Nights Show a Tough Ticket at French Open

PARIS — Maybe 10 years in the past, over a late dinner at la Porte d’Auteuil after an extended day of masking matches at Roland Garros, I keep in mind agreeing with Philippe Bouin, the good French tennis author for L’Équipe, that if the French Open ever selected to affix different Grand Slam tournaments and stage night time classes, it could be the fitting time to maneuver on to different pursuits as a substitute of submitting tales lengthy after midnight and lacking any likelihood at a last-call bistro meal.

There are definitely greater points in tennis, however Bouin kind of saved his phrase, retiring lengthy earlier than the French Open adopted its “classes de nuit” in 2021. However I’ve saved coming, and there I used to be bundled up in an almost full stadium as Tuesday became Wednesday and Could into June as Rafael Nadal completed off Novak Djokovic of their stirring quarterfinal at 1:15 a.m.

There I used to be, too, strolling out of Roland Garros a few hours later and — with no public transport out there — observing a couple of French followers nonetheless attempting in useless to hail a taxi or e book a trip.

Night time classes have their upside in tennis, little doubt: electrical ambiance, prime-time protection (relying on one’s time zone) and an opportunity for followers who work through the day to attend in particular person.

However the brand new night time classes at Roland Garros, created above all to extend income for an occasion that trails the opposite the Grand Slam occasions in home tv income, even have had loads of downsides. That’s largely as a result of the French determined to do them their very own method by scheduling only one match in that slot as a substitute of two, the same old providing at different Grand Slam occasions.

Man Neglect, the previous French Open event director who was a part of that call, stated it was made “so matches wouldn’t finish at 3 a.m.”

Wimbledon stays a holdout on night time classes (grass will get much more slippery after sundown). However the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, which have had night time classes for many years, normally schedule a males’s singles match and a girls’s singles match, and there have been a couple of all-nighters alongside the best way, together with a Lleyton Hewitt victory over Marcos Baghdatis on the 2008 Australian Open that ended at 4:34 a.m. (It was fairly a dawn on the best way again to the lodge.)

The French Open method has been problematic when it comes to worth for cash — is one blowout within the chill, like Marin Cilic’s rout of Daniil Medvedev — value effectively over 100 euros a ticket?

It additionally has been problematic for gender equality. The ten Roland Garros night time classes this yr featured only one girls’s match: the Frenchwoman Alizé Cornet’s victory over Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. It was the identical ratio final yr, when the event debuted the night time classes, with no followers on 9 of 10 nights due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The disparity has continued although Amélie Mauresmo, a former WTA No. 1 from France, is the brand new French Open event director. Pressed on the problem on Wednesday, the morning after the Nadal-Djokovic duel, Mauresmo displayed clumsy footwork, saying that, as a girl and a “former girls’s participant,” she did “not really feel unhealthy or unfair saying that proper now” the boys’s sport was usually extra enticing and interesting than the ladies’s sport.

Mauresmo stated her objective after the draw got here out was to attempt to discover girls’s matches that she may put in that showcase nighttime slot. However she stated she struggled to seek out the marquee matchups and star energy she was in search of. Ladies’s matches are additionally usually shorter with a best-of-three-sets format, in contrast with greatest of 5 for the boys.

“I admit it was robust,” she stated. “It was robust for a couple of night time to seek out, as you say, the match of the day,” she stated, sounding considerably apologetic.

Iga Swiatek, the 21-year-old Polish star, didn’t get a nighttime task regardless of being the brand new No. 1 and a former French Open champion.

“It’s a little bit disappointing and shocking,” Swiatek stated of Mauresmo’s feedback after working her successful streak to 33 singles matches on Wednesday with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jessica Pegula, an American. She added that it was extra handy for many gamers to compete through the day, “however for certain I wish to entertain, and I additionally wish to present my greatest tennis in each match.”

In a textual content message, Steve Simon, the WTA chief, expressed disapproval with the nighttime scheduling and with the truth that girls’s matches had been normally picked to be the opening match on the 2 major present courts through the day classes: a time slot wherein crowds and viewership are sometimes smaller.

“The technology and depth of expertise we’re at the moment witnessing within the sport is unimaginable,” he stated. “Our followers wish to see the thrill and thrill of girls’s tennis on the most important phases and within the premium time slots. There may be definitely room for enchancment, and if we wish to construct the worth of our mixed product, then a balanced match schedule is vital in offering that pathway.”

The WTA was brief on famous person energy at Roland Garros with the shock retirement of top-ranked Ashleigh Barty in March, the first-round defeats of Naomi Osaka and the defending French Open champion, Barbora Krejcikova, and the continued absence of Serena and Venus Williams, who’ve but to compete this yr.

However the one-match nighttime format additionally made it troublesome to showcase Swiatek, who’s successful most of her matches in a rush at this stage. “The quantity of taking part in time is definitely an element,” Mauresmo stated in a textual content message.

Why not merely schedule two matches, or two girls’s matches, at night time to ensure sufficient leisure? As a result of, in response to Mauresmo, the night-session broadcast contracts from 2021 by way of 2023 stipulate that there be only one match.

“Not possible to vary that,” Mauresmo stated. “However we nonetheless will speak with our companions to think about different prospects that might fulfill ticket holders.”

That feels like a effective thought, as does beginning sooner than 8:45 p.m., even with a single match, if the thought is to spare gamers too many late nights and keep away from irking the neighbors within the leafy and peaceable suburb of Boulogne, which was another excuse for the one-match idea.

The larger difficulty in France is accessibility. Amazon Prime Video, the web broadcaster that bought the night-session rights right here, has a small footprint in contrast with the standard public broadcaster. And but it’s speculated to get the marquee match even when the contract, in response to L’Équipe, permits the French Open organizers the ultimate say.

However there was little doubt concerning the marquee match on Tuesday, and although Amazon Prime agreed exceptionally to permit free entry to its service to viewers in France, the choice to schedule Nadal and Djokovic’s quarterfinal at night time sparked debate and anger.

“The French Tennis Federation’s selections shocks me profoundly,” Delphine Ernotte, president of France Televisions, instructed Le Figaro. “It’s a low blow to our partnership after we now have broadcast and popularized the occasion for years.”

To have the matchup of the event finish at 1:15 a.m. on a weeknight certainly was not nice for viewership in France, both. And although the ambiance was nonetheless transcendent inside the primary stadium after midnight, there was a worth to pay on the street residence.

French Open organizers have but to succeed in an settlement with the Parisian authorities to maintain public transport working after very late finishes.

The Métro was closed, and so — as Bouin and I feared way back — had been the bistros.