ROLAND GARROS

May 30, 2025

Amelie Mauresmo

Press Conference

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) I wanted to come and see you because it's true we haven't seen each other since the draw. The days are very busy for you, as for myself. So I take the time this morning to take stock of the situation.

Before answering your questions, I would like to talk about the beginning of the tournament, which actually was very strong with a few tributes, especially to Rafa.

We wanted it to be up to par with his image, and I think we succeeded. I would like to thank all the teams for their outstanding job.

We worked in small teams to keep it confidential and secret. I think it's a good thing. Not a lot of information was disclosed ahead of time, so it's a good thing because it was a surprise for him, a total surprise. So it was up to par, I think, to what we wanted to give him, to the emotion we wanted to trigger. He actually owned it. It's thanks to him obviously that it had such emotion.

There was Richard as well yesterday. Nico, as well, last night. That was also last night. Caro, Caroline, who actually announced it was her last Roland Garros edition this year. We'll see what we'll do next year for Caroline. A lot of emotions during the beginning of the tournament.

The opening week was also quite outstanding. There was a lot of crowd. There was a full crowd. They were all very satisfied. It's good thing for us.

I just wanted to start with this, so I'll take questions. Maybe you have questions. Maybe there are things you want to tackle.

Q. (Translated from French.) I'll start with the negative notes. You've had a lot of criticism because of the night-session scheduling.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) Are you talking about Ons Jabeur? (Translated from French.) As for the scheduling, night-session scheduling, nothing new under the sun as compared to the previous editions. We have one single match per night session. It hasn't changed. Accordingly, we won't change everything again.

The play time also is taken into consideration, potential play time, obviously because we can't plan ahead, be it for women's tennis or men's tennis. But we have to take it into consideration as to the 15,000 spectator coming in for the night session.

Since men's tennis is played at the best-of-five sets, three sets will be played at a minimum. It's complicated for us to do otherwise.

Q. (Translated from French.) There's a match tomorrow night. PSG match.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) Really?

Q. (Translated from French.) Is it complicated for tomorrow's scheduling? Will you publish the order of play soon?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) We have to do a lot of fine-tuning for the order of play for tomorrow. We'll try to publish it as soon as possible for players to be able to prep ahead of time.

We started thinking last night about it. But we need to sleep on it before we actually do the order of play. This afternoon you'll have it. The fact that there's the Champions League final won't change much for us anyway.

We're trying to do our utmost for the tournament. We are very happy to PSG. We're trying to do our job organizing this tournament. 15,000 people will come over here to watch tennis tomorrow. We'll try to give them the best possible match.

Q. (Translated from French.) Following up on the PSG match, it will be open to the public. It will be close to here. 40,000 people will come in. Have there been some security arrangements set up?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) Thanks for this question. This is an important piece of information. The Line 9 of the tube will be opening. It was supposed to be closed. It's important for them and us. It's an important piece of news, a good one, for the people coming to the park, but also to those coming here.

They will be able to use that line. All around Roland Garros there will be police department teams that will be rolled out. Also safety arrangements will be set up. It was well set up. Also outside the police department and prefecture have done everything, scheduled everything. They're used to that kind of event.

Q. (In English.) Getting back to the decision about the night sessions, what do you think the consequences are of essentially telling women they're not worthy?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) That's not what we're saying. I have to stop you right there.

Q. (In English.) That's not what you were saying, but that is the message they are receiving, that's the message that I think a lot of girls receive. I think sometimes people have to think also not necessarily about what they're saying but how their message is being received. What do you think are the consequences of how the message is being received?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) For me, the message that I always said, and I will repeat, as I said, the conditions did not change from having one unique match in the evening. For me, the message is not changing, and it has never been that the girls are not worthy to play at night. It's never been this. I will not accept that you carry this message. That's really clear to me.

What I'm saying is I'm talking, and we're talking, 'cause I'm not the only one to make the decisions, we are talking about potential (indiscernible). In this perspective, it is hard to say that the two sets can go really fast when you have three sets minimum.

I don't know, one hour and a half, two hours, maybe more. I don't know. That's the lens for me. For me that's the lens of the matches. It's not the level they reach right now. I'm not talking about this. I mean, what would you do?

Q. (In English.) What would I do? Do you really want to know?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Yes.

Q. (In English.) I would solve the problem so the women don't receive the message that you're not...

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) That's what you think the message is. That's your interpretation.

Q. (In English.) I have three daughters. That's what many women in the room feel the message is. I guess I would listen to them to start.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) You know, if we wouldn't have this conversation, maybe we talk about it on last Sunday.

Q. (In English.) Prime is the broadcaster in the night session. I was watching Prime last night. It did occur to me if I was only a Prime viewer and I could only watch the tennis when I got home from work, I wouldn't even know there was a woman's tournament, which is a problem.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) If you watch Prime, it means you are in France, because they only broadcast on this territory. Then you would have the national TV.

