{"id":233423,"date":"2025-10-30T05:47:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/233423\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T05:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:47:17","slug":"paris-masters-director-speaks-out-after-roger-federer-accusations-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/233423\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris Masters director speaks out after Roger Federer accusations | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paris Masters director Cedric Pioline has confirmed courts at the ATP 1000 event have been slowed. This admission comes weeks after tennis icon Roger Federer<\/a> claimed the sport is slowing down their surfaces to suit leading players Jannik Sinner<\/a> and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Action is well underway<\/a> in the French capital as we approach the final stretch of the ATP calendar. World No. 1 Alcaraz suffered a shock opening loss to Great Britain’s Cam Norrie<\/a> on Tuesday. The same day Alcaraz was sent packing, the director of the 2025 tournament issued a statement in response to questions about the speed of the courts. He revealed that efforts had been made to slow down proceedings after they received complaints that the hard-court surface was too fast last year. A lot has been made of court speed this month, with the iconic Federer making headlines<\/a> for suggesting tournaments across the globe had slowed down their courts<\/a> to suit the overwhelming quality of Sinner and Alcaraz.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to reduce the speed of the court,” said director Pioline on Tuesday. “We were told that last year’s court was too fast. There is never truly a consensus. All players do not share the same opinion. But we tried to find the broadest possible consensus with the largest number of players.<\/p>\n

“We also have a resin surface that becomes increasingly slick as we play on it. The difference between the start of the tournament and the days that follow is obvious.”<\/p>\n

This revelation comes just weeks after Federer spoke his mind on Andy Roddick’s Served podcast<\/a> when asked about the speed of tennis courts on the ATP Tour. He said: “I understand the safety net that tournament directors see in making the surface slower. For the weaker player he has to hit extra amazing shots to beat Sinner.<\/p>\n

“Whereas if it’s quick he can maybe blast a few at the right time and he gets past. That’s why the tournament directors are like, ‘Oh I kind of like to have Sinner and Alcaraz in the finals.’ It kind of works for the game.”<\/p>\n

Sinner was asked about these accusations after Federer’s appearance, though he seemed rather confused about the situation. He said: “It’s a question that\u2026 I don’t know\u2026 we don’t, at least I don’t make the courts. I just want to play tennis, to be honest. I’m trying to play as good as I can.”<\/p>\n

A complaint has already been made in Paris about how slow the hard courts are playing. Alexander Bublik defeated Alexei Popyrin on Tuesday and issued a scathing review of the court afterwards.<\/p>\n

“I’m not entirely happy with the way I played, mainly because the conditions are new,” said Bublik. “The ceiling is high, the courts are slow, and the balls feel different.<\/p>\n

“We’ve used these balls for a while. I played with the same ones in Hangzhou and Beijing, but they all feel different here. So, you just have to get used to it. I think it is the slowest indoor hard court I have played in my life, for sure, by far. Very slow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paris Masters director Cedric Pioline has confirmed courts at the ATP 1000 event have been slowed. This admission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[870,98894,811,21834,6768,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-233423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","9":"tag-court-speed","10":"tag-jannik-sinner","11":"tag-paris-masters","12":"tag-roger-federer","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}