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French Open director Amelie Mauresmo has responded to criticism the tournament has received this year for constantly prioritizing men's matches over women's in prime-time night sessions.
The night session on the first seven days in Paris were alloted to men's matches before the streak was broken by the fourth-round clash between Aryna Sabalenka and Sloane Stephens on the eighth day.
Fans and many WTA players like Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula criticised the move, with the latter going as far as feeling that women's matches were "undervalued" at the tournament.
However, Mauresmo did not agree with the assessment, explaining that care was taken by the organizers to make sure that both tours were given equal importance in terms of scheduling.
As for Pegula's remarks, the French Open director pointed out that some top-level women's players themselves did not want to play during the night and approached her with different requests. Iga Swiatek, for instance, had revealed earlier that she had asked for day sessions, as all of her other matches during the clay swing had taken place at night.
"Definitely this, in my opinion, and we have numbers to support that, apart from the night sessions, that the prime slots were this time rebalancing also on what happened last year much more balanced between men and women, so that is something for us that is important definitely."
Mauresmo added:
"I hear that she's disappointed with that. I just also want to say that some of the high-profile players, that are women's players I'm talking about, that would be our choices to put in the night matches are not really keen to go at night and are having different requests," Amelie Mauresmo said at her recent press conference.
While Mauresmo did not want people to get the idea that all personal requests were heeded, she wanted to highlight the fact that the French Open scheduling this year was done as fairly as possible.
"We're not always listening to the requests, that's not what I'm saying, but we also try to arrange overall, whether they're men or woman player, we try to arrange everyone if we can. So just, I mean, I think you know that, because I saw some players also commenting on this matter. So this doesn't make also our life easier," Mauresmo said.
"My point is this year that we put definitely way more woman matches on the prime slots in 2023" - French Open director Amelie Mauresmo
Amelie Mauresmo went on to assert that barring the night sessions, more women's matches were scheduled for the prime-time slots at the 2023 French Open.
While she admitted that it was not perfect, she did not think the alternative of scheduling two matches at night was feasible, especially considering the average length of a men's match.
"My point is this year that we put definitely way more woman matches on the prime slots in 2023. It doesn't make it perfect yet, because of these night matches that are unique, that are only one matches, and that's where I come to the lens, and we talked about it last year also," Mauresmo said.
She added:
"Because when you look at it, a men's match that goes in straight sets, it's still around probably between one hour 45, two hours, maybe a bit more, depends, and I think when you have only one match, it makes it difficult to, yeah, to schedule something else, in fact," she added.
