The French Open Loses Its Balance, Again
Roland Garros organizers continue to demean and diminish women's tennis with wildly lopsided scheduling.
PARIS, France — As they describe the picturesque Parisian neighborhoods around Roland Garros, one thing that I’ve noticed commentators rarely mention is all the dog shit here.
This makes sense, to be sure—I don’t think dog shit really fits with the chic vibe that French Open presenters want to cultivate for their audiences. But as anyone who has spent time here can attest, there’s no denying that the stuff is all over the sidewalks of the ritzy suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, usually right in the middle of the pavement. For all the refined, sophisticated, gourmet, and otherwise classy aspects of this place, there’s also a defiant culture of just leaving dog shit right where people are walking.
Once you become aware of these hazards—perhaps by carelessly learning the hard way on a distracted stroll to the tennis—the shit is easy enough to spot and avoid for any conscientious commuter on his or her way.
And yet, year after year here, the heads of Roland Garros keep on stepping in it.
A Repeated Rationale
The morning after the tournament’s triumphant tribute to Rafael Nadal, French Federation of Tennis president Gilles Moretton held a press conference that began as a sort of State of the Union for his organization. In opening remarks that ran for just over 2,000 words, Moretton covered a wide range of topics, from attendance during qualifying matches to the federation’s hopes to become the country’s official governing body for pickleball, before opening up for some questions from assembled reporters.
After a question about how the Nadal ceremony came together, Moretton was asked about the topic that has consistently tripped up tournament leadership in post-pandemic years: the uneven distribution of men’s and women’s matches on the main courts, particularly Court Philippe Chatrier.
“Sometimes we have to think about what could be the better for spectators,” Moretton said. “That's why, sometimes, we have to make some choices.
While two men’s singles matches and two women’s singles matches are equitably assigned on Chatrier for each of the first 11 days of the tournament, the permutations of those matches are very uneven: men’s matches are overwhelmingly given preference for the primetime night session showcase, while women’s matches are consistently shunted to the least desirable opening slot, midday in front of empty stands.
After saying that the answer should ultimately come from tournament director Amelie Mauresmo—who has had her own fair share of missteps on this issue, such as when she apologized in 2022 after saying that men’s matches had “more attraction and appeal”—Moretton repeated his obligation to the audience, but then left open the possibility of the trend changing.
“For the night session, we need to put [what] the better match, we think, could be for the spectators,” Moretton continued. “Maybe we will have a few—I have no idea—a few female matches on the night sessions? We'll see. Depends on the schedule, who is playing who, who will be the best match.”
The Numbers Keep The Score
Moretton’s assertion that tournament organizers are choosing “the best match” to be the night session in a fresh decision each day leads to a pretty damning assessment of what Roland Garros thinks of women’s tennis lately. Because by that definition, the tournament has been deciding that the women are almost never what people want to see here.
After his press conference, I ran the numbers on the scheduling on the two main courts by combing through archival orders of play at Roland Garros since Moretton took office in 2021 (Mauresmo took over as tournament director a year later, so this is their fourth year leading together.)
The findings were striking, both for what the gender balance night sessions look like—which has been much-discussed since night sessions were introduced at Roland Garros in 2021—and even more so for what the tournament does with the slot furthest from primetime, which is the first slot of the day session.
Across four years and the first three days of the 2025 schedule, Roland Garros has picked the men for the final slot on Chatrier 43 out of 47 times, meaning that, per Moretton’s logic, they have decided that the best match of the day has been a men’s match 91 percent of the time.
What’s been less discussed is what Roland Garros has done with the least vaunted spot on the Chatrier schedule, which is while the stadium yawns emptiest for its 11 a.m. or 12 p.m. start while many of the crowd are still trickling in or grabbing lunch.
The divide is even starker here: Roland Garros has put a women’s match first on Chatrier 45 out of 47 times, or 96 percent of the time.
Here’s the full breakdown:
On Lenglen, where there are two men’s and two women’s singles matches scheduled each of the first nine days of the tournament—and where the whole day is sold as one ticket—it hasn’t been quite as drastic…but women still get the worst spot the most and the best spot the least.
Not a New Topic
This isn’t a new phenomenon or conversation here, unfortunately.
