French Open director criticizes WTA for avoiding prime time matches

French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo has revealed that the WTA was not interested in having top-quality matches during prime time.

The second Grand Slam of the year will end on Sunday with the men’s singles final between current world number three Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and number four seed Alexander Zverev of Germany.

The women’s singles category final took place on Saturday. Current world number one Iga Swiatek defeated Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1.

There has been a lot of debate on social media, where it was claimed that the tennis authorities are not doing enough to promote women’s tennis as most of the high-profile matches were not televised during prime time.

Mauresmo, who is also a former world number one and won two Grand Slam titles in her illustrious career but never managed to win the Roland Garros, was recently quoted in a report in which she blamed the WTA authorities for not pushing hard enough to have top players featured on prime time.

“When we do the scheduling, the WTA is in the room as well as the ATP, the Grand Slam supervisor, TV, we are all together,” she said. “I did not see any push also to have the women’s match in the evening. I think it’s a very complicated decision.

“It’s not easy having one match (at night) but again I never say it’s gonna be never (to having women’s matches). It’s not a matter of how interesting the matches can be or could be. For us, it’s a matter of the length of the matches.

“In terms of the people that are coming to watch the match, the 15,000 people that are coming. It’s complicated for us to think that maybe it’s going to be very, very short. So we try our best, and it’s not easy.”