French Open 2022: 'Night sessions will stay', says tournament director Amelie Mauresmo

Paris: French Open night sessions will remain despite the reservations of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic whose epic quarter-final clash ended at 1:15 Wednesday morning in front of thousands of shivering fans, many of whom were huddled in blankets to keep out the biting cold. “Night sessions will stay, but obviously we are going to see whether we move the starting time or not,” admitted tournament director Amelie Mauresmo, a two-time major winner and former world number one. Nadal’s four-set win over defending champion Djokovic was one of 10 matches scheduled at 9pm at this year’s French Open under an agreement with broadcaster Prime Video. Nadal, the 13-time champion, had wanted to play in the daytime and repeated his opposition to taking part in clay court tennis after dark. “It is too late, without a doubt,” said Nadal whose media commitments didn’t finish until 2am on Wednesday. “I understand the other part of the business, without a doubt, that television pays a lot of money but we need to find a balance.” Djokovic also said the night action at Roland Garros starts “too late”. “TV decides. That’s the world we are living in. Broadcasters say it’s going to be night match, day match. They give the money. They decide.” The final night session took place later on Wednesday in the quarter-final between Holger Rune and Casper Ruud, which the latter won to become the first Norwegian man in a Grand Slam semi-final. Nadal’s semi-final against Alexander Zverev will be staged on Friday afternoon. The final on Sunday is also a daytime affair. ‘Lots of pressure’ Mauresmo insisted the Nadal-Djokovic night match, played out on the 15,000-seater Court Philippe Chatrier, had been a hit despite the plummeting temperatures. “When did it end, at half past one? It was full, overcrowded. There was just a handful of people who left earlier,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, night sessions in the stadium are definitely appropriate, because it was always full to the brim every night.” Mauresmo conceded there had been “no miracle solution” to the Nadal-Djokovic conundrum. “There were a lot of discussions. There were a lot of pressures, a lot of issues.” The Australian Open in Melbourne starts its night action at 7:00pm with two matches on the slate. There is a 7:30pm start for the finals. In New York, there will be 12 night sessions at this year’s US Open, also starting at 7:00pm. At Wimbledon, play stops at 11:00pm under a locally-agreed curfew. However, trams operate for free to ferry spectators back to downtown Melbourne after the session ends. In New York, public transport operates 24 hours a day. The last metros back into the centre of Paris are before 1:00. “People need to leave the stadium late enough and make sure that they have a way to come back home, as they should. We do not have the means to organise this for 15,000 people yet,” said Mauresmo. Night sessions in Paris are broadcast by Amazon Prime whereas public broadcaster France Televisions has the rights for daytime matches. ‘Protected event’ From a legal point of view, only the finals of the tournament are classed as “protected events” and broadcast free to air. When it comes to exposure, paid streaming has its restrictions. Even if the Nadal-Djokovic match was offered without subscription on the Amazon site and apps, its audience — although not divulged by the American giant — was probably much lower than the peak of 5.1 million viewers on French terrestrial TV for Nadal’s fourth round match against Felix Auger-Aliassime. Another unexpected fallout from the Nadal-Djokovic epic was the impossibility for sports daily L’Equipe to get the match into its print edition. “When you see the front page this morning, you realise that this schedule is a real problem,” Jean-Philippe Leclaire, deputy editor of L’Equipe told AFP. “We put Alexander Zverev on the front page because we couldn’t wait for Nadal-Djokovic.” Zverev had defeated Carlos Alcaraz in his quarter-final on Chatrier just after 8:00 pm on Tuesday. Read all the Latest News ****, Trending News ****, Cricket News ****, Bollywood News ****, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook****, Twitter and Instagram****.