‘I don’t agree with the decisions’ – Chris Evert wants ‘equal court coverage’ for women at French Open

Eurosport’s Chris Evert has said that she does not agree with the decisions made that have led to a gender imbalance for the French Open’s night matches.

When tournament director Amelie Mauresmo was originally asked why women had only featured in one of the 10 night-match slots, she replied: “In this era that we are in, I don’t feel bad or unfair – as a woman and former women’s player – saying that right now you have more appeal in general, for the men’s matches.

“My goal when I was doing the schedule every day was to try and see, from the first round when the draw came out, which women’s match I could put there, honestly.

“The confrontation or the star that I could put there. You have all those parameters. So that was tough. Honestly, I did really consider every day – not every day, that would be wrong – but most of the days, trying to see, and all the team, we were really focusing on this most of the time.

“But yes, I admit it was tough. It was tough for more than one night to find, as you say, the match of the day. When you have this it’s an interesting one because the fact that it’s right now a one-match night session is tough on this. It is tough.”

“Again, I think the people who know me, who have known me on and off the court, throughout my career, throughout everything that I’ve done, know that I’m a big fighter for equal rights and women’s tennis, women in general.

“Concerning the scheduling, specifically for the night matches, my say was that because we have one match only, the ticket holders, I feel that it’s tougher to schedule a woman’s match because we have to take into consideration the length, I feel.

“Next year, in order to be able to be more fair to the women’s players, as well as to both categories actually, it would be good to maybe have the possibility to put two matches or maybe a women’s match plus a doubles match.”

Evert has now had her say, and she believes the decision-making has been wrong.

“Definitely, it should have been more even with the women playing at night versus the men,” Evert told Eurosport.

“There was only one women’s match I guess that played an evening match and if it’s the draw, if it’s who the people really want to see, I think Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek are huge draws in the world of tennis – and that includes men’s tennis as well.

“We are getting equal pay, we should be getting equal court coverage as well, or at least close to it, and we weren’t close to it at all.

“So I don’t agree with the decisions that were made in terms of putting the feature matches on at night.”

– – –