'High-Profile Women's Players' Not Helping Roland Garros Unfair Scheduling Dilemma
WTA
Roland Garros' scheduling was a talking point for the second year in a row which left tournament director Amelie Mauremo having to defend it.
Mauresmo defended the scheduling last year as well but stumbled a bit while choosing her words making it seem like she suggested that men's matches are simply more interesting than women's matches.
Generally speaking, men's matches do tend to fill out stands more even if the tickets are more expensive. As a premier slot, the night slot generally looked to maximize the most out of it by scheduling men's matches once again.
WTA Council member Jessica Pegula spoke about it in her column for BBC Sport and Mauresmo once again spoke on the topic following the conclusion of the event.
I hear that she's disappointed with that. I just also want to say that some of the high-profile players, that are women's players I'm talking about, that would be our choices to put in the night matches are not really keen to go at night and are having different requests.
The top WTA player Iga Swiatek publicly confirmed that she requests day matches from the organizers which certainly doesn't help Mauresmo organize things very well. Coco Gauff was another player that confirmed that players simply don't like playing in that time slot which puts the organizers in a tricky spot finding the most agreeable in that regard.
This year's event saw only one women's match put in that time slot and it proved a pretty good experience for all involved as Sabalenka produced a solid effort that awarded a pretty good attendance. The schedule was defended during the event as well and Mauresmo confirmed that she's comfortable with the way it went even though things could always be better.
I'm comfortable with the scheduling on the day, but yes, we can do better on the night matches. My point is this year that we put definitely way more woman matches on the prime slots in 2023. It doesn't make it perfect yet, because of these night matches that are unique, that are only one matches, and that's where I come to the lens, and we talked about it last year also.