Q. (In English.) Yes. But if I was only able to watch in the evening, I wouldn't know.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) You have many matches that are going in the evening, especially in this first week of the main draw, broadcasting men and women's matches on France TV.

Q. (In English.) Can I ask a specific question about the Prime contract, which I believe was resigned two years ago. Is that right?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Yeah, probably. I don't have the dates.

Q. (In English.) Does that contract stipulate that you can only have one match? Because a solution surely would be two women's matches? But you can't do that?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) We have one match.

Q. (In English.) Why did you sign that contract?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) I'm not the only one signing the contract. It's actually the Federation signing the contract.

Q. (In English.) Which tells us they actually put...

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) About the choice of having one match? The evening. I talk about it every year, but I can say the things again this year.

We decide to keep the three matches in the day. When you put those three matches, the easy way would be to have the two matches in the evening. Then we wouldn't have this conversation.

But in my opinion, if we don't want to finish too late, we cannot have the five matches in the day. As I said, for people here in Paris, they come out of work, they usually come to here, Roland Garros, 7:30, 8:00. To hope to try to have a full house in the evening is 8:00, 8:30, beginning of the night sessions.

If we have two matches in the night sessions, it doesn't work in terms of how late the players are going to finish. That's my opinions.

But if we start earlier, it's going to work in terms of... The stands are going to be empty in most of the first match. In my opinion, that's what we think. So we keep this one match in the evening.

It's not ideal. We cannot check every box because we have many, many things to think when we are doing these choices.

Q. (In English.) Question of priorities.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Choices. Sometimes you cannot tick every box.

Q. (In English.) You've just said it's an issue, there would be empty stands for the first match in the night session if you were to have two. That's a concession that having empty stands for matches is not ideal. So therefore taking night sessions out of it, women are scheduled almost 100% of the time still as the first match on Chatrier, which I don't think many people would argue is the least favorable slot on the main court. Do you have any more power over that? Could you explain why that choice is made?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) You know, the funny thing is that - the same questions year after another.

Q. (In English.) Same answers.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Well, yeah. We have those three matches during the day, two women's matches, one men's match, because we make the choice to have one match most of the time. Last year was 100% of the time, the men's match in the evening.

We have two men's matches and two women's matches every day on Chatrier, which you never mentioned, which you never mentioned.

Q. (In English.) I'm asking about...

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) I'm just following my thoughts.

Q. (In English.) Okay.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) At some point, yeah, as you know, we try to make the best out of it. You only watch at Chatrier. I remember the first year you watched at the three main courts.

Q. (In English.) I'm asking about Chatrier.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Same answers as last year then.

Q. (In English.) Two separate topics, two separate questions, both related - you'll be shocked by this - to scheduling. Wondering on this topic of the night scheduling, lack of matches involving women, have any current or former women players come to you with complaints, questions, anything they wanted to let you know about their view of this? Then separately, just more generally on the scheduling, how often do you get requests from players about maybe what time of day they would like to play?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) You mean, scheduling requests?

Q. (In English.) I want to play in the day, I prefer to play at night, I don't want to play at night.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) To answer the first part of your question, was any female players coming to me to complain or whatever?

Q. (In English.) Or give their thoughts.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Or give their thoughts.

None.

To answer your second question. Yeah, we have many requests from not everyone, but we have many requests from players, yeah, for the scheduling.

Q. (In English.) Every day?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Yeah, yeah.

Q. (Translated from French.) I would like to change the subject. We talk about women's tennis. We'll have a woman player during the second week. Since our Anglo-Saxon friends, our English-speaking friends, are dreaming about a night session with women, maybe we could have that slot.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) As I said days ago, we were talking about women's tennis. We were saying that the next gen of women's tennis is a complicated issue. I'm not dealing with this. It's the French Tennis Federation dealing with this. I know that Gilles has launched a reflection process for women's tennis at-large. I think it is a good thing.

It is with great satisfaction that beyond this situation, after these last months, the ranking downturn, we only have one female player being in the top 100. Now we'll have actually female players, French female players, playing during the second week. That's a good thing for French tennis.

As for the scheduling, there's a lot of things to deal with, with everyone's requests. We'll need to do our best.

Q. (Translated from French.) We know that people bought their tickets for Saturday, they're tennis fans, but they might be actually football fans. Will there be some instructions for spectators to not watch the football match?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) I don't think we can do that. We'll do as usual. We're very cautious. We have security teams. That's not merely for someone that will watch a football match. You're thinking about the Olympic Games, for sure. We can't prohibit people to watch their telephone and to follow the football match simultaneously.

There won't be 10, 20 goals. If once or twice we'll have a bit of an uproar, it's going to be fine.

Q. (Translated from French.) Again, regarding the women's tennis scheduling, is there a rule or are we dealing with only people asking for preferences? Arthur Fils said, I don't want to play night sessions, but if I play Rublev, I will ask to play during the night session to bother him. Are you saying the players don't have any impact on you? Do they have an impact?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) There's no rule. We'll try to satisfy everyone the best we can. We need to take into consideration broadcasters, players, spectators. It depends also if it's day session or night session.