Even the best female player in Roland Garros history, seven-time champion Chris Evert, told author
in his new book that “in those days, the French did not appreciate women’s tennis at all.”A quote from Evert in Clarey’s The Warrior, which covers Roland Garros history:
“At the end of the match when I was close to winning, all the sudden they loved me and they would just be clapping, clapping. And then I realized the reason was because the next match was like Jimmy and Björn. They wanted the women off and the men on. I think the French Open was the last tournament of the majors to accept women as tennis players, as athletes. Women were kind of second-class citizens for longer than any other major, 100 percent.”
Though it was implemented a month before Wimbledon’s, the French Open was the last major to acquiesce to the demands for equal prize money in 2007. In the years since then, scheduling has become a primary indicator of the tournament’s valuation of women, and there have been sporadic flare-ups when decisions are especially egregious (such as the 2019 semifinals here when neither women’s semifinal was played on Court Philippe Chatrier).
The present may not be quite as bad as the past, but the current attitudes in French tennis may have had a deleterious effect on current French women’s tennis itself: in the current WTA Live rankings, there’s only one Frenchwoman poised to be in the Top 100 when the tournament ends: Diane Parry, who is projected to be down at 96th.
What Do Current Players Think?
The defining women’s player of this decade at Roland Garros, of course, has been the dominant champion Iga Swiatek, who is going for a fourth consecutive title here and fifth overall, but has only played one night match here.
When I asked Swiatek about the disparity in the post-match press conference after her win Monday—played in the first slot on Chatrier, unsurprisingly—she expressed a personal preference for playing earlier in the day, and then exasperation and indifference on the frequency with which this topic is raised annually.
Here’s our exchange:
Q. You were the first match on; that's been very common for women to be the first match on on Chatrier in recent years here, so I’m curious what your thoughts are on that. Also, it goes into the men getting a huge majority of the night-session slots, as well. What you think of the really unbalanced schedule they have had on Chatrier for many years?
IGA SWIATEK: Yeah, I mean, every year we talk about it; my position didn't change. I like playing days, so I'm happy that I'm done and I can have a longer rest.
But on the other hand, yeah, people just try to look for [uneven] things between men and women. You can find that in the schedule a little bit, and you can ask us all the time, but honestly, my answers are not gonna change, so I don't mind.
Q. I understand your personal preference playing in the day and it doesn't bother you, but do you, as an ambassador for women's tennis, understand the men are getting a much bigger stage and bigger audiences because of the schedule?
IGA SWIATEK: I understand, but I'm not making the schedule.
Q. But does it bother you they get such a bigger platform?
IGA SWIATEK: No.
Danielle Collins, who beat Swiatek in Rome earlier this month, was in her own press conference soon after, and was asked about the schedule and Moretton’s comments.
“To be honest, I haven't put a lot of thought into the scheduling because I'm always just focused on trying to show up and do my job and do it the best as possible,” Collins began. “But I do think there's a lot of benefits to having the women on during the night matches. We attract a lot of fans, a lot of crowd. We create a lot of discussion around the game overall, right? I think there's certainly value there, having us on the night schedule, as well. I think, yeah, [not scheduling women in prime slots is] probably a little out of the ordinary compared to some of the other events, right?”
With how Swiatek was so determined not to engage on the topic in the midst of a high-stakes tournament for herself—which I can understand—I asked Collins how she decides when it is and isn’t worth it to stick up for herself or for women’s tennis as a whole.
Here’s that exchange (which I should add Collins delivered in a room with, by my count, 13 reporters, all of them men):
Q. Iga was saying she's mostly focused on the tournament, doesn't try to worry too much about that sort of stuff; you sort of said similar. How do you sort out the balance of staying focused on your own career while still trying to advocate and stand up for yourself? How do you balance keeping your mind in the game while also still having that sort of advocacy or needing to stand up for yourself or women more largely?
DANIELLE COLLINS: Yeah, I think that's a good question.
I think sometimes when we're playing in events, obviously there's a lot for us to focus on as athletes. I think that can be hard to understand for people that maybe haven't played the sport.
Yes, it's a privilege to be here. It's a privilege to get the opportunity to do what we do. At the end of the day there's going to always be little things that the tournaments, the tours can always improve on.
I do think it's a hard thing for us to balance because at the end of the day we're performers, we're trying to do our job on court first. That requires a lot of concentration.
Honestly, the second you step away from the court, it requires so much concentration. Sometimes having these conversations I think can be distracting, especially if you get sucked into kind of a negative narrative that isn't intended to be.
