When Britain’s Jack Draper faces Gael Monfils on the French Open on Thursday, it should as soon as once more spotlight an eye-opening statistic. It is one which raises the query of whether or not the clay-court Grand Slam ought to do extra to advertise the ladies’s recreation.
Not since 2023 has a girls’s singles match occupied the primetime night time session slot on Court docket Philippe Chatrier – a run stretching to 19 successive matches.
In reality, for the reason that match launched night time periods in 2021, solely 4 matches have been from the ladies’s draw.
It’s a hanging imbalance that hits the headlines yr after yr, and one which former world quantity two Ons Jabeur believes impacts girls’s sport as a complete.
“It is unlucky for ladies’s sports activities on the whole. Not for tennis, however on the whole,” stated three-time Grand Slam finalist Jabeur following her first-round exit on Tuesday.
“I hope whoever is making the choice, I do not assume they’ve daughters, as a result of I do not assume they wish to deal with their daughters like this.
“It’s kind of ironic. They do not present girls’s sport, they do not present girls’s tennis, after which they ask the query, yeah, however largely they [viewers] watch males. After all they watch males extra since you present males extra. All the pieces goes collectively.”
The final girls’s singles match to be performed within the night at Roland Garros was Aryna Sabalenka’s fourth-round win over Sloane Stephens two years in the past.
When requested for a remark in response to Jabeur’s feedback, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) didn’t present one.
As an alternative it stated match director Amelie Mauresmo would “speak about this subject shortly” with the previous world primary anticipated to carry a information convention later this week.
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