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.
‘DEVASTATED’: Argentina’s win was a reversal of their 28-24 defeat last week, with Australian forward Fraser McReight adding that ‘we did the same thing last week’ Argentina flyhalf Santiago Carreras punished an undisciplined Australia with 23 points off the tee as the Pumas held on grimly for a 28-26 win in Sydney yesterday to breathe new life into their Rugby Championship campaign. A try-fest beckoned in afternoon sunshine at Sydney Football Stadium, but Argentina needed only one through captain Julian Montoya, with Carreras doing the damage with seven penalties and a conversion in front of a sell-out crowd. A week after letting a 14-point lead slip in a 28-24 defeat to Australia in Townsville, Argentina saw most of a 21-point advantage erased in the final quarter as the
Captain Vijay Kumar led the way yesterday as the Hsinchu Titans claimed the Taiwan Premier League title at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), beating PCCT by 27 runs. The weather was a topic again, but not the rain that played a role in previous matches in the often-delayed tournament. Kumar, who made 80 not out from 63 deliveries, and teammate Vishwajit Kumar (58 from 43) rescued the Titans from a precarious state at the end of the power play in the T20 match. The visitors were put in to bat and struggled to 26-3 as PCCT
China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews. The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had said James authored the essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us,” a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person. “LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account. On Thursday, a representative
San Francisco Giants pitcher Teng Kai-wei impressed against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday despite an 8-1 loss in the opener of the team’s nine-game road trip. Teng, the only Taiwanese pitcher active in MLB, struck out five while allowing two hits and one walk over four innings at Chase Field to finish with a no decision, as the teams were tied 1-1 when he finished his outing. He surrendered the lone run of his outing in the bottom of the first, which began with a walk, a hit-by-pitch and two strikeouts. Diamondbacks leadoff hitter Geraldo Perdomo advanced to third on
RSS