So I can see why players are probably hesitant to sometimes speak on different matters, because we're all just trying to do our best at the end of the day. Unfortunately, if you make just a comment about a preference, like, you can be labeled as a brat (smiling). You have to be so careful with everything you say and how you say it, otherwise it just can get taken out of context.
I do think that there's a lot of women on tour that are probably uncomfortable to sometimes speak on different issues because of the way that can kind of happen.
Maybe, too, it's also a sign of maturity from some players to try to handle things internally. I think that that can be a better tact in certain instances.
But yeah, I think it's a little bit more challenging sometimes for the women to be able to voice their opinions because we really get hammered when it's not in alignment with what the public views and what other people's feelings are on the matter.
Pam Shriver’s Perspective
For some historical perspective on this issue—and her thoughts on the continuing inequality at Roland Garros—I spoke with Pam Shriver, who was on the grounds today, including at the Swiatek match with its first-on, noon start.
“In the home market, where you want to feel excitement and you want to feel a crowd, 11 a.m. is terrible,” Shriver said. “I was actually at the 12 p.m. start of Swiatek today in the President’s Tribune, and still, the atmosphere wasn’t there. And if then they say “well, the atmosphere isn’t there [for a women’s match]”? Well, duh, you keep putting them at 12. So it’s just a cycle…and then you have to defend, defend, defend, like I’m doing now.
“I've seen it as a commentator, I've lived it as player: you can't grow and show your worth if you're put in the worst time slots,” she continued. “So it self-perpetuates itself, 100 percent.”
When the women do get those rare chances to play in the prime slot, Shriver added, it makes those occasions overly high-stakes.
She recalled a match between Alize Cornet and Jelena Ostapenko which was the only women’s match picked for a night session here in 2022.
“There’s so much pressure,” Shriver said. “Do you think the men feel uneasy if they have a one-sided match? No. But [for the women], it’s terrible. You just feel like all the eyes, if you don't come up with an unbelievable match.”
Shriver said Swiatek’s disinterest in engaging in the topic reminded her of another many-time champion here: Steffi Graf.
“The Iga thing reminded me when of I was president of the WTA Tour in the 90s, and I went to Steffi Graf,” Shriver said. “I was no longer a top player, and I just went to her like: Can you please not say publicly that you don't think women deserve equal prize money in the majors? Because we had it at one then, the U.S. Open, and were trying to get it in others. Australia was close. But she didn't agree with it. So this happens, and it's so hurtful for the bigger group. They don't think of the bigger group, I don't think. But that's normal: you're a tennis player and you're trying to get to Number One, and usually Number Ones tend to not think as a group; they think even more individually than other individual players.”
There’s always a mix, Shriver said, of WTA players who embrace and avoid these sorts of topics.
“Not everybody's a Billie Jean King—no kidding,” Shriver said. “There's only one Billie Jean King. There's some other disciples and some other people. I mean, Chrissie and Martina [Navratilova] on the heels of Billie Jean, they were so important as Number Ones right after Billie Jean that were advocates, that were willing to push.”
“It's always hard to kind of say, well, if you put it in the right spot, we'll get the ratings, but just look what's happened in the U.S.,” Shriver said, citing the all-Williams primetime final which earned big ratings for CBS in 2001. “You just have to be given the opportunity.”
Thank you for reading Bounces! If you’re enjoying the French Open coverage and want to make sure you don’t miss anything here, please do subscribe to get new dispatches from Paris in your inbox! -Ben
On the one hand…I’m consistently disappointed by the extent to which Iga (and Sabalenka) seem to consistently stick their heads in the sand on these types of issues. On the other…as a black person, I understand the weight/frustration that sometimes come with being the oppressed and constantly having to have answers for why/how oppression is occurring. That in mind, it would be interesting to see reporters begin pressing the men on this issue. Especially given that many players (male and female) seem to align on the idea that they like playing early and wrapping their day up and getting rest.
How much does equal scheduling really matter compared to equal pay? I'll bet if you asked doubles players which they'd prioritize they'd say 100:1 equal pay over equal scheduling. When so many tournaments still don't have equal pay for women, I would rather praise tournaments who get the most important part right than criticize more minor inequalities.
FWIW, I also prefer day sessions as a fan! I don't think it's fair to dismiss Iga's point of view just because she's a dominant top player.