It's very hard. It gives us a lot of headaches. It's something that we do with the umpire.

Q. (No microphone.)

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) It will be interesting to do it, indeed.

Q. (In English.) Obviously the scheduling topic. How much has it got to also do with a cultural aspect, the people over here, on what they really want and appreciate and go for? The other part of the question is, the other topic of discussion coming into Roland Garros this year has also been the meetings with the players and what their demands are. Has there been any further progress over the last 10 days regarding that aspect?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) The communication is open with the players. To be honest, I'm quite focus on running the tournament, so I'm not really at the moment in these last 10 days part of those conversations.

But I think what is important, in my opinion, is that the communication is open, that everyone is transparent also on the request, on the things that can be shared. That's one thing.

What was the other thing, the cultural?

Q. (In English.) Yes.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) What do you mean in the cultural?

Q. (In English.) I guess to be up front and honest about it, the fact that there's a preference for men's tennis. We've spoken about the lack of filled seats, occupied seats in the early stages, that point of it. There's the fact that people like to eat late here, as well.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) Not as late as Spain, but...

No, the seating is obviously something that we try to improve, but it's really, really hard because when someone is buying the ticket on Suzanne Lenglen or Chatrier and has a seat, and doesn't come, or leaves early, we try to fill at some moments empty seats with other people.

When you see how the schedule is made now, how the number of matches on outside courts as well, I mean, yesterday, when you look at the program, it was on every court really, really good. The people are free basically to watch whatever they want, to go to eat at whatever time they want, to go out of Roland Garros at whatever time they want. If they just want to come or arrive late or leave late or whatever, that's how everywhere basically it's done.

We try to do our best regarding this. But it's not a simple thing.

Q. (In English.) These questions you're getting about the night slot, the first night slot on Chatrier, how big an issue do you personally think they are?

AMELIE MAURESMO: (In English.) I would like to change the subject. I think I've answered it all.

Q. (Translated from French.) I would like to go back to a subject we addressed last year. It's the behavior of some French fans, especially on Court 14. Could we consider that some stewards in the stadium could actually remind some fans how to behave? There are some courts where the crowd is a bit rowdy.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) You were talking about what Kecmanovic?

Q. (Translated from French.) There was also Mensik. Some players actually complained about being spit on, things like that.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) Well looked into it. Obviously if that should happen, this is unacceptable. Every time we had a complaint, namely if it's during a match, the player needs to speak with the umpire and complain.

As fore Kecmanovic, there was no interruption with the umpire, none. He never went to see the umpire to say, I was insulted or spit on, as he said to the press. If we're being told that something like that happens, then the fan will be prohibited from access, that's for sure.

In this specific case, yes, the crowd can be rowdy. They want to be involved. They are making themselves heard. They're shouting.

But I'm quite embarrassed because in this situation nothing was reported to us. Nothing was relayed to us. Undoubtedly if something like that would happen, either we would see it ourselves. If our security teams see it, or the umpire, or ourselves, we would take measures.

Q. (No microphone.)

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) We haven't thought about it yet.

Q. (Translated from French.) We've heard your arguments about the order of play. We can only have one night session. A match with female tennis players would last less time, indeed. I understand that you were saying something with your message. But the way in which it is perceived, it is something else. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have actually tennis players playing? I remember again Monfils playing very late. We remember it. It's not a good thing to have matches finishing at 2:00.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) I remember only one tennis match finishing at 2:00. Will you remember last night's match with 15,000 people being very satisfied with what they've experienced .

Q. (No microphone.)

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) I think the 15,000 people that were there yesterday will remember it for quite some time. I think they actually had a good time.

I don't think that these night sessions are a bad thing. We have a full crowd. The people show up. We have filled seats, so...

As a spectator, I see the stadium, I see the Philippe Chatrier court. People seem happy to be there. They actually are enjoying themselves.

Q. (Translated from French.) I would like to have your opinion on the attractiveness of women's tennis. We're talking about night sessions and women's tennis. But for 10, 15 years, maybe women's tennis has lost it's draw. Richard Gasquet's match has filled the stadium, but then the women's tennis, the female players' match that followed it didn't have a lot of spectators. Maybe it doesn't attract that many people.

AMELIE MAURESMO: (Translated from French.) The period that we are undergoing right now... I am not going to trace back to 10, 15 years ago. I'm saying that right now we're going through a very nice period. We'll have indeed fast matches. Like yesterday, for instance, there were matches wrapping up quickly. That might not be very attractive.

But we have some rivalries that are quite interesting with Iga, Coco, Aryna, Madison. I think that we are going through a very good era with personalities that are interesting. And the level of tennis play is very high. And Paolini, as well. I can't mention everyone, obviously, but the level is much higher than before. We have more an equal footing now than before.

So yesterday's order of play might not be a good illustration, but it is my opinion.

Thank you.