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 bear in mind agreeing with Philippe Bouin, the good French tennis author for L’Équipe, that if the French Open ever selected to hitch different Grand Slam tournaments and stage evening classes, it could be the appropriate time to maneuver on to different pursuits as an alternative of submitting tales lengthy after midnight and lacking any probability at a last-call bistro meal.
There are definitely larger points in tennis, however Bouin kind of stored his phrase, retiring lengthy earlier than the French Open adopted its “classes de nuit” in 2021. However I’ve stored coming, and there I used to be bundled up in an almost full stadium as Tuesday changed into 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 just a few French followers nonetheless attempting in useless to hail a taxi or e book a journey.
Evening classes have their upside in tennis, little question: electrical environment, prime-time protection (relying on one’s time zone) and an opportunity for followers who work through the day to attend in individual.
However the brand new evening classes at Roland Garros, created above all to extend earnings 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 manner by scheduling only one match in that slot as an alternative of two, the same old providing at different Grand Slam occasions.
Man Overlook, the previous French Open event director who was a part of that call, mentioned it was made “so matches wouldn’t finish at 3 a.m.”
Wimbledon stays a holdout on evening classes (grass will get much more slippery after sundown). However the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, which have had evening classes for many years, often schedule a males’s singles match and a girls’s singles match, and there have been just a few all-nighters alongside the way in which, 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 way in which again to the resort.)
The French Open strategy 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 properly over 100 euros a ticket?
It additionally has been problematic for gender equality. The ten Roland Garros evening 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 evening classes, with no followers on 9 of 10 nights due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The disparity has continued regardless that Amélie Mauresmo, a former WTA No. 1 from France, is the brand new French Open event director. Pressed on the difficulty 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 dangerous or unfair saying that proper now” the lads’s recreation was typically extra enticing and interesting than the ladies’s recreation.
Mauresmo mentioned her aim after the draw got here out was to attempt to discover girls’s matches that she might put in that showcase nighttime slot. However she mentioned she struggled to seek out the marquee matchups and star energy she was searching for. Ladies’s matches are additionally sometimes shorter with a best-of-three-sets format, in contrast with finest of 5 for the lads.
“I admit it was powerful,” she mentioned. “It was powerful for a couple of evening to seek out, as you say, the match of the day,” she mentioned, 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 stunning,” Swiatek mentioned of Mauresmo’s feedback after operating 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 finest 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 often picked to be the opening match on the 2 principal present courts through the day classes: a time slot during which crowds and viewership are sometimes smaller.
“The era and depth of expertise we’re presently witnessing within the sport is unimaginable,” he mentioned. “Our followers wish to see the thrill and thrill of ladies’s tennis on the largest levels 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 essential in offering that pathway.”
The WTA was brief on celebrity 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 tough 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 mentioned in a textual content message.
Why not merely schedule two matches, or two girls’s matches, at evening to ensure sufficient leisure? As a result of, in accordance with Mauresmo, the night-session broadcast contracts from 2021 by 2023 stipulate that there be only one match.
“Not possible to alter that,” Mauresmo mentioned. “However we nonetheless will speak with our companions to consider different prospects that would fulfill ticket holders.”
That feels like a nice concept, 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 problem 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 normal public broadcaster. And but it’s presupposed to get the marquee match even when the contract, in accordance with L’Équipe, permits the French Open organizers the ultimate say.
However there was little question in regards to 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 evening sparked debate and anger.
“The French Tennis Federation’s choices shocks me profoundly,” Delphine Ernotte, president of France Televisions, informed Le Figaro. “It’s a low blow to our partnership after we’ve got 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 environment 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 achieve 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.
