\/a> to schedule unheralded breakout Lois Boisson\u2019s fourth-round match against Jessica Pegula in a night session, which the tournament declined. Tennis Channel executives also lobbied for putting women\u2019s matches in the night session when it was the U.S. broadcast partner, before the tournament moved to TNT\/HBO Max.<\/p>\n

The tournament looks particularly stubborn in its scheduling ethos this year, considering how lopsided the volume of storylines in the women\u2019s draw is compared to the men\u2019s. Because of Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s absence, injuries to several other star men\u2019s players, Gael Monfils\u2019 loss in the first round and a lack of legitimate challengers for title favorite Jannik Sinner, there aren\u2019t many options of well-known men\u2019s players to schedule at night.<\/p>\n

Still, the French Open forged ahead. On Thursday in Paris, No. 22 seed Arthur Rinderknech will face former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini at night on Chatrier. Four-time Grand Slam champion Aryna Sabalenka, fellow four-time champion Naomi Osaka and French Open defending champion Coco Gauff will all play their second-round matches during the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 After two years without a women\u2019s match in a French Open night session, despite lobbying from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,569,82,575,593],"class_list":["post-698724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-culture","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}