PARIS — Coco Gauff on Thursday mentioned there’s room to “enhance” the French Open schedule and that “girls’s matches are worthy of an evening spot” as organizers at Roland Garros proceed to place males’s matchups there.
Ons Jabeur was closely vital of Roland Garros organizers on Wednesday for his or her choice in putting males’s singles matches within the night slot. Because the night time session was launched in 2022, simply two of 34 matches have featured girls’s singles.
Up to now, a males’s singles match has been featured within the night time slot on daily basis throughout this yr’s Grand Slam occasion. By comparability, the primary match on Courtroom Philippe-Chatrier is often performed in entrance of sparse crowds, and all 4 openers this yr have been girls’s singles.
“It is nonetheless unhappy that we’re nonetheless seeing this,” Jabeur mentioned Wednesday. “I preserve standing by my phrases.
Gauff agreed with Jabeur, including that if organizers have been to play two matches at night time — with play usually starting at 8.15 p.m. domestically — then it might be unfair to place the ladies’s match second.
“I do not suppose {that a} lady ought to play after the boys at 8:15,” Gauff mentioned after her second-round victory over Tereza Valentova on Thursday. “I simply suppose that is unfair.”
“If they’re going to put one match at 8:15, for certain there could possibly be a chance to place a girl there. If they will put two slots, and the primary match is beginning at 8:15, I do not suppose a girl’s match must be performed after a males’s match. I simply do not suppose folks must be occurring at 11 [p.m.] or 12 [a.m.], to be trustworthy.”
Jabeur’s criticism got here after French Tennis Federation president Gilles Moretton mentioned “we have to put the higher match … for the spectators” at night time.
Gauff mentioned girls’s matches can fill that requirement.
“I really feel like we produce some high-quality tennis and we now have some nice stars on the ladies’s facet who followers I am certain would like to see,” Gauff mentioned. “From my expertise, enjoying on the US Open, night time match at 7 p.m., with Novak [Djokovic] following me — and he is the best participant of all time — folks have been virtually simply as excited to see me play as [they were] him.
“Similar with different locations I play, like Australia. Evening match, folks have been excited to see [me], too. I undoubtedly suppose there’s alternative to enhance that sooner or later with this match.”