{"id":159507,"date":"2025-06-05T06:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T06:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/159507\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T06:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T06:27:10","slug":"french-open-accused-of-declining-tv-request-to-play-lois-boisson-match-in-night-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/159507\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open accused of declining TV request to play Lois Boisson match in night session"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS \u2014 The French Open<\/a> has been accused of turning down a request from Amazon Prime to broadcast Lo\u00efs Boisson<\/a>\u2019s fourth-round match against Jessica Pegula<\/a> Monday in the primetime night session slot on Court Philippe-Chatrier, the biggest court at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

The broadcaster has exclusive rights to the evening session of the tournament, and multiple people briefed on discussions between Amazon and the French Open have told The Athletic that the tournament declined to schedule Boisson\u2019s match against Pegula, which was played June 2, to start from 8:15 p.m. CEST. They spoke on condition of anonymity, to protect relationships in sports media and tennis.<\/p>\n

The match was instead scheduled in the second daytime slot. It was played in front of swathes of empty seats in the early stages, despite Boisson winning and becoming the first home women\u2019s quarterfinalist here for eight years.<\/p>\n

The French Tennis Federation (FFT) declined to comment on the scheduling of the match.<\/p>\n

The scheduling of women\u2019s matches has been an ongoing debate at the tournament. For the second year in a row, there have been no women\u2019s matches in the coveted slot, which is billed as \u201cone great match\u201d on the tournament\u2019s website. Women\u2019s matches have also opened play on Chatrier every day of the tournament, at a time when the stadium is at its most empty.<\/p>\n

The Roland Garros tournament director, Am\u00e9lie Mauresmo, was asked about the night session during a heated press conference Saturday May 31. She said that the absence of women\u2019s matches was down to men\u2019s matches being five sets, and therefore offering evening spectators better value for money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has never been that the girls are not worthy to play at night,\u201d Mauresmo said. \u201cIt\u2019s never been this, and I will not accept that you carry this message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week,\u00a0 FFT president Gilles Moretton had said that scheduling decisions were based on \u201cwhat is better for spectators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mauresmo also denied that scheduling women\u2019s matches at a time when crowds are sparse sends a negative message to WTA players. But in the days following her news conference, a number of leading women\u2019s players, including Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula criticised the disparity, which has led to there being four women\u2019s matches in 55 night sessions since their introduction in 2021.<\/p>\n

Lindsay Davenport, a former world No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam singles champion, added her voice to the criticisms Wednesday. Davenport, who is covering the tournament for TNT Sports, told a few reporters that she \u201cwould ask\u201d Mauresmo about \u201cputting the women in the more high-profile slots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read her press conference, but I can\u2019t imagine that a former world No. 1 women\u2019s tennis player is doing that on her own. There has to be some kind of outside influence there, but hopefully as the years go hopefully we can start to work towards a solution,\u201d Davenport said, adding that she has found the scheduling of women\u2019s matches in the morning most disappointed this year.<\/p>\n

The FFT did not respond to a request for comment on Davenport\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n

Patrick Mouratoglou, the former coach of Serena Williams who now works with Naomi Osaka, defended the disparity in a post on Instagram Monday, and said that day matches get more exposure than night matches because they are on national television.<\/p>\n

All television networks with rights to the event can make requests for the next day\u2019s schedule. They are taken into account by the tournament, but with no guarantee that they will be granted. TNT Sports which holds the U.S. rights, requested that Wednesday\u2019s match between Coco Gauff and Madison Keys not be scheduled in the first slot of the day, which is at 11 a.m. CEST French time (5 a.m. ET \/ 2 a.m. PT).<\/p>\n

The tournament ultimately scheduled Boisson\u2019s quarterfinal against Mirra Andreeva in the second slot that TNT would have preferred, with Gauff and Keys occupying the first. The men\u2019s quarterfinals had to take the third daytime slot and the night session Wednesday, because the women\u2019s semifinals are on Thursday. The men\u2019s are not until Friday.<\/p>\n

Boisson is still in the tournament, after defeating Andreeva<\/a> to reach the semifinals. Ranked No. 361, she is only the third player since 1980 to reach the semifinals in their first appearance at a Grand Slam, and the first Frenchwoman to get to the last four at the French Open since Marion Bartoli in 2011.<\/p>\n

She faces the American No. 2 seed Gauff Thursday for a place in the final. When they will be scheduled remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

(Photo: Julian Finney \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROLAND GARROS, PARIS \u2014 The French Open has been accused of turning down a request from Amazon Prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,25711,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-159507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-sports-business","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114629341545410975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}