The French Open is not the only sports event in Europe drawing attention from tennis players: The Champions League final would decide the continent’s best soccer club, and one of the two teams involved last night was Paris Saint-Germain, whose stadium is a couple of blocks from Roland-Garros.
Count Novak Djokovic among those rooting for PSG against Italy’s Inter, and he hoped to be able to tune in on TV to watch the big clash that was to be held in Munich, Germany. So Djokovic made that preference known to the people in charge of arranging the program at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament he has won three times — a common practice, especially among the sport’s elite.
They often ask to be scheduled at a certain time. Or to avoid a certain time.
Photo: Reuters
“I will definitely watch it if I’m not playing [in the] night session. Yeah, that will be nice,” Djokovic said with a big smile. “FYI, Roland-Garros schedule.”
Hint, hint. Except his plea went unheeded: When yesterday’s order of play was released on Friday, 24-time major champion Djokovic’s third-round match against Filip Misolic was the one picked for under the lights at Court Philippe-Chatrier due to begin at 8:15pm last night, 45 minutes before Inter play PSG.
Others who begged off from competing at that hour got their wish. Although one, Arthur Fils, the 14th-seeded Frenchman who grew up near Paris and is a big PSG fan, wound up pulling out of the tournament because of a back injury after being placed in an afternoon match against No. 17 Andrey Rublev.
“We have many requests from players” every day, tournament director Amelie Mauresmo said. “There’s no fixed rule. We try to accommodate everyone as much as possible. That includes requests from players, broadcasters and spectators. ... It’s a real puzzle, I won’t lie.”
Coco Gauff said she does not often ask for a certain time slot, but when she does, it is usually related to competing in singles and doubles on the same day (she won the French Open doubles last year, but is not playing doubles this time).
The 2023 US Open champion, who is currently No. 2 in singles, has noticed that events tend to listen more to elite players than others.
“If you’re ranked a little bit higher, they’ll hear more of your input, for sure,” Gauff said. “To be honest, I think it’s rightfully deserved. I feel like if you do well on tour, win so many tournaments, you should have a little bit more priority when it comes to that.”
Except even the very best of the best do not always have success with these sorts of things.
Madison Keys, who was the US Open runner-up in 2017 and won the Australian Open in January, knows what it is like to be ignored.
“Sometimes the request goes [in], they write it down, and they say, ‘OK,’” but then they do not do anything about it, Keys said.
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