The night of Roland Garros excludes (again) the tennis players

"Next year, with the aim of being fairer with the players, we will try to find a better solution," said Roland Garros director Amélie Mauresmo a year ago, taking stock. However, it happens again. There is no rectification or patch. When the sun goes down in Paris and the spotlights on the centre court come on, the light shines on them, the players. Yes, in masculine. As in the previous edition, the facts speak clearly and underline the asymmetry: of the ten matches scheduled for the night session, in the prime time slot, nine have corresponded to the men's team and only one to the women's. The imbalance squeaks again and criticism intensifies, no matter how much the organization strives to argue.

"I would prefer not to answer...", says with resignation the American Sloane Stephens, already eliminated, protagonist of the only pulse between two women this year along with the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka. " I'm on the Player Council and we've had a lot of conversations about equality. I don't know how many times I've played here, but I've never played at night and no one [from management] has asked me for my opinion. It's their tournament, so they do what they want; We should not lecture them about what they should or should not do. I think the data speaks for itself. It is what it is, and they are not going to change it. We can't do anything," laments the American, winner of a major and who synthesizes the general feeling of the WTA locker room.

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Alcaraz and Tsitsipas, between naps and rest

Meanwhile, Mauresmo and his team argue that the room for manoeuvre is very limited. The director – at the helm since last year, in relief of Guy Forget – exposes that there are several conditioning factors and that, although this time she has not verbalized it, the audience commands and men's tennis captures greater attention. That is, the feminine "is less attractive," he said in 2022, raising a great dust. "My comments were taken out of context," said the Frenchwoman, double Grand Slam champion and number one in 2004, "strong defender," she says, "of women's rights, in general." But he came to influence some statements he made to L'Èquipe in 2016, when he pointed out that the game practiced by men was "more attractive" to have Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, and that "there was no debate".

Sloane Stephens, during her round of 16 match. EMMANUEL DUNAND (AFP)

This edition, Roland Garros has advanced the night sessions – from 21.00 to 20.30 – with the aim of avoiding the delays of other years, when the day lasted until dawn. Unlike the Australian Open and the US Open, which include two night matches in the golf session, one male and one female, the Parisian great fixes only one and every day four are played in the central, in total; two from men and two from women. "In Paris, people leave work quite late, so having them sitting at seven-thirty in the stadium is a challenge, so we wanted to solve that problem. We don't want to finish at three in the morning. It's not ideal, but that's why we don't want to have two games. It's not easy to choose, you have to take into account many things," Mauresmo said recently on Eurosport.

Change your mindset

In March, the head of the governing body of the women's circuit, Steve Simon, already sent a message to the leader. "At the end of the day, you are what you say you are. Unless you show the product at prime time, you're telling the consumer what its value is; therefore, it is very important that there is a mixture of men and women in that range," he told the BBC. Despite the demand, nothing has changed in Paris, where this Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of the formalization of gay marriage – a celebration to which the tournament officially joins – and where the gap points to Mauresmo, who on the other hand has always denounced that "society remains and will always be sexist, worldwide", and that seven years ago she formed a pioneering bond with Scotland's Andy Murray, becoming the first woman to coach a male figure in tennis.

"With the schedules, they continue to treat us like second-class citizens," denounces the historical Billie Jean King, the great activist icon of the racket. "It's stupid, that's what it is. I think the match I played was great, and we have great players. A lot of women's matches are fantastic; We played very well too, and that's it. It's a tournament for everyone, isn't it? Men and women," replied angry the Serbian Olga Danilovic after falling last Saturday to the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, equally forceful in the claim. "It was time for us to turn to us," claimed the African, who delved into the underlying issue: "It is time for us to change the vision of all this. People judge without seeing, they directly say that our parties are shit without even seeing them, and it is not like that. There are extraordinary matches. Women make a great effort on a daily basis, many sacrifices that men do not have to make. Sometimes I ask: Have you seen any? And they say no. How can they judge without seeing? We must change our mentality."

Marc Maury and Mauresmo, during an event at Roland Garros.AFP7 via Europa Press (AFP7 via Europa Press)

There is noise, but there is no spinning. "We will consider putting two matches, either one women's and one doubles. We must take into account the duration, people pay a ticket, "argued a year ago Mauresmo, reasoning that the price of the night session, higher, requires for the fan a more extensive menu than that of a match between girls, shorter than those of the boys, who play five sets instead of three. In any case, for the Sabalenka-Stephens on Sunday all the paper was sold and the stand ended up being populated, despite the fact that the previous afternoon a considerable amount of tickets had been returned when the agenda was announced. "I did not expect so many people, it has been magnificent," thanked the first; "I felt like it was a final, everyone was enjoying it." The director, meanwhile, is still in her thirteens.

THE OPPOSITE SIDE: CONTRAINDICATIONS

A. C. | Paris

Although prime time has a hierarchical component and increases or decreases the status of players, the vast majority of professionals prefer to compete during the daytime slot. Staying up late implies a modification of the routine and adapting the biorhythms, in addition to knowing how to manage the nervousness inherent in the preamble of the matches. But not only that. It also means an extra fatigue when having to go to bed at dawn, since after playing they must lower revolutions, return the body to calm and complete the nutritional section, if not do some kind of treatment.

In that sense, these days the young Coco Gauff was pronounced. "I guess for TV it's the most important thing, but it actually sucks," the 19-year-old American says openly. "Every player I've spoken to has told me they don't want to play at night; In that sense, I'm glad they give priority to men, but at the same time that sucks," repeats the American.

Carlos Alcaraz, without going any further, prefers to compete during the day and last year he already raised his voice when the organization of Roland Garros scheduled two of his matches at night, in a row. "It wouldn't seem fair to me. It doesn't bother me, but you have less time to rest and you finish everything very late; Even if you finish at twelve, then you have to have dinner, the physio... And you don't sleep the same because of the adrenaline of the game," he said.

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