"We attract a lot of fans": Danielle Collins weighs in on debate surrounding men's tennis given preferential treatment at French Open

America’s tennis star Danielle Collins also shared thoughts about the lack of women’s matches on the centre court at night during the French Open. The second Grand Slam of the year started on Sunday with both men’s and women’s players battling it out to secure the ultimate glory.

There has been a lot of chatter about the preference given to men’s tennis for matches at night on the centre court at Roland Garros. Recently, the debate intensified further due to comments from Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, who stated that such decisions have been made for the betterment of the competition.

“The schedule is one key point on the tournament,” he said as quoted by The Athletic. “Sometimes we have to think about what could be better for spectators. That’s why sometimes we have to make some choices. Sometimes we need to put, I mean, for the night session, we need to put the better match. Maybe we will have a few, I have no idea, a few female matches on the night sessions. We’ll see. Depends on the schedule, who is playing who, who will be the best match.”

Those comments did not go down well with some players in women’s tennis, including Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, whereas others showed a lack of interest in such a discussion, such as Iga Swiatek. American tennis player Collins, who was knocked out of the Roland Garros 2025 after suffering a defeat on Wednesday to Olga Danilovic in the round of 64 with a score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, was asked about the issue during a media interaction. The 31-year-old was of the opinion that, in her point of view, not having women's matches at night, citing a lack of crowd interest, is not correct, as in general, women’s tennis generates a more than decent audience at every event.

“To be honest, I haven’t put a lot of thought into the scheduling,” she said. “I’m always just focused on trying to do my job and do it the best as possible. But I do think there’s a lot of benefits to having the women on during the night matches. We attract a lot of fans. A lot of crowd. We create a lot of discussion around the game overall. I think there is certainly value there having us on the night schedule as well. It’s probably a little out of the ordinary competed to some of the other events. That’s all I can really say.”